When her phone rang the next morning, Madison immediately answered it, not even bothering to check the caller id. She just figured it was Alec, and he needed a ride from the Newport Beach Police Department. She hadn’t gotten a call from him telling her they were booking him; maybe they were still questioning him. Maybe they decided they didn’t have enough evidence to book him in the first place. Maybe he had chosen not to call her because if he had, it would give their relationship away.

As much as Madison hated to admit it, it was probably the latter. Which meant she had no choice but to continue to wait for him.

“Hello?”

“Madison, it’s your father,” the gruff voice on the other end said, not bothering for a proper greeting. Her father had always been strict to the point where his daughters – Madison included – saw it fit to rebel in some way. For Madison, it was moving across the country to get away from him. For Rhine, it was dating someone he wouldn’t approve of. An awesome guy who treated her well, excelled in school and sports, and was an all-around nice guy.

The problem?

Nothing, save for the fact that he was black.

“Hi, Dad,” she said, hoping her voice didn’t sound as tentative as she felt. “What’s up?”

“We just got your graduation notice in the mail,” he said. “How many tickets do you get for graduation?”

Madison furrowed her brow, reaching up to cup the back of her neck. She wanted to ask him why. Technically, she got five. One for each member of her family and one – if he wanted, if they could come out in public – for Alec.

“I’m not sure,” she forced herself to respond. She was never one to lie but she didn’t particularly trust her father and his intentions, either. “I’ll double-check.”

“Okay,” he replied. “I wanted to bring Dave along. You remember Dave?”

Madison suppressed a shudder from sliding down her spine by reminding herself that she was far away from Michigan and Dave Lowe. Dave was one of her father’s co-workers at the factory and the man that caused nightmares to haunt Madison to this day. He never actually did anything inappropriate to her, but he had a lecherous stare that did enough damage on its own.

“I’m not sure if that’s going to be –“

“He’s really proud of you, you know,” her father told her, interrupting what she was going to tell him. “I think he just wants to be part of your graduation. You know, since he has no family of his own.”

Madison nearly gagged. Proud of her? Dave Lowe wasn’t proud of her. He didn’t care about her academic achievements. He cared about the way she looked in a bikini that time their family went to the lake for the day.

“Okay,” her father said. “Is there anything else going on in your life we should know about?” That loosely translated into: Is there anything you want to confess to me now before I inevitably find out and punish you for it? “Your mother wants to know when she should buy your plane ticket.”

Madison had already opened her mouth to respond with a resounding no. However, this additional part of her father’s question nearly threw her off.

“Plane ticket?” Madison managed to get out, hoping her voice didn’t come out like a shriek.

“Boy, that California sunshine is turning your brain to mush, isn’t it?” her father said through chuckles of laughter. How typical: her father only found something funny when it belittled her or put her down. Other than that, he was a stoic as a statue. “For when you come home. You’re not planning on staying out there, are you? You know you can’t afford to stay out in California without my support and there’s no way in hell I’m funding an apartment in Orange County. No, once you graduate, you’ll come home. Now, I think it would be easier if you just came home with us after you graduate but your mom insisted I ask. Which, o’course, doesn’t make much sense since I’m the one buying the plane ticket so, really, it should be up to me.”

“Dad,” Madison cut in, her tone biting.

“Now, don’t you sass me, Madison Ivy,” her father said, his jovial tone suddenly hardening into glaciers. “Just because you’re in an entirely new state does not give you the right to push your father’s buttons like that. Maybe that’s the way they do things in California but it certainly isn’t how things are done here.”

Madison bit her tongue. She wanted to say that she wasn’t there anymore, that she was a grown woman and could do whatever she wanted. Sure, she understood she needed to respect her father but that did not give him the right to talk to her that way, either. As though her opinion didn’t count.

“Sorry,” she said, though she couldn’t completely cut out the attitude from her voice. Instead, she rushed to ask a question in the hopes that it would distract him from getting upset with her all over again. “To be honest, I haven’t really thought about what I’d do once I graduated, Dad. I’ve had a couple of job offers here.”

