They both stopped arguing, whipping their heads to stare at me.
“Look, I appreciate everything you two have done for me and everything you have sacrificed for my sake. Dad, I understand your anger, but…like I told you before, I love Cane. I love him a lot. Just like how you and Mom are, and with all the stories you guys have told me about the things you’ve been through, I know that the best thing to do is to fight for what I love, not let it go to waste.”
“Don’t compare what your mother and I have to what you had with Cane! It’s only lust, Kandy! You’re young and easily manipulated, and he took advantage of that!”
I stepped closer to him. “No, he didn’t, and I have told you plenty of times before what really happened and how we started! You can’t always protect me, Dad! I’m not a kid anymore!”
“Kandy, he is not the man for you!” his voice boomed.
“How would you know? You aren’t around when we’re together!”
“You almost died!” he barked, getting toe-to-toe with me. “I had to watch blood pour out of you in that hospital, watch you cry and grieve, all because we left you to be taken care of by him, and he fucked it up! Forgive me if I don’t fucking trust him!”
“Derek!” Mom cut in.
I breathed hard through my nostrils while he raged like an angry bull. The room went absolutely quiet. If a pin hit the floor, it would have sounded like a heavy thud.
“I’m going to Charlotte to see him,” I stated, and didn’t give a damn how he felt about it. “I’ll be down there for however long I feel like it, so unless you handcuff me to something in this house, I’m going.”
Mom’s head dropped as she sucked in a breath through her teeth.
“You are out of your goddamn mind,” he snarled. He stormed around me to get to the hallway. He took my car keys out of the tray that all the keys were in and stuffed them into his pocket. “If you leave, it won’t be with the car I worked my ass off to buy for you.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “Whatever,” I scoffed. “There are plenty of other ways to get there.” I turned away and rushed back up the stairs. Mom called after me, but it was too late. I wasn’t looking back.
I slammed the door behind me and snatched out even more clothes from my closet, stuffing the suitcase. I was livid, but he wasn’t going to stop me from going. He could be such an asshole sometimes, and the fact that he would withhold his support from me, going so far as to take my car, blew my mind.
I would find a way there and he knew I would, so taking my car keys was a pointless move.
* * *
It was nearing 6:00 p.m. when I heard the stairs make their usual deep croaking as someone made their way up, and then there was a knock on my door.
“What?” I muttered. I was in the bathroom, running a finger over the bags beneath my eyes.
Dad walked right in, taking a look around my room, before cracking the door behind him. He ran a hand over his head, the other hand in his back pocket. I couldn’t stand it when he acted like he didn’t belong—like my room was some magical portal he’d never been through.
“Mind if I sit?” he asked as I stepped around the corner to see him completely.
“It’s your house,” I mumbled. He sat at the end of the bed, letting out a long, weary sigh, then he patted the spot beside him.
“Sit, Kandy. We need to talk.”
I frowned at his hand, but to make sure I didn’t act like as much of a stubborn ass as he did, I sat, though not too closely.
We were both quiet, only breathing. Thinking. “Look, I know you think I’m overreacting about Cane, but I know so much about him. So many secrets that he will never tell you because he knows it will make you look at him differently.”
I tried hard not to look at him. “Secrets like what?”
“Like how he pulled a knife on a store clerk because he didn’t have enough money to pay for groceries once.”
I blinked quickly. “That’s not so bad.”
“Or how he almost killed someone who hurt Lora.”
“Would you not do that for me?”
My throat thickened as Dad locked his eyes on me. “You want to know how I really met Cane?”
“I thought it was because you saved his mom’s life?”
“No. We’d met way before that. We didn’t become really good friends until I helped her.” He ran his palms over the thighs of his pants nervously. “I used to get calls all the time about fights and suspicious activity in his neighborhood, and guess who was always the one being questioned or arrested?”