“Yes, but no. I want you to know that I loved being your father. It was everything I hoped. Raising you into the young man you are? It’s the best thing I’ve done. And if it ends before I want it to, I’m okay with that. You calling me ‘Dad’ made me proud every day. I didn’t give up a thing that was worth more than being your father. And Phin. Just so you know. You can call me Uncle Jerk to my face or behind my back. I’ll always think of you as my son.”
He was bowed over his food, so I couldn’t see his face. A tear dropped to his plate, and I thought I was going to have to carry him out on another crying jag.
“Phin?”
He grabbed his glass of Thai iced tea and downed half of it. His face was red and slick with tears and sweat.
“Kid,” I said, “they call it crying tiger for a reason.”
He coughed and took another piece of meat. “I got this.”
He chewed and swallowed. I’d had crying tiger from this restaurant, and it was authentic in ways one had to suffer through to appreciate. “You might start hallucinating.”
“Maybe it’ll trigger puberty.” He choked on his words, and I laughed. The waiter, as if seeing the white kid deal with a fire in his face, brought a bowl of iced cucumbers and cabbage.
I ripped off a cooling cabbage leaf and handed it to him. He stuffed it in his mouth and sucked, chewed, swallowed, and went for more crying tiger.
“I have an idea,” he said before he ate the next flamethrower.
“We switch plates? I went through puberty already.”
“Better. You go to Vegas.” He ripped off a cabbage leaf and put it on his plate. “While you’re not here, I’ll explain to all my friends what happened. This way, you don’t have to, like, be embarrassed, and they’ll tell their parents whatever they want.” He used chopsticks to put a few pieces of meat into the cabbage leaf.
“I don’t think so.”
He rolled the meat up in the leaf. Clever. I was as proud of the way his brain worked as if he were my own. “By the time you get back,” he said, “it’ll all be over.”
He ate the rolled-up crying tiger, and I watched him chew.
Go to Vegas. See Emily. Share a bed. Start something with her. Something real. Something happy. Something completely distracting that could leave Phin exposed without me.
“I have reasons I don’t travel. One: I’m not leaving you.”
“You could take me.”
“I can’t watch you when I’m working. Next time.”
“Really?” His face lit up from excitement or chili. Possibly both.
“Really. And two, I hate hotels. And airplanes. And long drives.”
He took a big bite of his rolled-up meat and chewed. He handled it all right. Just a little wetness in the corner of his eyes.
“You gotta live a little, Dad.”
He sucked down a third of his iced tea without mentioning that he’d called me Dad.
CHAPTER 54
EMILY
I didn’t know how to worry about someone. I’d known only how to read worry in other people’s faces, and that worry usually had to do with me.
After seeing the FOR SALE sign on Carter’s house, I had to cover with Fabian, so I continued the way I’d said we were going. I sent him left, then right to St. James.
In the air outside an open door to a gym, I heard Darlene’s voice singing. She sounded like unconditional love. I knew she had the gift of making every person who heard her feel as if she were singing just for him or her. I hadn’t understood the truth of that until “This One Time” played in an elementary school gym.
“Stop.”
He pulled over by a school attached to the church. The gym had an adult aerobics class happening. I pretended I needed to attend and left Fabian to watch the door. I sneaked into the line, but after a few moves I went to the back of the room and sat on the floor with my back to the wall.
I clutched my phone.
I didn’t know whom to call. The music pumped and throbbed with high-energy optimism. I’d never felt so distant from anything. The dance moves. The tempo. Someone else’s enthusiasm. I knew how it felt, but I didn’t know how to feel it.
Darlene was days from starting a tour. She obsessed over every single detail and had no room for anything personal. I couldn’t call her. She was incapable of giving me her attention.
Simon flipped everything off as drama and went for fake cheer. I didn’t need cheering up; I needed release, and not through dance. I’d tried that. Moving my body made me feel better, but I didn’t want to feel better. I wanted to feel right, and all I felt was wrong. I must have done something wrong. Maybe it was my past. Maybe it was me. Maybe Carter knew I loved him and he got scared. Maybe it had nothing to do with me at all, but I was nothing to him. Not worth a call or a check-in to say, “Hey, I’m moving. It’s been fun.”
I watched the ladies dance to Darlene’s music. I could do this. If they could do it, I could.
All I had to do was get up and let the dance take me away. Dance was a reset button. An end to the loop of self-loathing. This wasn’t my church and it wasn’t my class. I wasn’t dressed for aerobics, but I got in the line and danced like no one was watching.
I went back home sweaty and mentally clear. Fabian locked me in my tower and went home to his life. I packed for Vegas, going through the motions of folding, rolling, sorting. I had expensive leather luggage in a cheerful pink. My parents had bought it for me when I went to college. It was wonderful, high-quality, high-end, and hateful. The color was like a slap in the face, and the monograms were a reminder that I was the same girl I’d always been.
Traffic went by outside, and I listened for a car to stop by my house. Listened for footsteps. For the difference between a cracked twig underfoot and the clicking of the wind. My attention stretched to the edges of the property. My muscles itched to move, but I couldn’t dance the bags packed. I had to live with this insecurity.
Dancing made me feel safe. Dancing and Carter.
Grey jumped on the bed, tucked her feet under her, and wiggled herself comfortable in my duffel bag. I shooed her off, so she settled into the pile of underwear I’d set out.
“Crap,” I said. “I can’t leave you alone here.”
She closed her eyes slowly and opened them with deliberation.
“I have a cat-killing ex-boyfriend, and who’s going to feed you?”
She yawned. It was my problem. I’d agreed to take care of her. Somehow.
“Carter,” I said. “He found you. He can help with you.”
I scooped her up before she could run away.
CHAPTER 55
EMILY
I wasn’t supposed to leave the tower after lockup. That was the rule, and I was starting to hate the rules. I was starting to think the rules that kept me safe kept me from living. Until Carter made me feel safe, I hadn’t felt out of danger.
If I could see him for half a second, maybe I’d feel less vulnerable.
I could have texted him. I could have called. I could have sent a message through a mutual friend. I could have taken a later flight and spent the morning finding a pet babysitting place. I didn’t know what I thought I was doing. His house had been dark the last time I’d passed it, and the FOR SALE sign meant he could have left already.