Page 26 of Sticks and Stones (Shadow Valley U)
Oh, fuck.
I’m suddenly sucked back into a world I want nothing to do with, but old habits die hard because before I know what I’m doing, my phone is pressed up against my ear, and I’m accepting a call.
“He—hello?” I clear my throat and rush down the row of seats and up the aisle to block out the cutting of ice from the skates. I know, from past experiences, that the only way I’m going to get through a phone call like this is if I tune out all distractions and stay sharp.
My father may be a felon, but he’s smart and the most conniving man I’ve ever known—even compared to Stone.
“Pumpkin.” His voice is like a hand around my throat.
Too many emotions pour through me, and I’m embarrassed to admit that one of them is longing.
“It’s been too long since I’ve heard that sweet voice.”
Approximately two years and forty-two days.
I keep count.
“Yeah, it has been.”
I rest my back against the cool, tiled wall in the hallway and stare at the locker room door. My legs are so wobbly that I eventually sink to the floor.
“You’re not going to ask how I’ve been?”
My eyes shut, and I remind myself that he is locked away in one of the most secure prisons in the New England area. He can’t hurt me, and he can’t use me, though I know he’ll still try. Otherwise, why the call?
“You’re in prison. I’m sure you’re just surviving at this point.”
“It’s not so bad here.” He chuckles, and it hasn’t changed over the years. It’s still the same raspy noise full of hidden cynicism. There is always a hint of pessimism in every blank space of his sentences unless he is getting his way.
“That’s good,” I whisper, unsure of what to say. Part of me wants to hang up, but that same jaded little girl who still lives and breathes inside me is scared to death of the repercussions that always follow after being in contact with Jessie Davis.
“I’m a little upset that I haven’t heard from you since I got locked up.” His tone goes from cheery to displeased in three seconds flat.
This time in prison is like all the rest. Every single time he goes away, I have the tiniest sliver of hope that he’ll recognize all the mistakes he’s made over the years and change. It’s the same kind of yearning that I had when I was five years old, hoping for my mother to come home to save me, even though I knew, deep down, it was a far-fetched delusion. She was dead.
Jessie Davis may be my blood, but that’s as far as our loyalty goes.
“Wren, are you there?”
I rub my hand against my clammy face. “I’m here.”
“You know why I’m in prison, don’t ya, Pumpkin? That’s why you’ve been hiding from me.”
I’m hiding because you’re an unpredictable junkie.
“It’s your fault.”
It’s a slap against the face, but I’m able to muster up the strength that I’ve been molding since my first foster home and slap him back. “It was either you or me, Dad. I chose me.”
And I threw Stone Foster under the bus in the process.
It was funny how things circled back around. I pinned the drugs I was supposed to deliver for my dad on Stone’s truck, potentially ruining Stone’s future whilst doing the same to my father, which landed him in prison. Stone pays me back by posting that picture, giving my father and his little peddlers the perfect window to where I am.I hate my life.
“Well, now you owe me, Wren.”
I flinch at the sound of my name coming from his end of the phone. He rarely calls me by my first name, and the only time he’s done it in the past was when he was about to ask me something that I know I’ll say no to now.
“I need money.”