“He used to call me baby doll,” she said between sobs. “When I was little. He called me that all the time, when he wasn’t yelling.”
I was seething. I knew it would be difficult for Kalli to talk to her father, knew it would upset her, but I was sick and tired of watching Kalli cry. I was tired of bad things happening to Kalli, tired of Kalli crying because she was hurting. I didn’t want her to hurt anymore. And the worst part was, I couldn’t take the pain away. I couldn’t fix this for her, even though I desperately wanted to. All I could do was hold her while she cried and that made me feel entirely useless.
“Kal, he’s not worth all these tears.”
“I know,” she said, and I could tell she was trying to contain her emotions. “His voice just caught me off guard, and then he called me that, and I kind of lost it.”
“Are you sure you want to see him?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know what I want.” Her eyes met mine and she looked lost. I brought her forehead to my lips, kissed her gently, and then laid back down, bringing her with me.
“You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to. Seriously. Saturday comes and you decide you don’t want to see him, I’ll go down there and tell him to take a hike. You’re in control here. You get to make all the decisions. You tell me what you want, what you need, and I’ll make it happen.”
“Okay,” she whispered.
“What do you need, Kal?” I needed her to give me something, I needed to take care of her, to make it better somehow.
“I just need you to hold me.”
I sighed against her. “I can do that.” So I did.
Chapter Eighteen
With Riot by My Side
Kalli
To say I was nervous would have been a drastic understatement. In fact, nervous, as a word, didn’t cover the enormity of what I was feeling that Saturday as I waited inside a coffee shop to potentially see my father twenty years after he’d walked out on me.
The entire week had been nothing short of mind-numbingly slow. I had more than enough time to think about what would happen on Saturday, more than enough time to mentally freak out about it, but by Thursday I was starting to get a grip. By Thursday, I had to. I watched Riot worry about me, worry about his sister, and I saw the toll it was taking on him. Eventually, I just had to tell myself whatever happened, happened. There wasn’t anything I could do about it, so I had to push the anxiety to the back of my mind and be present in the moment, present with Riot, okay with Riot, so that he could be okay too.
But all that went out the window on Saturday as I sat in that coffee shop. There was nothing I could say to myself, no nonsense I could slowly repeat in my mind to calm myself down. I just had to ride the wave. And it was easier with Riot by my side.
I couldn’t miss him when Kevin finally came into the coffee shop. I hadn’t seen him since my seventh birthday, but he looked exactly the same, just older. His hair was still the same blond color mine was, and his face was still the same shape as mine. He walked in and I watched as his blue eyes, which matched mine, swept the coffee shop. When they landed on me, his recognition was instantaneous. He knew me just as immediately as I knew him. So, there was that.
Our eyes locked, and I didn’t know what his heart was doing, but mine was thundering so loud in my chest I was sure he could hear it across the noisy coffee shop chatter. We stared at each other for a long moment, neither of us moving, but when he did, it was to say something to someone behind him. Then he started walking toward me, and the person he’d spoken to started to follow, and then, my life changed.
It was as quick as a light switch flipping, or as rapid as the wings of a hummingbird. It happened and I would never be the same.
Following my father was a girl who looked exactly like me.
My throat went dry, my jaw slackened, and my heart, which had previously been hammering away in my chest, simply stopped beating.
Kevin came to our table and the younger version of me stopped right by his side, and both sets of eyes were trained on me as though I was going to give them the secret to eternal life.
“Kalli,” he finally said, half smiling and half looking as though he were going to lose his breakfast. “I can’t believe I’m looking at you. You’re beautiful.”
Riot looked between the two of us, and I couldn’t manage to say a word, so he piped in with, “Why don’t you take a seat.” Kevin looked at Riot gratefully, then took the chair directly across from me, while his blonde counterpart took the chair across from Riot.
“I can’t believe you’re here. The entire drive up I thought for sure we’d get here and you wouldn’t show. I couldn’t blame you, honestly, but I was sure I’d be stood up.” He was talking rapidly, words falling from his mouth almost quicker than I could comprehend them. But as much as he was saying, as many words as he had for me, I had none yet for him.