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ONE

BECCA

My palms are sweating.

It’s not because of the weather, although Florida in August is hot and humid as hell. It’s because I’m fixing to FaceTime with my old man and let him know I’m not coming home after senior year. I’m not sure when I made the decision, although if pressed to think back, I’d guess it was sometime before getting accepted into Florida Coast University and sometime after I walked in on him screwing the youth leader of our church on his big oak desk. But I digress. The point is that although my hometown, Sugarlake, Tennessee, will always hold a special place in my heart, it won’t hold me. Florida suits me just fine. I’ve fallen in love with the nonexistent winters and the palm trees. And maybe a little bit with the fact I’m not in a town where everyone knows me as Preacher Sanger’s daughter.

The apple that fell too far from the tree.

So, here I sit, on the front steps to my apartment complex. I’ve just finished moving in with my dorm mate of the past three years, Sabrina. After Papa found out I was spending more time going to dorm parties than classes, he decided to foot the bill for a place off campus. A place where I can “focus” and get my degree “as quickly as possible.” Probably so he can have a daughter with something to be proud of. Momma, on the other hand, is just hoping I’ll come home, back to the church that’s been strangling me my whole life and into her clutches where she can mold me to perfection. Maybe if I give in, she’d stop with the incessant nagging over all the ways I make her look bad.

I drop the ends of my frizzy red hair when my phone screen lights up with Papa’s name for our pre-arranged FaceTime call. I may love Florida heat, but it does not love my curls. Wiping my clammy hands on my sun-kissed thighs, I swipe to answer.

“Hi, Papa.” The muscles in my cheeks strain from the smile I plaster on my face.

“Rebecca Jean. You get moved in all right?” His pale white face is stern, and those jade green eyes, identical to mine, chill me with their icy gaze.

“You betcha.” I nod. “Sabrina got here before me and picked the better room, but I’m thankful for any extra space. It’s all a mansion compared to the dorms.”

“Good, good. I’ll let your momma know you made it safe.”

My chest squeezes. “Where is she? She’s not gonna come say hi?”

“She can’t come to the phone. She’s makin’ roast for supper and we’re expectin’ company.”

I fight the urge to roll my eyes. Of course, Momma’s busy entertainin’ his guests, not a single brain cell left for her to do anything for herself.

“That’s all right.” I twist my split ends until they cut off the circulation in my fingers. “But hey, Papa…before you go, there’s somethin’ I’ve been meanin’ to tell ya.”

His eyebrow cocks, the only indication he’s listening. He’s not a man who shows a lot of emotion, but over the years I’ve learned to decipher the minute changes in his expressions.

My stomach pinches and I hesitate, wanting to hang up the phone instead of saying what needs to be said.

“Spit it out, Rebecca Jean. I’m a busy man.”

A nervous laugh bubbles up my throat, but I bite it down. “I’m gonna stay out here for a while after graduation, at least...that’s what I’m wantin’ to do. Sabrina’s stayin’, too, so it’s not like it will be a big change.”

He’s silent.

A part of me thrills at the thought of his blood pressure rising—the same way it always does—from what I’m saying. Serves him right, thinking he can control everything.

“I think it’ll be good for me, ya know? Plus, it’ll give you and Momma a place to visit when you go on vacation. I know you love comin’ out here and gettin’ some sea air and sunshine.”

Maybe appealing to how it could benefit him will make him more amenable to the idea. I like to push his buttons, but at the end of the day, he’s the one that holds the reins to everything in my life, and I haven’t ever figured out how to cut the rope.

He chuckles and my heart sinks because I know that laugh and it isn’t from genuine amusement. “The heat gone to your head and made you lose it, girl? I didn’t fork out four years of college in that sinful place just for you to spit in my face when it’s time to come home. Your life is here in Sugarlake, with your family. With the church.”

Church. Even from thousands of miles away, it clamps its hooks into every orifice and reels me back until I’m suffocating.

I suck in a deep breath before pushing out my next words, afraid if I don’t say it now, I never will. “Well, Papa, my life is where I make it, and I’m choosin’ to make it here.”

His jaw sets, even more rigidly than it was when he first called, and I know that means the fighting has just begun. My chest twinges, aching for the naivete I had when I was a kid, back when I thought Papa was the closest thing to God. To me, he walked on water. But he was the one who woke me up from that dream, even if he doesn’t know it. He showed me the nightmare of empty words preached from the pulpit and pulled the curtain back on the illusion of love.

So he can hate my choices all he wants.

I hate his choices, too.

“Rebecca Jean, I am not payin’ for you to start a new life. You already have one. You’re comin’ home and that’s final.”

“No. It’s not.” I try to make my voice sound firm, but I’m sure to him it comes across ungrateful. Like it always does.

He’s silent for a beat. And then another, before: “Then I guess you’re on your own.”

I jerk, my frizzy hair snagging on my ring. The roots pull, making me wince. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“What do you think it means, girl? You’re not comin’ home? Then I’m not payin’ your way.”

He doesn’t mean it. He already paid for my schooling, he can’t just take it back . Besides, he wants my name on a diploma more than I ever have. The only difference is, I’d like to actually do something with it, and he wants it hung on a wall to look pretty. Another trophy he can add to his case.

“Yeah, okay, old man. Whatever you say.” I force out a laugh, but he doesn’t reciprocate so it just floats through the air and hangs there awkwardly.

“You think this is a joke, Rebecca? See how far that attitude gets you when you can’t pay your rent. Call me when you get some sense in that head.”

Click.

I scoff and toss my phone to the side. Did he really just hang up on me?

Papa’s a thief of joy.