Her father snorted. “You couldn’t afford to live in California by yourself, Madison,” her father said, his condescending tone grating on her nerves. She had to bury her long fingernails into the skin of her palms to keep herself from talking back or hanging up. “You need me. And there’s no way in hell I’m going to pay for you to stay there. You might not like it but you best start wrapping your head around the fact that you’re coming home. Soon.” He paused, pressing his lips together. “Forget the fact that you get to choose when you want to come home. You’re still my daughter and I’m paying for your ticket. That means I get to make the decision. We gave you too much freedom by letting you go out there.” He sighed through his nose and Madison could visualize him rubbing his temples, like this was stressing him out more than it should. She had to bite her bottom lip to keep from screaming. “No, you’ll come with us after your graduation.”

“No.”

The word was out of Madison’s mouth before she could stop it and her eyes snapped open when she said it, listening to the tense beat of silence that hung between them.

“Excuse me?” her father said in little more than a whisper.

Madison forced herself to swallow. This was her father’s danger voice. If he didn’t get the right answer from his daughters, all hell would break lose. And usually, that was the last thing she and her sisters wanted.

The difference now was she was across the country. He couldn’t do anything to her. Even if he threatened to stop paying for her dorm the last month of her time out here, she could use her savings to cover it.

With that thought, power surged through her veins.

“I said,” she remarked slowly, making sure to enunciate every word slowly. “I said no.”

“You, what?” her father growled, his voice like a hungry wolf had just spotted a threat to his only bit of food. “Why in God’s name would you think you have any kind of right to deny me? I’m the one putting food in your mouth. I’m the one making sure you have a roof over your head. Maybe you lucked out and got that scholarship for your tuition and books, but I haven’t paid for June yet, missy, so don’t try me.”

“I can pay for it myself,” Madison said, any restraint she might had completely vanishing.

“You, what?” he repeated. She had to bite her lip to make a smartass comment on his inability to comprehend the words that were coming out of his mouth.

“Dad,” she told him. “I have a 3.6 GPA and a part-time job. I’ve been saving my money for a rainy day. If you withhold payment for my dorm and meals, I can afford to cover it myself.” She took a breath, surprised by how calm she was. Even more so that her father hadn’t interrupted her yet. “I’m an adult. And I know that for the rest of my life, I have to respect you as my father. But I think I’ve earned your respect as an adult. Which means you don’t get to control me the way you used to when I was a child.”

“As your father,” he told her, “I get to treat you however I like. And as the one signing the checks that keep you at that dorm, I get to decide when to stop paying for it. Which is now. You think you can do it on your own? Then, do it. You don’t need me anymore. You don’t need your mom. So we’ll pull our funding and you can figure this all out yourself.”

Madison clenched her jaw before saying, “Fine.” Like she was a child. Like she was petulant and threw tantrums at the drop of a hat. Like she was immature and couldn’t take care of herself.

He always brought this out in her and she hated that. She hated that she let him make her into this person.

“Fine,” he told her. “I’ll let your mother know. It’s going to break her heart, you know. Are you going to be okay with that?”

Madison rolled her eyes, glad he couldn’t see her. “You tell her whatever you want, Dad,” she told him. “We both know the truth.”

“And what does that mean?” her father demanded to know.

“It means I don’t care anymore,” she replied, all of her frustration being released at that moment. “It means do whatever you want because I will make it without you. I don’t need your money. I’m grateful, really, I am, for the opportunity you gave me. And I’m lucky I had a father in my life. But I don’t deserve to be treated like some child.”

“You do not get to tell me how to treat my children,” her father pointed out in a low growl.

Madison sighed. She wasn’t getting through to him. But she wasn’t surprised. “You’re right, Dad,” she replied. “I can’t control how you treat me or how you feel. But I can control how I respond to it.”

Without warning, she hung up the phone and immediately turned it off.

That was much more draining than she expected it to be. She didn’t have time to worry about her father when Alec was still… As far as she knew, he was still at the Newport Police Department, unless something changed.

Maybe she should keep her phone on, just in case.

She rolled her eyes and let out a frustrated groan, pushing the power button on her phone so it turned back on. Almost immediately, it went off, with two calls from her father she immediately sent to voicemail. The little chirp indicated he left her one but she decided to ignore it for now. She knew it wasn’t something she wanted to hear.

Since she was already up, she decided to start throwing some clothes on and get ready for school. She planned to drive to her dorm, pick up her books, and take the bus to campus. And from there, hopefully distract herself enough not to think about Alec and how she was doing nothing to help him.