Warm tears streamed down my face, but I said nothing. I couldn’t. This was what I was afraid of. No matter what Colton did to me, I didn’t want my family at odds with him. Didn’t want our parents getting caught up in the middle of our problems.
“I know that it has something to do with Colton, and by you not saying anything, you’re making me think the worst...I want to fix things for you, but I can’t do that if you won’t talk to me.”
“I don’t want you to b-be mad at hi-him,” I cried, hugging my arms to my chest.
His face softened, marginally. “I love that boy like my own son, Alex, but you are my daughter, and I’ll be damned if I just sit by and watch you self-destruct. You barely eat. You don’t leave the house anymore but for school or if one of us drags you out...Is he in some kind of trouble?”
His questions were making me dizzy and adding to the stress that was already more than I could handle. It was all too much, and I broke. “You can’t fix this!” I shouted, slamming my fists down onto the table.
“I can try.” His hands covered mine, squeezing gently.
Shaking my head, I looked him right in the eyes and gave him what he wanted, because I was done. And because I had absolutely no fight left in me. “H-h-he doesn’t l-love me back, Daddy,” I cried. “I-I-love him s-so m-much, and he doesn’t l-love me b-back.” The next thing I knew, I was in my father’s arms, crying on his shoulder. It was loud, and it was ugly. But freeing in a way.
I’d never seen my father look so helpless in my life. “I’m so sorry, Allie.”
“I’ll be okay,” I assured him when my tears had dried. “I’m not the first person to suffer a broken heart. Just...give me a little time.”
He nodded, the worry lines on his face seeming to age him ten years.
“Don’t say anything to Mom or his parents, okay? It won’t help anything.”
After my breakdown with Dad, things actually got a little bit better. Having one person who understood my mood swings—who didn’t look at me like I was headed straight for Crazy Town, USA, made me feel a little less alone. But I still missed him. So much.
Thanksgiving break was creeping up quickly, and Colton’s mom was heartbroken because he’d made up some bullshit excuse for why he wouldn’t be able to make it, which translated to he didn’t want to be around me. It was going to be the first Thanksgiving they’d ever spent without their only child, and knowing that it was my fault that he wouldn’t be there was just one more thing weighing me down.
My biggest fear when I wrote that stupid letter was that he wouldn’t feel the same. Never did I imagine he’d be too disgusted to have anything to do with me. So disgusted, in fact, that he’d shunned his own family.
In a moment of weakness, I pulled up his name in my messages, rolling my eyes at the one he’d sent a few months ago about licking some guy’s nipple, and then I broke the promise I’d made to myself.
Alex: Please come home for Thanksgiving. Your mom keeps begging me to talk to you. I promise I’ll make myself scarce. You’re breaking your mother’s heart.
COLTON
“GREAT GAME, FOWLS,” MY buddy Jason said, clapping me on the back of the shoulder on the way to his locker.
“Thanks, man, you too.” We’d just won our last game until after Thanksgiving, which was in just three days, and the reality of being away from my family was really sinking in as all of my teammates discussed their travel plans, most of them leaving tonight.
After reading Alex’s text last week, I’d really started to feel bad about the lie I told my parents. I couldn’t use school or ball as an excuse. At the time, it seemed the only way to get out of spending the holiday at the same table with Alex and Dean was to make other plans. As far as Mom and Dad knew, I was spending Thanksgiving with a girl I’d been dating named Madison at her parents’ house.
But there was no Madison, and I was really spending it home alone, which I was okay with, before that damn text. I knew Alex wouldn’t have messaged me if Mom wasn’t really having a hard time with this. She’d acted fine with it on the phone, but knowing that I was hurting her had me almost ready to hop on a plane. Almost.
You see, there was still the issue of Alex. It may have seemed petty, but I couldn’t go back and pretend that nothing had happened. That she hadn’t ripped my fucking heart out when she left my bed and went running back to his. I was in love with her to the point that it was making me crazy, and I didn’t know how to deal with it. So, I chose not to deal with it at all.
As I was shoving the last of my things into my duffle bag, my phone started to ring. When I saw the name that was lighting up the screen, my heart dropped to the floor.
Mr. Mack hadn’t called my phone since I was still living with my parents, and only ever to get in touch with Alex when we were out together. Something had to be wrong.
“Hello?”
“Long time no see, son.”
I cleared my throat. “Uh, yeah. How’s it going, Mr. Mack?”
“Not too great actually, but that’s nothing for you to be concerned with just yet.”
“Okay.” I laughed, nervously. “What can I do for you, sir?”
“You can stop making my baby cry, Colton, and get your stubborn ass on a plane in...uhhh, three hours.”
“Uh, I—” What the hell was he talking about?
“I know about you and Allie, Colton.”
“Shit.”
“Listen, I’m not calling to blame you for her broken heart. If you don’t love her...Well, then you don’t love her, but you will not treat Alexis or your mother this way, do you understand me?” Her broken heart?
“No, actually I—”
“A real man faces his problems head on, son. He doesn’t hide from them.”
“I’m not hiding.” I was absolutely hiding.
“Great! Well, since you’ve decided in the last five seconds to grow a pair, I’ll forward your itinerary to your email and see you at the airport at two a.m.”
“But—”
“What was that?” he asked, talking over me. “Did I hear, ‘See you at two, Mr. Mack’?”
“See you at two, Mr. Mack.”
He let out an exaggerated laugh. “Atta boy, Colt. We’re gonna make a man outta you yet. See you soon.”
What the hell had just happened? I didn’t understand half of what was just said, but apparently, I had a plane to catch.
I got to the baggage area a little after two, and sure enough, Alex’s dad was sitting on a bench, waiting to take me home. He’d never made me this nervous before. Something had changed between us. I guess a man finding out you’d had sex with his daughter shifted things.
Rubbing my sweaty palms against my shirt, I walked over to meet him.
“All set?” he asked, rising from his seat. It’d been just a few months since we’d last seen each other, but the change in him was noticeable. He’d aged. Maybe it was just the late hour, but he seemed stressed. He’d always struck me as a man without a care in the world.
“Yeah, I didn’t check any bags.”