His last words steal the satisfaction pissing him off usually brings, leaving behind a type of anxiety I’m not used to feeling. He isn’t serious, is he? My knee bounces, foot tapping on the concrete steps as I glance at my phone and twirl a piece of hair around my finger. I hadn’t thought being cut off was truly a possibility, and now that it may have happened, I’m not sure how to feel.

Part of me revels in the opportunity for freedom, which is the one thing I’ve craved for as long as I can remember, but then my mind races, thinking of everything Papa controls, both with his money and his iron fist.

Rent. Food. Basic living necessities. Everything, really.

My breaths start coming shorter as I scramble to think of a way out of this situation that doesn’t involve tucking my tail and running back like a worthless pup. I have no backup plan, but I can’t give in. Going back to Sugarlake would be hellish, and I refuse to live trapped under the will of a false deity and a man who thinks his word is law.

I see how that life pans out every time I look in Momma’s eyes.

No fucking thanks.

“So what are you gonna do?” Sabrina asks, running her fingers through her chin-length bob, the pink streaks almost shimmering against the black of her natural hair. She’s sitting cross-legged on the floor, inhaling a piece of pizza as she leans over the coffee table.

I shrug, throwing my half-eaten pizza back in the box and frowning at her. I know I should eat more, but my stomach rolls every time I think about how Papa cut me off. “Not sure. Hopefully I won’t have to do anything because Papa will realize he’s overreactin’.”

My other friend, Jeremy, scoffs from the opposite end of the couch.

I glare over at him. “What?” I ask.

He shrugs, his dark brown shoulders lifting in his orange FCU tank as he shakes his head. “You know what.”

Annoyance rushes through me because, honestly, what does he know? Other than what I’ve filled him and Sabrina in on over the past few years of college, they don’t know what my family is actually like. It’s nice not having people judge me for things I’ve done—and the family I have—so I like to keep my Florida life separate from my past in Sugarlake.

There’s only one time I let it bleed over and that’s when I talk to my soul-sister, my best friend, Alina May Carson, aka Lee. I’ve known her since birth and we’ve been inseparable ever since. I would crawl across broken, burning glass for that girl.

But even she isn’t enough to keep me there.

I’ve tried to convince her to move to Florida a million times, though. All she’s got in Sugarlake is a depressed daddy and the memory of her brother who abandoned them before their momma hit six feet in the grave. But Lee’s stuck in her ways, and I reckon she’s a Sugarlake lifer, as much as I’d like to keep her from becoming one. She was born there and she’ll be buried there like so many others. Thoughts of the same thing happening to me tighten like a noose around my neck.

“Becca, you’ve gotta have a plan in place in case your dad is serious.”

My heart falters, nausea rolling around in my stomach because I know she’s right. “I don’t know,” I reply, throwing my back against the couch cushions. “Get a job, I guess.”

“You have time for that with your class schedule this semester?” Jeremy asks.

I grimace, thinking about how I’ve stacked up my courses. “I can make it work.”

“Good for you.” Sabrina nods her head in approval and throws up her fist. “Fuck the man. You don’t need him.”

I give her a small grin, but I’m not feeling as confident as she is when it comes to my possible newfound independence.

“Why don’t you just find a job at FCU?” Jeremy says, his dark brows furrowed as he stares at me.

Blinking at him, I think back to when we first met. I was a freshman, at one of the many parties I used to drag Sabrina to. One look at his amber-colored eyes and I was a goner. Truthfully, it’s embarrassing to remember how I spent half the night trying to climb all six feet four of him because it was the first time I’ve ever been turned down for a one-night stand.

When I walked into my Psych 101 course that Monday and saw him sitting in the back row, I plopped my happy ass next to him and demanded he apologize for making me masturbate all weekend. He laughed and told me I wasn’t his type. Turns out, he spent that night climbing a six-foot man of his own. I didn’t find that out until later, of course, once he trusted me enough to spill his soul. Or maybe he got tired of me trying to jump on his dick, because I’m not one to take rejection that easily. Either way, once I did find out, he swore me to secrecy. He’s a basketball player on scholarship and terrified of the fallout if people learn that he’s gay. I know what it’s like to feel trapped in expectations, so I promised my loyalty and we’ve been close ever since.

It makes me sad, though, watching him feel like he’s unable to live his life the way he wants it.

“A job at FCU?” I scrunch my nose.

“Why not?” he retorts.

“What kinda job could I get at school before I even have a degree?”

Jeremy rubs his chin. “I don’t know… They always have students as team managers on the basketball teams, and I know they get paid.”

“Don’t you have to like basketball to do somethin’ like that?”

He chuckles. “Probably.”

“It’s not a bad idea, though,” Sabrina chimes in. “Getting a job on campus. Two birds, one stone and all that.”

“Sounds like a shit one to me,” I mutter. “I don’t know the first thing about basketball.”

“Do you have any better ideas?” Her small eyes widen. “Besides, maybe it won’t even be basketball. But at least if you get a job on campus, you won’t have to worry about gas money. The pay probably won’t be great, but it might be enough to get by. And it will stick it to your dad, which really is worth its weight in gold, don’t you think?” She wiggles her brows and rests her elbows on the coffee table.

“Yeah…I guess you guys are right.” I sigh, realizing I don’t really have a choice. It’s either that or finding something off campus and hoping they’ll be flexible.

“Usually are,” Jeremy jokes, smirking over at Sabrina.

Leaning forward, I push my plate of uneaten pizza to the side and grab my laptop from the table, pulling up my advisor’s email address to set up a meeting.

I’m still hopeful Papa didn’t mean what he was saying, but I’m not one to not have a backup plan in place in case he wants to be a stubborn ass. Having to balance work and school might suck, but it’s much better than going home.