The Best Possible Answer(44)

My father looks up at me. “After that photo debacle, I’m surprised you thought they’d still even consider you at all.”

“Wow,” I say, shocked. “Real nice, Dad. Way to support me when I’m down. It’s not enough that I messed up on my exams, you’ve got to remind me about how I messed up my personal life as well—”

My mom snatches the paper out of my father’s hand and crumples it up. “It doesn’t matter,” she says. “I don’t care about these stupid tests.”

“But he does,” I say.

Mila starts to cry. “What’s going on? Why aren’t you sleeping here?” She pulls at my backpack and then at my arm. “Stay, please. Daddy, can’t you make her stay?”

“Yes,” he says. “Of course I can make her stay. Viviana, you are not going anywhere, not while I’m home, not while you’re living under my roof.”

I laugh. “You know what, Dad? You’re a liar.”

I can’t help it. I know I shouldn’t say anything. At least not now. Not in front of Mila.

But I finally see him as he is. After all these years of pushing me to be like him, now for him to just walk in here and pretend like the last six months never happened, like everything in his life isn’t a lie. “You’ll never be able to make me do anything again.”

“Excuse me?” He steps toward me as though he wants to hit me.

“You heard what I said. You’re a liar. And an ass.”

“Viviana!” my mom yells. “Apologize to your father!”

“Vivi, why did you say that? Daddy’s not an ass!”

“Mila!” My mom takes her by the shoulders, urges her down the hallway. “Go to your room! Now!”

But Mila resists. She pulls away from our mom and crawls underneath the dining room table and turns herself into a ball. She covers her ears and wails.

“I said NOW, Mila.”

I’m sorry, Mila, but Daddy’s a liar.

I’m sorry, Mila, but Daddy has another family.

I’m sorry, Mila, but he loves this other family more than anything.

More than us.

I get out of there as fast as I can, before it all comes out.

I run down the hall toward the emergency stairwell. I push the door open and run down the stairs.

I’m on the fourteenth floor when I hear an upstairs door slam.

“Viviana, wait!” It’s my father.

I start jumping down the steps, two, three, five at a time. I need to get away from him.

I’m on the ninth floor when his voice bellows again through the corridor: “Viviana! Come back here! NOW!”

When I was younger, the sound of his voice would have scared me into submission. Even the me of six months ago would have stopped for him. The me of six months ago would have turned around, gone back upstairs, begged for forgiveness.

But right now, the sound of his voice pushes me to run faster, to jump farther, to leap down the steps.

His steps echo above me. He is racing to catch up.

I’m on the fourth floor.

I’m on the third floor.

I’m almost there.

I just need to get to the lobby and out the front door.

I won’t come back.

I won’t come back to Bennett Tower.

Not ever again.

I’ll figure out somewhere else to stay.

I’ll ask Sammie to call someone else for me.

Maybe Virgo. Or Evan.

I’ll find any other way to live my life, so long as it’s far away from my father and his sick, twisted life.

I’m on the second floor when I feel my feet slip on the steps.

Gravity pushes me down. I roll and I fall and I tumble. I land on my back, my body just another collapsed, failed product of Benjamin Lowe.

I gasp for oxygen. My lungs are empty of air—the hard impact has knocked them clean. I struggle to sit up, to move, to breathe, to stand up and keep my body moving, away from him. His steps are coming closer and closer. I need to go. I need to get away. But the sharp spasms stab my chest, and all I can do is crawl.

All I can do is grovel.

I look up. The corridor spins above me.

“Viviana?” He’s caught me. “Are you okay?”

I can’t do it.

I can’t breathe.

I’m suffocating. I’m choking. I’m dissolving, melting, drowning because of him.

He’s here now, his hand on my back, telling me to breathe, that I’m okay, that he’s here for me, that I just need to suck in the air, to let my lungs relax, to tell them to settle.

For a brief moment, I let him tell me what to do. I let his words in. I let him convince my lungs that they need to relax. I let him tell my body that it needs to breathe.

The oxygen returns. My lungs become whole again. My body is in pain—my lungs, my head, my back—but I can move. I can sit up.

I can see him clearly.

My father, Benjamin Lowe, is a dangerous man. He is manipulative and strange and selfish and mean.

And then I hear his voice, loud and clear. “Viviana, what is this all about? You’re acting crazy. You need to calm down.”

That’s it.

I can’t do this anymore.

“Calm down? You want me to calm down? How can I? More than anything, Dad! More than anything!”