Let It Shine by Alyssa Cole

Author:Alyssa Cole [Cole, Alyssa]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: civil rights, interracial romance, historical romance
Publisher: Seditious Sisters
Published: 2016-03-13T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 9

Ivan knew he should have gone back to the store to pick up his father, but he had been so angry and confused that he hadn’t wanted to share the small space of the car that still smelled of Sofie. Part of him was scared of how angry he was at his father. Not of losing his temper with his dad, but of losing his respect for him.

He’d driven home instead. As the steaming spray of the shower rinsed away the schmutz that’d been poured over him by those assholes at the diner, he remembered the way Sofie’s eyes had gone round with fear when the bottle landed at her feet, and the way they had been liquid heat just before he kissed her in the alleyway. When he thought of his father, of the way he’d reacted to seeing him with Sofie, Ivan felt a deep shame descend upon him. It was the same shame that had haunted him since that day Sofie had protected and then lost her mother, as if his cowardice had brought down some wrath upon them all.

That kind of shame was an albatross. He’d borne its weight for so long—becoming bigger, stronger, and harder to injure had lightened his load but not removed it.

If he really thought about it, it was that shame that had driven him to the nonviolent resister meetings. He knew that he could stop a man with his sledgehammer fists and his hard left hook. But Jack had been wrong when he said throwing punches was Ivan’s favorite thing; there was something redemptive about taking a punch that he couldn’t explain, and to be able to do so for the greater good…

He was shadowboxing in his room when he heard the door open and his father return. His fists dropped to his sides as he heard his father’s shuffling steps. Each one sounded like it only occurred through some extraordinary act of willpower, and through his anger Ivan reminded himself that he wasn’t the only one who carried an invisible burden.

He walked down into the kitchen and saw his father standing in front of the sink, where water ran into an overflowing cup as he stared through the window. Mr. Friedman turned his head, as if he hadn’t noticed his son walk into the room. “Ivan.” He paused, his features hardening from soft and sad to defensive.

“What happened earlier today was a shandeh un a charpeh,” Ivan said. The Yiddish wasn’t usually the first thing his brain went to, but he didn’t know the words in English that could convey his disappointment in his father.

“Yes,” his father said. He put the glass down without drinking it. “It was shameful and disgraceful to be engaging in relations with that girl out in the open like a man with no sense of morality.”

“Oh please, Pop,” Ivan said. “If it had been Libby Weinberger out there with me, you wouldn’t have been so quick to judge.”

“First the boxing, now taking up with these rabble-rousers.

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