The Capo’s Daughter Needs No Permission Chapter 08
In the school office, Ms. Albright looked at the campus work-study application I’d submitted.
“You’re leaving so soon?”
“The teachers wanted to take you out for a celebratory dinner. You could at least leave tomorrow.”
I shook my head.
The long-distance bus to California had a discount today.
I didn’t hold any official position in the Ferraro Family. As an adult, I could legally refuse to let my father arrange my life in the name of protection.
Westbridge had offered me a dorm room and an assistantship in the network lab. The sooner I checked in, the sooner I could start getting paid—and the sooner I could separate my life from the Vitale family’s finances.
Ms. Albright didn’t try to persuade me again.
She handed me a paper bag filled with documents and food.
“Eat this on the bus. Don’t skip meals just to save money.”
Once I was outside the school gates, I switched my phone back on.
Dozens of messages from the family chat flooded my screen.
My father was demanding to know why I was trying to embarrass him in front of outsiders.
Marco was accusing me of forgetting the rules the second I got good grades.
My mother started by calling me disobedient and ended by asking where I was.
It was the first time I hadn’t told them.
Before every parent-teacher conference, concert, school play, and reading competition, I used to remind them over and over of the time and place.
Ava’s classroom was only one room down from mine.
And yet, somehow, they always managed to find her and miss me.
Sometimes they said the driver went to the wrong building.
Sometimes they said my father suddenly needed them to accompany Ava to some Family event.
After years of that, I had stopped expecting the auditorium doors to ever open for them.
I raised my hand and flagged down a cab.
As it pulled away from the curb, another car screeched to a halt at the school gate behind me.