The conversation ceases for a moment. Long enough for her father to request a refill. Long enough for the waiter to bring me my own refill, and long enough for me to get up and go to the bathroom, try to calm myself down and then return to my seat without strangling the man behind me.
“You make me want to swear off men forever,” she says.
Hell, her father makes me want her to swear off men forever. If men are really as shallow as this one, all women should swear off men forever.
“That shouldn’t be a problem,” her father says. “I’ve only known you to go on one date, and that was over two years ago.”
And that’s when all reason goes out the window.
Does he not have any idea what today is? Does he not have one single fucking clue what his daughter has been through emotionally in the past two years? I’m sure she spent a good year recovering, and I can tell just by the few seconds I looked in her eyes that she doesn’t have a single ounce of confidence in her. And here he is commenting on the fact that she hasn’t dated since her accident?
My hands are shaking, I’m so pissed. I think I might even be angrier than the night I caught his car on fire.
“Well, Dad,” she says, her voice strained. “I don’t really get the same attention from guys that I used to get.”
I’m sliding out of the booth, unable to stop myself. But I’ll be damned if I allow this girl to spend one more second without someone defending her in a proper way.
I’m sliding into the seat next to her.
“Sorry I’m late, babe,” I say, wrapping my arm around her shoulders.
She stiffens beneath my arm, but I keep going. I press my lips to the side of her head, unintentionally taking in the floral scent of her shampoo. “Damn L.A, traffic,” I mutter.
I reach for her father’s hand and before I say my name, I wonder if he’ll recognize it somehow, having known my mother. She changed back to her maiden name a few years after my father’s death, so he may have no idea who I am. I hope. “I’m Ben. Benton James Kessler. Your daughter’s boyfriend.”
Not a single flash of recognition registers in his expression. He has no idea who I am.
Her father’s hand falls into mine and I want to yank him across the table and punch his teeth in. I probably would if I didn’t feel her grow even more tense beside me. I lean back and pull her against me, whispering in her ear. “Just go with it.”
It’s as if a lightbulb goes off in her head at this very second, because the confusion on her face turns into delight. She smiles affectionately at me, leaning into me, and she says, “I didn’t think you’d make it.”
Yeah, I want to say. I didn’t think I’d be sitting here, either. But since I can’t possibly make your life worse on this date, the least I can do is try to make it a little bit better.
Fallon
I make a new pile with the pages I’ve already read. I stare down at the manuscript in disbelief. I know I should be angry that he’s lied to me for so long, but being in his head is somehow justifying his behavior to me. And not only that, but it’s also justifying my father’s behavior.
Ben is right. Now that I look back on that day, I can see that my father wasn’t entirely to blame. He was expressing his opinion over my career, which every parent has the right to do. And even though I disagreed with him and the way he delivered it, he never was the best at communication. Besides, I obviously had it out for him as soon as he sat down at the booth. He went into defense mode, I was in attack mode, and things just went south from there.
I need to remember that there’s more than one way people show love. And even though his way and my way are completely opposite, it’s still love.
I go to flip to the next chapter, but a few pieces of notebook paper fall out of the section between chapters five and six. I set the pages of the manuscript down and pick up the letter. It’s another note written by Ben.
Fallon,