Sometimes he wouldn’t even leave the room for meals, so I was locked in here with him, too. Because the Almighty Handbook said women weren’t allowed to leave their room without their Initiate by their side as escort. Some sexist bullshit was what it was. I was a prisoner unless Sully agreed to even take me outside. Even dogs got walked!
And I swore, if I had to look at these four walls anymore, I was going to scream.
I’d been nice. I’d given him space to work out… well, whatever it was rich, privileged boys like him needed to work out. But enough was enough. I was like a plant. I needed plenty of sunlight and vitamin D to thrive.
I walked over to the curtains and threw them open, flooding the room in bright, late morning light.
“Rise and shine!” I sang out cheerily.
Sully moaned and hiked his covers up over his head, burying deeper into his pillow.
I’d already cleaned up my floor pallet of pillows and blankets I slept on by the bay window, but the bed was the same disaster of sheets and blanket it always was.
He’d untucked everything the first day and refused to let Mrs. Hawthorne put it back right.
“Come on,” I said impatiently. “No sleeping in for spoiled little rich boys. Chop chop! Some of us actually care about our health and staying in shape.” And getting the hell out of this stuffy, suffocating room.
“Go back to bed,” was all the gruff moan I got in response.
Oh my gosh, was he serious? “But it’s already ten a.m. and you haven’t done anything but lay there,” I said indignantly. “Is this how you spend your life? Or should I say waste your life?” I finished in a mutter.
If I was back home, I’d already have cooked everyone breakfast, packed lunches, and had last night’s laundry folded and put away.
I tried to stay up last night to keep an eye on Sully’s drinking so maybe today could be different from the last few, but it was no use.
I was too used to collapsing into bed exhausted at 9:30 or 10 at the latest.
Sully had been on his fourth glass by then, though by the multiple bottles rolling around the bottom of the bed, I bet he abandoned cups and started chugging straight from the bottleneck at some point.
Was he really just a total drunk, or was he just trying to avoid actually having a real conversation with me?
Either way, something had to change. My body felt all wrong. Not having a routine was not okay for me. Some hours I’d feel tired and despondent, while other hours I’d feel jacked up with energy but without any way to expend it.
Yesterday, I’d played solitaire for hours on end—a paltry distraction because every minute of free time, all I could do was obsess about the girls back home.
Tanya could easily get overwhelmed when a lot of responsibility got put on her shoulders. I wasn’t sure how much Reba would be able to help her out, and LeAnn was still just a baby. Okay, so fourteen wasn’t that young. When I was that old, I was already a mini mom—or at least my mom’s right-hand girl. But all of us had tried hard to protect LeAnn’s childhood, so she was more a kid than any of us had ever been at her age.
When Dad was home, he’d had strict ideas about men’s and women’s roles, too. He made the money, and, in return, we made a nice, comfortable home for him. It was the least we could do for the audacity of all coming out female, with no strapping boys to carry on the family name and legacy.
Ha. What a legacy. When the going got tough, apparently “real men” just checked the eff out.
I looked back at Sully in disgust. How many nights had I seen my father like this? A man who could have been so much more—but wasn’t. I think I hated my father more for it. Knowing he could have been there if he’d put forth even an iota of his energy and the character he’d apparently lost a long time ago, back when he was the man my mother first fell in love with.
I knew men. And I was an idiot for thinking I could relax and let my guard down even the littlest bit around Sullivan VanDoren.
I steeled myself, grabbed the top of his blanket, and yanked. The entire blanket came away in my arms, much to my delight.
There. Take that.
“What the fuck?” Sully yelled, holding up a hand against the bright yellow light of the day. “Give that the fuck back or you’ll be sorry.”
I scampered backwards and as I did, tripped a little and stumbled to the floor. Where I suddenly got a good look under the bed. My eyes widened when I saw a box in the back corner. A crate full of more booze.