Chapter 7 Come rain, come sunshine

• Never ever get your choir director upset if you already lied to him once. I’m learning that the hard way. And Dad can’t help me in this case.
• Dinner is a tense affair. Calum is seated beside me. Dad and Dani are on the other side of the table. I roll the spaghetti around my fork, half-waiting for Dad to say something in my defence or use his position as principal so Calum rethinks my punishment.
• “Calum,” Dad finally says. I try not to get too excited but a grin spreads to my lips. Dani catches my eyes and looks away but I see her smile before it disappears. “Don’t you think Cathy’s punishment is too harsh? Maybe reduce it to a week or two?”
• My stepbrother takes a bite from his dinner, then drops his fork on the plate. He clasps his hands on the table and levels Dad with a look that might have gotten me into trouble if I did the same.
• “Would you appreciate it if someone told you how to do your job?” Too low. Too fucking low. Dad raises his hands in surrender and my heart dips to my stomach. Dani doesn’t look up from her food and the sinking realisation hits me. I am alone in this. “Thank you, Pete. And no, it is not too harsh.” Stepbrother dearest cuts me a side glance. “If she’s willing to disrespect her teacher and her mates, she should be willing to accept the consequences. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes. Right?”
• “Right,” Dad says with a sad look thrown my way.
• The spaghetti loses its taste in my lips. I might as well have been eating dust coated in tomato sauce.
• “Dad,” I mutter halfway into the meal I’ve been picking for the last ten minutes. “He’s lying. I didn’t really raise my voice at him.” I tighten my grip on the fork when three pairs of eyes tilt in my direction. “I was not shouting at him.”
• “Who were you shouting at?” Dad asks.
• “The wind.”
• Dani covers her mouth to smother her laughter, Calum doesn’t even try to hide his disgust. He finishes up his food and excuses himself from the table. The sound of his footsteps connecting with the staircase as he jogs up to his room reverberates in the dining room and for the next few minutes, that’s the only sound ringing in my head.
• The rest of dinner is quieter. Dad and Dani finish eating but I still have an almost full plate.
• Dani points to my plate. “Are you eating that?”
• Shaking my head, I pass it to her and she stacks our plates, leaving me and Dad alone to discuss my recent punishment. I still think Calum overreacted. It’s normal for teenagers my age to act on their emotions more times than not. If he’s going to be around a high school for long, he has to learn that.
• Mr Prescott wouldn’t have sent me out. In all honesty, I would never have lost my cool if Mr Prescott directed the choir today. I miss him.
• “You were not shouting at the wind, Catherine,” Dad says. The stupidity of those words has my mind working full-time to fix this mess. I open my mouth to correct him but I’m stuck on the right words. “That’s not what the other choristers said.”
• “Ask Rose.”
• Come rain or sunshine, my girls will always have my back. Dad knows that. That’s why he says, “No. She’s going to try and cover for you. You should have known better.” We eye each other and our striking resemblance grows more obvious. The fullness of our lips, the sharp cheekbones and freckles dusting our noses. “Your teacher says you are failing chemistry.”
• Oh, come on. It’s Mr Andy’s fault for giving us an impromptu test on the second day of school.
• “It was just one test.”
• “And you got an F, Cathy.” When your father is the principal, you are cursed with lectures like this daily. He’s up to date on your grades. “You’re the only one who got an F out of thirty students.”
• Footfalls from the stairs invade my ears. Calum appears at the table and grabs his phone lying on the table mat. He doesn’t leave. I wish he would. He started this. Calum drops to the seat on my left and I press my legs together to avoid any form of body contact. Hasn’t he heard of privacy? This is a father-daughter moment.
• “If your chemistry grades don’t improve, I’m sorry but Calum will not be letting you back in the choir.” Just great. Perfecto. To Calum, he asks, “Has she apologised for raising her voice at you?”
• Oh, God. No. Don’t make me do this.
• “She hasn’t.”
• Standing, Dad says, “You know what to do.”
• We are left alone. I don’t want to be alone with him. Calum places his arm on the table. “Well?”
• “You should have just let me try.”
• “I believe you have more than one reason to be sorry.” Calum tilts his head in that unconscious way that makes him look hotter and his hair falls into his eyes. It’s shorter at the back and longer in front. One swipe at his hair and I’m taken back to that night. Does he think about the kiss like I do? I bet he doesn’t. With a face like that, it’s easy to get tons of girls and kisses. Good for him. The chair scrapes against the floor as he rises to his feet. “How do you plead, Cathy? Guilty or guilty?”
• “Not guilty.”
• His receding footsteps as he walks away are all I’m left with. At this rate, I should be getting ready to sit with the audience watching Christie or Regina sing in my place. I stomp all the way to my room. If I’m not back in the choir by tomorrow, I’ll put a dead rat in Calum’s bag.
• The door to my room creaks open when I’m getting ready for bed. I stand straighter. Dani waves from the door and I usher her in with a wave. She’s a sweetheart but her son is not.
• Dani takes a seat on my bed and I do the same. Her hand slips around my shoulders. For a few minutes, none of us talk. I think I know why she’s here and I don’t want to talk about him.
• “Your son is an asshole,” I blurt out. The silence was too overpowering, I would have choked if I tried to keep those words in. To my pleasant surprise, Dani laughs and I find myself wanting to tell her more. About everything. “I think he’s just mad and he’s trying to punish me for it.”
• “Mad about what?” she asks.
• “Mad about the–”
• I stop myself right in time. Snatching my pillow off the bed, I scream into it. My anger bubbles to the surface again. I shove it down. There’s so much inside me that needs to be let out. And I can’t tell anyone, not even my best friends.
• Dani draws me in for a side hug. I sigh softly. “Cathy, you don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to, alright?” That’s what Mum used to say to get me to spill everything. “I’ll talk to him.”
• “My dad or Calum?”
• “Both of them, I guess.”
• “Thanks.”
• “It’s alright. We women must stick together.”
• When Dani is gone, I tiptoe to Calum’s room. His room is right beside mine. The door is ajar so I slide in unnoticed. Calum is laid back on the bed, legs dangling from the edge. I take another step forward. Just an apology, right? I can do that.
• Stopping in front of him, I tap his knee. His eyes remain closed but he says, “Close the door on your way out.”