1. Minding My Business

Three weeks ago…

No more tears. That’s it. I’ve made a decision. That pile of soggy tissues next to my pillow? It’s not growing. I’m done.

Enough wallowing. I have to take control of where I go next.

Unfortunately, there’s just one option. It isn’t a good one, but it’s the only one I can think of.

“Dad,” I say, relieved when he answers.

“Pumpkin?” His voice is warm through the phone.

I survey the wreckage of my apartment. Troy and Chloe took freaking everything. Everything. They left my clothes, my toiletries. Chloe is too much of a snob to want anything I wear, thank goodness.

But the furniture? Bedding? Gone. I’ll be sleeping on some blankets and a pillow until the lease runs out and my two weeks at work are up.

I clear my throat. “Hey, Dad. How—how are you?”

“Good. It’s nice to hear from you,” he says, sounding cautious.

Guilt spears me. The last time we spoke, I was an asshole. “I’m so sorry, Dad. I…”

“What do you need, Evelyn?”

No more Pumpkin. I just reminded him of all the shit I put him through. Now he’s putting up walls. I don’t blame him.

When we last spoke, six years ago, he’d been telling me that the room I no longer slept in, the room I hadn’t even visited since my freshman year of high school, would no longer be mine because his brother Lincoln needed a place to crash for a few months.

I did not react well. I was a total jerk, actually. I told him he obviously didn’t have space for me in his life, and because of that, we’d be better off not visiting.

This had come right after Mom had allowed Chloe to take over my room at their house. And because I couldn’t throw a fit with Mom and Chloe and express my true feelings, I’d done it to my poor dad instead. Once I realized this, I was too embarrassed to apologize.

The two of us have exchanged short, awkward text messages ever since.

Until tonight.

I say, “Is, um, Uncle Lincoln still staying in my old room?”

“At the moment, no. He visits sometimes, though. Evelyn, are you okay? Do you need a place to stay?”

A sob erupts from my throat. “Yes.”

“It’s yours, Pumpkin.” His voice is softer now, and for some reason that hurts even more. “The room is yours.”

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