Page 14 of The Way I Used to Be

“Don’t you think I look better without my glasses, Mom?”

“You look pretty no matter what.” She’d already gone back to the paper. Obviously that approach was not going to work.

“Okay, so school’s starting in what, like, three weeks or something, and I was thinking—I mean, well—Mara got contacts and she thinks—I mean, I think—I think that—”

“All right, Minnie, come on, just spit it out.” Dad makes this rolling, speed-it-up gesture with his un-coffee-cupped hand.

“Okay. So, um, I was wondering if I could get contacts too?”

Mom and Dad share a look, like,Oh God, why can’t she just leave us alone?

“They’re really not that much more expensive,” I try.

“I don’t know, Edy,” Mom says, nose scrunched, not wanting to disappoint me, because after all, I really am a very good girl. Except for the small detail about me smoking every single day with Mara, and blowing all the back-to-school money they gave me to buy too many clothes at the mall and makeup and hair products, but not school supplies, like they wanted. Other than that, I really am good.

“But, please. Please, please, please. I look like such a dork. I look like a loser. I look like I’m in band!”

“You are in band,” Dad says, grinning, missing the point, of course.

“But I don’t want to look like I’m in band.”

“Oh, well, now I see.” Dad rolls his eyes. Mom smirks. He shakes his head in that condescending way he always does whenever he thinks someone is an idiot.

“Mom?”

Her stock response to any and everything: “We’ll see.”

“So no?” I clarify.

“No, I said we’ll see,” she repeats sternly.

“Yeah, but that means no, right? This is so unfair! Caelin can get all kinds of new stuff and I ask for one thing, one thing, and you say no!”

“Caelin got new stuff when he left for college,” Dad says, as if Caelin went off to go cure leprosy. “He needed all those things. You don’t need contacts. You want them, you don’t need them.”

“I do need them!” I can feel the tears beginning to simmer behind my eyes. “And just so you know,” I continue, my voice falling in on itself, “I’m not wearing my glasses anymore even if you don’t get me contacts!” I throw my glasses onto the table and then I stomp off to my room.

“Oh, for Christ’s sake, she has to start first thing in the morning?” I hear Mom say just before I slam my bedroom door shut.

And I hear fragments of Dad’s response: “Jesus... melodramatic... girl... spoiled rotten.”

Spoiled? I’m spoiled? I never ask for a thing! I never even ask for attention. That’s it. The last goddamn straw. I fling my door open and march back out there, bracing myself with both hands against the kitchen table. I open my mouth, not caring what comes out, for once not having a plan.

“I hate you both!” I growl through my teeth. “Sorry, but I’m not Caelin! Sorry I’m not Kevin! Sorry you’re stuck here all alone with me. But I’m stuck here with you too!” The words just tumble out one after the other, louder and louder.

They are stunned. They’re shocked. I had never so much as looked at them the wrong way.

Mom slams the paper down onto the table, speechless.

“Don’t you dare talk to your mother and me that way ever again!” Dad stands up, pointing his finger in my face. “Do you understand? Go to your room!”

“No!” The word claws its way up my throat. My vocal cords ache immediately, never having achieved this volume before.

“Now!” he demands, taking a step.

I stomp away, my feet like bricks. I slam my bedroom door again as hard as I can, then press my ear against it. My chest heaves with frantic breaths as I listen.

“All right, Conner,” I hear Mom say, her voice low, trying to whisper. “We have got to do something—this is crazy. What are we supposed to do?”