He smelled like the interior of a Lexus. The silky fabric of his suit, where my nose mashed against his shoulder, felt like cool liquid. The words “I hate you” crashed through my lips. But his hold only got tighter.

Tentatively, I let my arms wrap around him. And I hugged him back. “I’m just complicated.”

“So was Kori,” he whispered into my hair, sending tingles across my scalp.

I waited in the school office while Mom talked privately with Principal Teasley. She didn’t have bulletproof hair this time. I couldn’t tell if that was a good sign or a bad sign, though. Luckily Mr. K. had already left before she’d gotten there, because now was not the time for a family reunion.

In fact, I thought, seeing Mom’s face when she exited the principal’s office, now seemed like a good time to get the hell out of Dodge.

Oprah might have thought this was the moment when my brick wall was going to crash down around me. And in a way, I was glad it was. There are just some walls that need to come down if you want to be able to see beyond them.

When I got into the Jeep Cherokee, I turned to her. “I know everything. I know about the affair and I know Keith Kitzler is my father,” I said calmly. “But I want to hear your version. Why did you get involved with him at all?”

She reached her hand out to turn the ignition on and stopped. After she took a deep breath, she said, “When we first met, I was sixteen. Dad was sick and Mom couldn’t work full-time. I heard about a job that paid well, but I had to be eighteen. So I got a fake ID. Everyone I worked with thought I was nineteen, and I played it up. I liked pretending I was older and wiser, worldy and womanly. Everything I thought a nineteen-year-old was,” she said with a laugh. “When I met Keith and started seeing him, I was already in way over my head. He told me he loved me and I believed him. I didn’t know he was married, not at first, and when I found out, it was too late. I was already pregnant. But I wasn’t the only pregnant one, and because of that he broke things off with me. I was shocked, hurt. I pretended to date lots of guys, and when I started showing, he didn’t even question if you were his. He was sure you weren’t.”

I closed my eyes, not wanting to hear any more lies. “He told me he asked you.”