The Girl In The Back Row by Judith Berens

Author:Judith Berens [Berens, Judith]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781642023176
Publisher: LMBPN Publishing
Published: 2019-06-03T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter Sixteen

While Vickie was attending her first cross country practice the next day, Alexis sat outside the school on her own.

To her surprise, she felt alone.

Come on. You’ve sat out here by yourself how many times? Vickie has only been going to school with you for a few weeks. How quickly do you get used to something?

She sat on the bench and the cold metal sent shivers through her legs. Across the street, she saw a pack of girls from school running together. Vickie ran at the back of the group. She was calm and wide-eyed and obviously paid close attention to how fast she moved.

Alexis smiled. I’m proud of her. She’s really trying out there. And it looks like she’s getting the hang of it, too. I bet she wishes she could leave them all in her dust, though.

When Vickie disappeared around a corner, her smile dropped. She stood and walked down the sidewalk to the pickup spot to wait for her dad. A few minutes later, he pulled up and she climbed into the car.

“Hey, sweetie. How was your day?”

“It was fine.” The universal exchange between a high school girl and her father.

“Weird not having Vickie waiting with you, huh?”

“Yeah.”

The rest of the drive home was quiet. Whenever her father asked a question or made a comment, he received one-word replies, shrugs, and half-chuckles.

Craig wasn’t stupid. He could tell something was on his daughter’s mind. But he didn’t want to pry and simply hoped she would get over it by the time they got home.

However, the silent treatment continued after they walked inside. He returned to his room to do a little work, and she grabbed a magazine and sat on the couch.

At his desk, he couldn’t shake the feeling that he should talk to his daughter. He looked at the photo of Carol on the wall. You would march right up to her and talk to her, wouldn’t you? You’d ask her what’s wrong, and she’d open up. I don’t know if she’d open up to me like that. Even though I’m all she has, we’ve never gotten terribly deep together.

He closed his eyes. But we’ll have to, won’t we?

His mind made up, he stood from his desk and walked to the living room, where he sat beside Alexis.

“What’s up, Dad?”

“Are you okay?”

“Sure, I’m fine.” She wanted to end it there, but he stared at her in silence and simply waited for her to admit the truth. “Okay, I’m not fine.”

“What’s bugging you? Is it that Vickie is on the cross country team now?”

“I don’t know.” She closed the magazine and tossed it onto the couch with a gesture of frustration. “Okay… I’m not mad at her for being on the team. I don’t resent her for being on the team. I love that she’s taking such a step forward. It’s good for her. And it’s good for all of us too. If she were to latch onto me all the time, I’d probably be annoyed with her, wouldn’t I?”

“Oh yeah.

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