DRAWN (28 page)

          I can’t get away from Yuki fast enough. “Dad!”

          He peers at Yuki through his glasses with a smile. “Hello, son. I don’t believe we’ve met.”

          Yuki is staring.

          I elbow him. I get it that Jason looks more like a vacationing Marine from Afghanistan, but now is not the time to be intimidated. Has he forgotten that all parents are supposed to love him?

          “I’m, uhh, Yuki Himura, sir. I’m a school mate of your daughter, sir. I’m honored to meet you, sir.” Yuki stops stammering long enough to remember to bow deeply.

          He’s definitely forgotten all parents are supposed to love him.

          Jason bows back, so low his head almost reaches the ground. It’s more than a bit embarrassing but never mind.

          “Call me Jason,” he says. Then he turns to me with twinkling eyes. “No welcome hug?”

          “
Dad,
really.” But I’m grinning when I step into his embrace.

          When Jason releases me, he has a fond smile on his face. “I feel like you’ve grown up so much since I’ve last seen you.”

          I roll my eyes. “You weren’t even gone for a month.”

          “Even so. It’s a father’s prerogative to think like that.” He turns back to Yuki again, peering at his car.

          Shite.

          I forgot all about Ani…ka. I feel like I can’t say bad stuff with my dad around, even if he can’t really hear my thoughts.

          “Your sister?”

          “A friend from Japan coming over to visit,” Yuki says easily.

          Realizing she’s the object of everyone’s gazes, Anika does what I totally expect someone like her to do.

          “Hi!” She waves at us prettily.

          The cheek!

          “Hello,” Jason says, waving back.

Ugh. I think he’s charmed.

          “It’s nice meeting you, sir. I’m sorry to leave so abruptly but I have to drive Anika to her hotel.”

          “Sure, sure.” They shake hands again.

          As Yuki gets inside the car, Anika calls my name.

          I bite back a sigh, aware of Jason beside me turning around to look at Anika as well.

          “Yes?”

          She takes out my bra and waves it from her window like a red flag to my dad. “I think you forgot something.”

          If my dad doesn’t kill me tonight, I am so going to burn that bra.

While knocking on Death’s door – I mean the door to Jason’s study – I do my best to give Yuki a reassuring smile without really looking at him. If I do, he’d know I’m lying.

“It’s going to be okay,” I tell him.

          Yuki’s voice is solemn when he answers. “I’m glad you think so,
senpai
. I can’t help but worry when I remember the instance your dad saw your
bra
…”

          “Uhh, Yuki…”  If he’s trying to reassure me back, he’s absolutely failing.

          “And then Anika managing to sneak in another bomb before she leaves, telling your dad we spent the weekend alone…”

          “Umm, Yuki...” I strangle out, hating the way his words are forcing my mind to replay the worst scene in my life.

          “So then your dad found out you were lying---”

          “Yuki!” I look up to glare at him, but I end up gaping instead.

          He’s smiling, and it’s not his usual angel’s smile.

          Yuki squeezes my hand. “It will be okay,
senpai
.”

          My heart kicks off in ba-thumping speed, and I snap my head to the side. Any second longer and blood from my nose would start flooding our house. “You should have told me you weren’t worried in the first place,” I mutter under my breath.

          “But you were so cute,
senpai
, trying to reassure me even though you were looking so scared---”

          “ARE YOU COMING IN?”

          I jump at my dad’s roar.

          Death – I mean, my dad – has called. I shake my head furiously at the thought. There must be something I can do to stop my imagination from trying to scare me to death. I’ll get there sooner or later anyhow.

          I turn the knob. “Let’s do this.”

Jason is seated behind his ancient desk when we step inside the study, the door swinging shut silently behind us. His study is in the second floor, right next to the master bedroom. It’s the only off-limits kind of room in the house, with a by-invitation-only rule that not even Kelly dares go against.

          The walls are made of varnished cherry wood, and the single window behind Jason is shuttered with silvery gray blinds. Hanging behind him as well is a huge painting of Jesus having his Last Supper, but instead of the Apostles he has with him Buddha, Allah, Krishna, and other well-known deities of the world. If I’m not mistaken, Lady Gaga’s in the painting, too. Let’s just say my dad has a very open-minded approach to religion.

The rest of the walls are lined with bookcases bulging with an assortment of leather-bound notebooks filled with Jason’s handwritten notes, scholarly texts in various languages (I get my multilingual genes from him), and student records from the classes he has taught since 1978.

          As we walk further in, Jason presses the pause button of his iPod, connected to Angry Bird speakers (Scott’s Christmas present last year), and which was currently playing yet another heavy metal version of Our Father. He likes his devotional music
innovative,
is all I can say.

          When we stop a foot away from his desk, Jason takes off his glasses, carefully returning them to its case before looking up, his eyes gentle and sad.

          Oh, shite.

          I’m babbling before I know it.

          “Dad, I’m so, so sorry, that bra was mine, but we didn’t do anything – it’s all because I’m his toy, but it’s not like what you think, and we may have spent one weekend together, but I swear to you, nothing happened since we haven’t even reached third base yet – well, at least not on my part---”

          Yuki coughs.

          I snap my mouth shut.

What the bloody hell have I said to my dad?

