WILLOW
I STARED DOWN at the little white stick and shook it as if that would really change the result.
This could not be happening.
Positive.
Pregnant.
I was positively pregnant.
There was no doubt about it.
I had effectively ruined my life and that of my baby. I could just add it to the list of things I had ruined in the last four years, including my only true chance at love.
When I decided to drop out of school, I had no direction. I figured if I couldn’t pursue my dreams there was no point in trying at all so I packed up my things while, in the back of my mind, I knew there was nowhere for me to go. I couldn’t show up to my mother’s home a college dropout. She would be even less accepting of my failure to finish school than she was of my dream. So I did what I had never been brave enough to do before. I found my father.
He wasn’t particularly hard to find. My mother had never bothered to hide exactly who he was or where he lived. She’d even gone so far as to give me a paternity test she illegally managed to have taken without his consent. It’s almost as if she needed me to hate him as much as she did.
Ironically, the only person I hated in the end was her.
I resented her.
I mourned the loss of a real mother-daughter relationship.
Six months later, I accepted for what it was and always will be only to realize I was too late.
When my mother couldn’t get her way with me, she did the unforgivable and gave Pepé away to an animal shelter three towns away. I didn’t find out until three months after arriving in Seattle when Buddy finally came home and grilled her about him.
I hated her for what she did but not as much as I did for leaving him behind. I still had no idea what became of him. He was six years old and reaching the end of his life span and I would never get to say goodbye.
My father had done all he could to break me out of the depression the loss of Pepe caused but to no avail. Sadly, my father and I had no real connection. I could tell he cared for me as I did him but a part of me felt as if it were too late to cultivate a bond expected between a father and daughter. After nearly four years of trying, we’d failed but I couldn’t deny he’d been supportive ever since I showed up on his doorstep uninvited.
The only hiccup had been when he attempted to marry me off to a business associate’s son. He felt it was his right and duty since I wasn’t enrolled in school. After his attempt to play matchmaker, I convinced him to find me a position and so he did as an assistant at my fake father in law’s firm. There I met Thomas, my enforced intended, and we became good friends. However, that solution lasted only about three years when my father’s insistence became a demand. Everyone had been on board except me.
I knew I had to do something and so I ran.
I just wish I could have brought myself to run without saying goodbye.
I didn’t hear the knock on the door at first, but when my name was called, I snapped out of my daze, washed my hands, and left the bathroom. I opened the door and found Thomas waiting on the other side.
After Dash had kicked me out of his life, I returned to my mother’s house and spent the next week wallowing in self-pity and shame until I couldn’t take my mother’s constant nagging and attempts to make me feel worse about myself.
Luckily, my father accepted me with open arms… and a stipulation.
I had to give a relationship with Thomas a try.
A real relationship.
I agreed knowing my heart would never be at risk again. I had left it back in Nevada, discarded on the kitchen floor where Dash had crushed it.
I couldn’t say I blamed him. He had been right about everything, including me. He gave me no less than what I expected after what I’d done.