Miles reaches across the desk and curls one hand around my wrist, running his thumb over my veins. “I’m sorry. I should’ve waited to tell you.”
I can’t help a snort. “No, really, Miles. It’s better that I know now.”
Otherwise I would’ve kept waiting for him to show up.
Waiting, waiting, waiting.
“You should get to work,” I say.
I don’t want to be seen like this.
I want to be left alone with my embarrassment and hurt.
In the end, it was relatively easy to let go of Peter, to accept his actions as proof of the truth: that our relationship, our life together, his feelings for me were never quite what I’d thought they were.
And I stopped longing for him when I accepted this, because how could I miss someone who didn’t exist?
So why can’t I seem to do the same thing with my father? Why can’t I stop missing the dad I never had?
Why is he this constant dull ache in my heart?
I knew he wouldn’t change. But a part of me kept hoping I had changed enough that he couldn’t hurt me, or that this new iteration of me would be the one worth sticking around for.
That I’d fixed whatever’s so broken in me that I can’t be loved.
I clear my throat. “Go to work, Miles. I’m okay.”
Fine.
Fine.
Fine.
You can be fine.
His fingers loosen. He steps back. “I called off. I thought you’d . . .” he trails off.
“I don’t need you to babysit me,” I snap, then try to soften my voice: “Trust me, this isn’t anything new. Please go.”
He studies me for a long beat. Then he leans back from the desk, letting his hands slide clear of it. “Yeah. Got it.”
And then he’s gone.
At least this time, I was the one to say goodbye first.
When I get home, Miles is in his room on the phone, his voice raised in frustration, almost brittle.
“I don’t care,” he says. “You shouldn’t have done that.”
His voice drops to an indistinct murmur, then falls silent. I realize I’ve been stalled in the hallway, eavesdropping, only when his bedroom door swings open and I’m busted.
He draws up short.
My chest aches at the sight of him, so scruffy, so messy, so familiar. I want to hide from him, and I want to be held by him. I want to apologize for earlier and I want to never talk about it again.
“Hi,” I scrape out.
“Hi,” he says.
A laden moment passes.
“I still don’t want to talk,” I say.
He nods.
“I don’t even want to think,” I go on. What is there to think about? My dad is exactly who he’s always been, and I’m who I’ve always been too.
For just one night, I’d like to pretend. I’d like to be someone else. Not the uptight one, or the damaged one, or the one who gets left.
Not the one waiting, or poring over Dad’s note like it’s an old treasure map and if I can just interpret the faded scribbles, everything will make sense.
I swallow hard. “Will you take me somewhere?”
Miles’s brow lifts in surprise. “Where do you want to go?”
I swallow hard. “Just . . . somewhere I’ve never been.”