Jason pinches the bridge of his nose several times as words like BRA, TOY, and THIRD BASE continue to float around the room like the proverbial bloody white elephant. When he stands up, the scary look on his face makes him seem ten feet tall all of a sudden. He glances at Yuki and says one word.

“Out.”

“Dad, don’t---”

“Did you think I’ll let him near you after everything you have said?” he shouts.

Oh. My. God.

I’m totally sorry if that means I’ve taken the Lord’s name in vain. It’s just that I’m stunned speechless. I’ve never heard him shout. Never. Well, not till now.

“It’s not as bad as you think!” I try to reach out to him, feeling like I have to calm him down before he becomes hypertensive. Jason likes his steak a little too much, like I do. But I’m in my teens and he’s not. My dad’s face is red, with veins popping out in his forehead. I’m seriously terrified he’s going to have a heart attack.

“Nothing happened between us, Dad.”

“Yet!”

I bite my lip. I have nothing to say to that because he’s right.

Jason turns to Yuki. “Didn’t you hear me?”

Yuki’s face is white. “I’m sorry---”

He waves Yuki’s words away with an angry slash of his hand. “I’m not ready to hear your apology so don’t bother. Just get out.”

Tears sting my eyes. Jason’s never been this rude either. Never. Not even when the time there was this senator’s wife in the front-row seat of one of his lectures talking so loudly on the phone she might as well have been the speaker instead of Dad.

I’ve never thought that what I had – what I did – with Yuki was so ugly. Horrible. Bad. But Jason’s anger makes me feel dirty.

Turning to Yuki, I try my best to smile at him reassuringly. “We’ll talk tomorrow.”

Yuki looks like he wants to say something, badly.

I shake my head. Now’s not the time for any kind of explanation.

“Tomorrow,” I promise in a whisper.

I walk with him to the door. Just when I reach for the knob, my dad speaks.

“I won’t stop you from talking or seeing him again, angel. But I want you to know that if you do, it will hurt me.”

He’s so, so unfair. He tells me he doesn’t want me to choose, but he makes it impossible for me
not
to.

My dad’s voice breaks when he asks, “Did I ever make you feel unloved?”

My hand drops from the door knob as I whirl around to face him. “Never,” I say feelingly. Why does he even have to ask something like that?

“Then why does it seem like you don’t love yourself enough?”

Yuki tenses at my side.

“Why would you let someone treat you like this?”

Yuki’s fists clench.

Jason and Yuki lock gazes with each other. “Do you love my daughter?”

A single tear escapes the mental chokehold I have on my eyelids.

Yuki glances at me as he starts to speak. His eyes widen, and he stumbles back.

I look away, but it’s too late.

Just like that, he knows. Bloody hell
he knows
.

Mentally strengthening the floodgates of my tear ducts so they won’t fail me again, I make myself look at Yuki. His baby blues are blank, but he’s smiling, the cruel twist of his lips so pronounced it cuts me deep.

Without taking his gaze off me, he murmurs, “Let’s just say I can walk out of her life right this moment and it won’t make a difference to me.”

And let’s just say that he could have left it at no.

Jason’s shoulders slump down.

Yuki’s words, together with the dejected look on my dad’s face, has me blinking rapidly.

Have I really done something so bad in their eyes?

I used to have a clear vision of what Yuki and I were. It used to be fun, and then it became…special…because I fell in love with him. From there, I secretly hoped it could one day turn into something
more
special, something that bound not just our bodies but our hearts, too – the kind that there’d be no more forbidden words I have to worry about.

I used to believe there was a chance for that to happen, but Jason’s words make me feel like a nympho who’s just seen the light.

“If you walk out of that door with him, angel, then that’s it. You’ve made your choice. You can be his
toy
.”

My dad is so sly.

When he says it like that, how can I even think of choosing Yuki? If I do, I’m choosing to be a slut in his eyes as well.

Yuki doesn’t speak, his baby blues still hooded, his cruel smile still in place. “It’s okay,
senpai
. I don’t want to get between you and your father.”

I grab his arm, feeling like if I don’t he’ll never come back. I badly wish I had the courage to kiss that smile away. “We’ll work things out.”

He gently pries my fingers away. “It’s okay,
senpai.”
He pauses.

I wait, heart in my throat.

“It was good while it lasted.”

          One day, maybe when I’m in my eighties, I’ll find it in myself to laugh at the irony of it.

“I hope you’re happy now,” I say, tears making my voice wobble when I hear Yuki’s car engine rumbling into life, the sound fading as he drives away. Out of my life. Maybe for good. Yuki has his hang-ups, too. He hasn’t signed me up as his toy just to get all this stupid drama. If he wanted that, he could have as much of it as he wanted with Sascha.

“I am.”

This is clearly going to be a night of firsts. I’ve never been this mad at my dad either. “Can’t you even pretend to be sorry?”

“Why should I? He was playing with you!” My dad’s yelling again, but now I don’t care, not when I know I’m going to yell just right back.

“We were happy! I was happy!”

“It’s not the right kind of happy! I’m not stopping you from having a boyfriend. I’d be happy that you have a boyfriend. What I don’t want is that you become a mindless sexual toy!” His fist bangs hard on the table. “All he wanted was to
fuck
! Do you understand that, Katerina?”