Suffer Love by Ashley Herring Blake Page A

wedged between him and a soy sauce–stained wall.
    â€œHow fare my two favorite girls?” Dad asks as he sits down. His aftershave and that warm car smell waft up my nose. “I’m glad you’re joining us, Katherine.”
    â€œThanks for letting me come, Mr. St. Clair,” Kat says, and I stick out my tongue. She kicks me under the table.
    â€œYou’re always welcome.” Dad turns to me and smiles. “Hi, sweetheart.”
    â€œHi.”
    After a few minutes of silent menu perusing, the server—a guy named Niko with indecipherable tattoos running laps up his arms—comes over to take our order. I list the maki rolls I want while Dad orders nigiri, the kind of sushi that’s just a big blob of raw fish over rice. Ugh. I prefer my barely dead seafood hidden in avocado and cream cheese. Kat, true to her two-year-old commitment to fleshless eating, orders vegetable rolls and a salad with that yummy ginger dressing.
    Kat and Dad chat about school while I grunt acknowledgments and add “Uh-huh” and “It’s a hard class” every now and then.
    When our food comes, Dad launches into a new topic. “So, Kat, how would you like to help us with a kite for the festival this coming spring?”
    My stomach balls up like a piece of discarded paper. “Dad. Let’s not do this here. Please?”
    â€œDo what?”
    â€œI already told you I don’t want to do the festival. Kat doesn’t want to either.”
    â€œSure I do,” Kat the Betrayer says. “I loved it when you guys used to make those things.” She pops a huge piece of rice and avocado into her mouth. “You’d really let me help?”
    â€œOf course,” Dad says. I know he’s only offering because he thinks if he can rope Kat into it, I’ll follow suit.
    â€œKat, you don’t have to,” I say, desperately trying to communicate with my eyebrows.
    â€œI know that. I want to. I’ve always wanted to make a kite and learn how to fly it. It sounds fun.”
    â€œIt is.” Dad’s eyes are alight. “It’s beautiful. When she was little, Hadley didn’t even care about trying to fly our kite. She’d just lie in the grass, watching all those colors dancing in the sky.” He nudges me with an elbow. “It’ll be fun, Had.”
    â€œNo, it won’t. It’ll be pointless and depressing and I don’t want to do it.”
    Dad leans away from me and sighs. He sets his chopsticks on his plate and wipes his mouth with his napkin. “If you ladies will excuse me for a moment.”
    I get up and let him out, careful not meet his eyes. I sit back down and start lining up my remaining rolls by size.
    Once Dad disappears into the bathroom, Kat leans forward, whisper-yelling. “God, Hadley. Will you ease up?”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œYou’re doing it again. I’d rather be getting a cavity filled right now.”
    â€œWhat am I doing?”
    â€œYou seriously don’t realize how bitchy you’re being? It’s just a stupid kite festival.”
    â€œI’m not trying to be a bitch,” I say, and it’s the truth. When it comes to my dad trying to bond with me, there’s a lot I can put up with. It’s not hard to fake my way through a meal or a movie or a poetry reading. But the Kite Festival is different. It’s my childhood. It’s his strong hand over mine on the tail of a kite. It’s Dad and me hunkered over a kite in the making, night after night, agonizing over every little detail. I can’t just go back to that place. Once something breaks, you can never put it back together like it was. There will always be cracks and glue stains and uneven surfaces.
    â€œCould’ve fooled me,” Kat says, pulling soda through her straw.
    â€œI’m not. I just don’t like pretending to feel something I don’t.”
    She nods, but her expression remains