Taking the Heat (27 page)

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

H
E
 
WAS
 
A
 
SOPHOMORE
at her old high school just as she'd suspected. When the police had arrived, his parents found three half-empty bottles of his mom's old Valium prescription in his bedside table. He hadn't taken any yet, but he'd been saving up. They'd also found the
Dear Veronica
blog open on his computer.

The police told Veronica that the boy had denied everything at first, but then he'd broken down in tears and cried in his mom's arms. He'd said that he was miserable and wanted to be dead, but he didn't want to make his parents worry. He'd said he was sorry he'd caused all this trouble.

That had made Veronica break down and sob. That he'd thought killing himself would have been less trouble for his parents and the community than just asking for help. That he hadn't wanted to bother his family with his pain. That he thought he wasn't worth it.

She'd cried because if she hadn't had an escape plan already in place, maybe she would have thought about hurting herself, too. After all, she'd had nowhere else to turn. She had asked for help, and her father had ignored her.

A week later, Veronica was only more angry. Angry for that boy and herself and everyone else like them. But she didn't know what to do with that. She wrote to the school to ask how she could help. There were already bullying programs in place at the school. They taught suicide awareness and prevention. But the principal admitted that with budget cuts, the school counselors focused mostly on getting kids ready for college and addressing problem children.

“They simply don't have time to meet with kids unless those kids are acting out. We've only got two counselors for the whole school.”

But one of those counselors wrote back with an idea that got stuck in Veronica's mind like a bur.

There's a program designed to reach out to kids who are going through depression or anxiety, but it costs a lot to fully fund. We've only been able to scrape up the money for brochures and a few lesson plans. If we could do the whole month-long program every year, I bet the kids would take it from there. There are clubs they can organize themselves, to get together and feel like they belong to something.

Money. The one thing Veronica didn't have. But she knew who had plenty of money and nothing worthwhile to spend it on. And she was feeling way too angry to be afraid of him anymore.

She knew her dad was home tonight. He'd asked if she was coming for dinner. Funny that he asked her about dinner at least twice a week. Maybe there was something inside him that loved her. Maybe he got lonely. Maybe late at night he wondered if he'd focused on the wrong things in his life and felt regret. She'd never know, because he'd never admit it.

She couldn't remember her dad being any softer, but her mom had loved him and her mom had been a gentle soul. She must have seen something tender in the man she'd married. Perhaps her struggle with cancer had changed him. Veronica didn't remember what he'd been like before those years of illness.

She tried to keep that in mind through dinner, waiting until they were halfway through their silent meal to bring up her request. “Dad, I have a proposal for you.”

He grunted as he scrolled through something on his phone.

“There's a program I'd like to get started at the high school. It helps kids with mental health problems recognize what's going on and teaches them to reach out for help. Kids really struggle with things like anxiety and depression.”

“Another thing you won't get paid for?”

“I get paid for my job, Dad. And no, I wouldn't get paid for this. In fact, the program would need money. Lots of money. Eight thousand dollars a year for the full program.”

“Eight grand a year to make posters for crazy kids? Good luck with that.”

She stared at him until he looked up from his phone. “Eight grand a year,” she said, “to help kids who are suffering the way you let me suffer all through high school.”

“Now you're telling me you were depressed?”

“I don't know if I was depressed, but I know I was scared and anxious, and I could have used someone to talk to. God knows you didn't want to hear it.”

“Jesus, Veronica. Do you know what my teen years were like? Growing up on a farm in Nebraska? You want to know how many times my dad asked about my
feelings
?”

She could practically feel the sneer slide over her skin and she was transported back to her childhood, to her dad dismissing everything. Her grief, her loneliness and then her despair over the new family he'd delivered to her. Her emotions had always been an inconvenience, a nuisance, a weakness.

“He tortured me, you know,” she said calmly.

“Who? Jason? Now you're saying he abused you?”

“No, he never
touched
me. He just ruined my life. He didn't want to live here, he didn't want to be here, so he took it out on me, and you never did a damn thing about it.”

He waved his fork. “I told you not to let him see you sweat. You let him get to you.”

She laughed. The smell of the lasagna her father's housekeeper had cooked was making her nauseous, so she pushed her plate away and scooted her chair back. “This wasn't some asshole in my algebra class, Dad. He lived with me. He was around twenty-four hours a day. He called me ugly. He called me stupid. He told everyone at school that I was creepy and disgusting and that he moved to a room on the other side of the house so he wouldn't have to be near me!”

“So?” her dad muttered. “None of that was true.”

“So?”
she cried. “I was fifteen! Do you think my classmates cared if it was
true
?” She slammed her hands on the table. “This was in my home! I didn't have a safe place anywhere. He never touched me, Dad, but he violated me over and over. He took pictures of my ugly cotton underwear and posted them online. He made fun of my flat chest. He made sure other people made fun of my flat chest. It wasn't enough to make sure I wasn't popular—he wanted to
hurt
me, and you just sat there and let him.”

Her dad didn't look so arrogant now. He hunched over his plate, pushing bits of tomatoes around. “You never told me about the pictures.”

“He called me an ugly cunt right in front of you, and you did nothing!
Nothing!
” This time when she hit the table, he looked up and seemed to snap out of his brief remorse.

He glared at her. “Stop being hysterical.”

Her palms stung, tingling with bright pain. “Three years,” she said softly. “They were only here for three years, Jason and his icy bitch of a mother, but he's been in my head since then, reminding me that I'm not like anyone else, that I'll never fit in, that I'll never say or do or be the right thing. And you were right there with him, letting me know that I'm not quite good enough to be your daughter.”

