To Tell An Altswood Lie (The Altswood Saga #3)

Chapter 25 - Departure

Chapter 25 - Departure

Six Months Later

I swiped the sweat from my forehead, surveying the near empty bedroom. The morning light filtered through my open window, illuminating the streams of dust that were slowly settling now that my whirlwind movements from one end of the room to the other had stopped.

Most of my clothes and essentials were finally sorted messily into two large suitcases. My personal furniture—my lamps and my beanbags and my coat hangars—were tucked away in cardboard boxes, which Dad would ship over later.

I couldn't believe that I had had the entire summer to pack, and I didn't do it until the very day we left. It wasn't because I was dreading our departure or anything—in fact, I had been so excited for this day that I had started a countdown on my phone. Apparently, I was just a person prone to procrastination when there were no high-stakes.

With an exhausted sigh, I collapsed in the chair at my desk. I couldn't believe that I had actually managed to get everything packed in a few hours.

"Knock knock."

I turned around, seeing Dad hovering at my doorway. He frowned at the boxes.

"Loosh, why do you own so much stuff?"

I grinned, lolling my head back on the chair. "Personal belongings are fundamental to a person's growth and development, Dad."

He walked over to a box and lifted the untaped edge. Dad brought out an encyclopaedia, his eyebrows raised a mile high.

"Really?" he asked. "I have never seen you read this. Why do you need to take it with you to college?"

I shrugged. "It'll make me look smart?"

With a dull expression, Dad set the encyclopaedia back on my bookshelf firmly. "No."

"Fine," I sighed. "If you insist."

At least I wasn't hauling over a box of wigs. Most of them had been donated, but a few of my favourites remained in my closet, for memory's sake.

"Are you ready to go then?" Dad asked. "Remember if we miss the car-ferry, the next one comes in a week."

"Almost, I swear." There was just one more thing: I found a tube of lipgloss in my drawer and leaned into the mirror.

Dad rolled his eyes, but his amused expression didn't fade. As I smoothed down my hair, he walked over to the mirror too, and through the reflection, I watched as he set his chin onto my head—his scruffy beard tickling my scalp. Before I could pull a face, Dad reached over and pinched my cheeks like I was eight instead of eighteen.

"My tiny baby," he cooed, ignoring my weird look. "So grown up."

"Yes, I am the epitome of adulthood," I said. Only since my cheeks were all stretched out, it sounded more like, "Yeh, I am eh epitomeh of adulehoo."

I batted Dad's hands away, though it didn't stop him from looking at my reflection like he was elsewhere.

"Your mother would be so proud," he said quietly. "Not just of how capable you've shown yourself to be. Not just of how strong you've been for the past year." He wound a finger around a lock of my dark hair, which I had been attempting to grow but always got chopped back into a bob every time I was bored. "She'd be proud that you've managed to let go."

I swallowed thickly, blinking fast.

"Letting go is a bit of a stretch, don't you think?" I joked. "I haven't stopped swallowing pills on a daily basis."