Carter Ortese is Trouble - completed (The Boys #1)

Chapter 4: Emma

It will be fine. It will all be fine.

I repeat the same mantra over in my head, but a twisting worry settles in my gut. If my parents ask too many questions, I'm screwed. If they ask the right questions, I'm screwed. Really, if they ask any questions except the set that I've already meticulously performed answers to in my head, I'm screwed.

But it will all be fine.

I must be on the seven-hundredth repeat of those words when my dad places the last two dishes piled high with steaming vegetables in front of my mom and me. Dad's in a good mood today, all smiles and charm. He must have booked a new account, because Henry Williams doesn't smile for no reason.

Mom passes me a plate that's warm from sitting in the oven. I swear they've taken life advice straight out of a housekeeper magazine. She piles on kale, Brussels sprouts, quinoa, and tofu—the latest craze to get Dad's cholesterol under control. When she plops each item onto my plate, my stomach clenches with the same hollow feeling I had at lunch earlier today. I'm not hungry, but not eating is suspicious. 

Though, I feel like breathing right now is suspicious.

"When is your guidance counselor's meeting, honey?" Mom's voice is sugar-coated honey stashed behind the venomous fangs of a snake.

"Later this week," I say, moving the quinoa around slowly, making an ant hill in the middle of my plate. The grain smells like an old shoe to me, and it squeaks when I move it. I'd rather take ten more pounds of kale over this flavorless want-to-be seed.

"Are you going to talk to them about the engineering courses?" Dad asks.

"Of course."

"And taking AP Chemistry like we talked about?"

I force myself to nod, but I'm dreading AP Chemistry and AP Physics. I can barely handle Honors Chemistry without studying twenty-four seven, and we're only in the first month of the year. And if I have to learn more about thermodynamics and the exothermic process, I might lose my brain.

"Good," he says, beaming. The smile is unnerving. It seems so out of place on him, because I had been getting used to Henry Williams: the stern man who would punish his daughter if she makes a single mistake, because his daughter needs to live the perfect life. It goes without mentioning that Henry Williams would also prefer to have a son over a daughter. "Men are less complicated," he has said on more than one occasion.

My mom shares a coy smile with him, and there's something sickeningly fifties housewife vibe about it, even though she works more overtime than my dad does and is definitely not a housewife. But, she does leave the house at three thirty in the morning so she can be home in time for seven o'clock dinner.

"Your mother and I were thinking about extracurriculars for you this year."

Here it is.

"We thought it might be great for you to join another club. Something that looks good for your college resume, hmm?" My mom sing-songs the last part of the sentence, and I want to vomit.

I'm already in National Honors Society. I'm already volunteering two times a month on Sunday mornings with the local food pantry. I'm already part of Latin Club, which I hadn't wanted to join but dead languages are more impressive, according to Henry Williams anyway. I did the school newspaper for a stint, but when my dad wasn't satisfied with my by-lines, I got forced into Debate Team and the Robotics Club. Doesn't matter that I never participate in any of the meetings, and it also doesn't matter that I hate every single one of them. I'm not interested in science or engineering, but that won't stop Dad from trying.