“That's not true,” he grouched, reaching for his wineglass. “I've never said that.”

“You never had to. But you know what? None of it matters anymore. I am good enough. I'm good at my job. I'm funny. I'm smart. And I fucking
care
about people.”

He stared at her for a long time, still looking perturbed, but really looking at her. Maybe he'd truly get it this time. Maybe he'd finally acknowledge just how thoroughly he'd failed to protect her.

“Fine,” he finally said. “You want me to contribute to this fund for troubled youth? Is that what all this is about?”

Her shaking heart fell as if she'd just dropped down the hill of a roller coaster. She was falling and her dad refused to catch her. She took a deep breath, stretching her fingers out on the dark wood of this huge dining room table that no loving family was ever going to gather around.

But she wasn't falling, was she? She was flying, and no one needed to catch her. “Yes, Dad, that's what this is about. But you're not going to contribute. You're going to fund the entire program. Every year.”

He scoffed. “I'm not paying tens of thousands of dollars just so you can—”

“Yes, you are,” she snapped. “You can make a big deal out of it. Look how much Judge Chandler cares about our children! Look what a wonderful member of the community he is! You can have a glamorous party. Raise money for the school. And in return, I won't write a column about what a crappy father you were.”

His jaw dropped. “You little shit. You're
threatening
me?”

“No. I'm telling you how you can start making this right. Because if you won't do this, then it's clear that there's no hope for us. That you'll never understand. That you don't regret anything about how I was treated and won't ever admit that you failed me. And if all that is true, Dad...then you don't deserve me in your life.”

He shook his head, still outraged, still in disbelief.

“Helping these kids is important to me,” she said. “I'm asking you to do this for me. If you do, then we can start working on having a different relationship, one where you show me respect and I behave like an adult instead of a scared little girl. If you won't do this, then we're done. Maybe not forever, but for a while.”

“An ultimatum isn't a negotiation,” he snapped.

“This isn't a negotiation.” She put on her sweater and gathered up her purse and phone. “It's an offer. Take it or leave it. I'll either be writing a column about the wonderful new school program or I'll be writing about exactly why I needed something like that when I was a kid.” She stood. “You decide what you want people talking about, Dad.”

Her knees were shaking when she walked out, but her steps were steady. Technically, she supposed she was blackmailing her own father, but surely there was another term when you wanted the money to go to a good cause? More important, she suspected her dad would actually respect a demand more than a request. He'd always admired ballsiness. It was so much less messy than dealing with ovaries.

Her threat was an empty one, though. She was going to write the same column regardless. As a matter of fact, she'd already written it. Whether her father funded it or not, she was going to bring this program to the school. The therapist had already agreed to be the local contact for the group. If she had to raise money for it herself, she would. She had a platform, and the newspaper would consider it good publicity.

Her dad texted her before she even made it back to town. She couldn't resist peeking at her phone.

Well? Am I supposed to put a goddamn blank check in the mail or do you have more details?

She laughed. She laughed so hard she had to pull over. It was probably not the sane response to your father giving in to your blackmail demands, but normal people didn't blackmail their relatives, did they? So she let herself laugh, and then she turned up the crappy stereo in the same crappy old car she'd had in high school and sang triumphantly along to Beyoncé.

As soon as she got home, she forwarded all the information she'd gathered about the program to her dad, along with a specific amount. Then she opened her column and read through it one more time to be sure it was perfect.

...And that's why I believe so strongly in this program. Because I was one of those kids. I felt alone and scared all through high school. In fact, I still feel like that a lot today. But the truth is I'm not alone, and I never was; I just didn't know who to reach out to.

The reason I've become a decent advice columnist is that I've lived through so many of the things the rest of you have. Low self-esteem, loneliness, body-image issues, bullying, communication problems, family tensions. I've spent too many years thinking I'm not good enough for love or my job or success, and my only defense was to pretend I was fine so that no one else would see the truth: that I wasn't enough.

But the real truth is that I am enough, and when I read your letters I see myself in them, in your problems with anxiety and self-doubt and depression and love, and these kids deserve a chance to see themselves in others, too.

The column went live on the website the next day and was printed in the paper the day after that. Her stomach never stopped aching. She felt naked and exposed and dangerously vulnerable. As if she'd stripped off all the protection she'd so carefully layered over herself. After all, the key to faking your way through life was that you didn't admit you were faking it.

But it was a relief, too. She didn't have to pretend anymore. The next column she worked on was her easiest yet, because she wasn't worried that she might reveal too much. She could be herself. Her
real
self. The woman she was finally getting to know after twenty-seven years.

The response was overwhelming. The online comment section exploded with people telling their own stories. Stories that made Veronica break down and cry, and stories that made her cheer. She'd always felt that she didn't fit in anywhere, that she was different, but she was starting to realize that
everyone
felt different.

Her next Dear Veronica Live was overflowing with people, and even though she had stage fright, it wasn't nearly as crippling as it had been. After all, she didn't have to fear that they'd see through her facade; she'd already let them in.

She wrapped it up a little more slowly than normal, pausing just as she set the microphone down to pick it up again. “I already thanked you guys for coming out tonight, but I also wanted to thank you for the responses to my last column. It meant a lot to get that kind of support for the new program at the high school. And if there's anyone here who was brave enough to share their story in the comments, thank you so much for that, too. I'm honored.”

The applause was overwhelming, and before she could retreat to the office, several women approached to give her hugs. She wasn't sure how to handle that, so she just hugged them back. All these years of hiding, and she could have just been herself the whole time. The knowledge was bittersweet.