“If you say so,” Layla said. She was quiet for a moment, then looked right into my eyes. “What can we do?”
“Please just take me home,” I said.
29
I laid my head against the passenger window as Layla drove silently. The chilly glass was a relief on the throbbing skin where Parker’s punch had landed. I closed my left eye—the right was already swelling shut—and willed myself through time. I wanted this car ride to be over. I wanted to skip the conversation with Dad and the bus ride back to Atlanta and Mom’s worried looks and just be back in my room in Smyrna with the blackout curtains pulled tight.
“I owe you an apology,” Layla said. I glanced in her direction but didn’t say anything. “I’m sorry we just stood there, in the gym.”
“It’s okay,” I said. “I wouldn’t know how to handle me if I were you.”
“That’s not even it,” Layla said, shaking her head. “It’s—”
“Don’t lie to me, okay?” I said louder than I meant to, making a cutting motion with my hand. “Thanks for what you did with Parker, but you can stop pretending.”
“Amanda…”
“I’m a freak,” I said. Tears came but I wasn’t sad. I thought maybe I was angry, but I didn’t know who I was angry at. Grant, for not loving me. Parker, for what he had done. My dad for warning me, for being right. Myself maybe, for thinking I could ever be happy. “I’m a freak, and jerks like Parker are always going to want to see the freak show, as long as they know the truth about me.”
“Amanda!” Layla said. I sniffled and scowled at her, but the look she gave me withered my anger. “Don’t you dare talk about my friend that way.” She reached out and grabbed my left hand with her right. I flinched at the touch but quickly accepted it. “The truth is that you’re my friend, Amanda. You’re one of the most beautiful girls I’ve ever known, inside and out.”
“Really?” I said, wiping my nose.
“Hell yeah,” Layla said. “I mean, I’m trying to picture what you must’ve been like before you became Amanda, and I can’t even think of a way the Amanda I know could ever pull off being a boy.”
“I wasn’t very good at it,” I said, a small smile twitching at my mouth. Layla smiled in return.
“Listen,” she said, after a short silence fell between us. “We love you no matter what.”
“I love you guys too.” I smiled, and my bruised temple throbbed painfully.
We pulled into my apartment complex. I thanked her again and started to get out, but she squeezed my hand and gave me a serious look.
“You don’t have to go in,” she said. “You can come stay with me tonight.”
“No,” I said, taking my hand from hers and giving her a reassuring smile. “Thank you, but no. I’m feeling better.”
“Okay,” Layla said. “I’m gonna wait out here for half an hour though. If you feel like you need to be around friends, just come on out and we’ll have a sleepover.”
I thanked Layla again and limped up the stairs, dreading the coming conversation with Dad. I reached our door and started to turn the knob when it was yanked open from within. Dad stood in the doorway, his shoulders squared and his expression full of worry.
“Oh my God,” he said, softly at first and then louder again as he looked me up and down. He pushed past me without saying anything and started stomping down the breezeway stairs.
“Wait,” I said, trying to follow him and nearly falling down the stairs on my twisted ankle. “Where are you going?”
“I’m gonna fucking kill him!” Dad said, a few seconds before his car door slammed and the engine kicked to life. I reached the parking lot just in time to see him speeding off into the night. Layla was already getting out of her car and walking over, her eyes wide.
“What was that?” she said.
“We have to go,” I said, limping past her to her car.
“Where’s he going?”
“Grant’s house,” I said, my hands shaking as I buckled myself in.
30
The car slipped in the mud as we careened down the canopied dirt road to Grant’s trailer. I had my car door open before Layla could even bring the car to a stop. Dad’s car was parked a few yards ahead, his headlights bathing the front of the trailer ghostly white. He was standing halfway in the driver’s seat, his palm pressed on the horn without letting up. The chained-up dogs barked and howled madly trying to attack him, trying to escape, trying to get the noise to stop.
Grant appeared on the porch, his jacket gone and his tie loosened. He squared his shoulders as he strode purposefully down to the yard and over to Dad, who finally let go of the horn. I scrambled to get free of my seat belt and fell down in the mud beside the car.
“Dad!” I yelled. “Dad, please—”
“Go home!” Dad screamed, stepping away from the car and closing the distance between himself and Grant.
“I don’t know what you think,” Grant said, raising both of his hands palms out, “but—”
Dad stepped forward, pivoted, and drove his fist into Grant’s face with the kind of wild, berserk swing I couldn’t have imagined he had in him. Grant made a sound like an airbag exploding and fell a few feet back, already bleeding from his nose.
“Listen close, son,” Dad growled. “You touch her again, or come near her, or talk to her, or so much as look at her, and I will put you in the goddamn ground.”