She cuts her eyes at me. “Not as much as you seem to do.”
Touché.
“You’ve had, what... six, seven girlfriends? Hell, they say you’ve even got a wife now.”
“They say, do they?”
“Yes.”
“Tell me you don’t read that shit, Kennedy. Tell me you don’t actually believe…”
“I don’t know what to believe,” she says. “Not that it matters. Your life, it’s yours. You’ll do whatever it is you want to do. You made that clear a long time ago. But Maddie? She’s what matters. And I can’t have you around her if…”
“I’m not going to hurt her,” I say when she trails off. “I know that’s what you’re afraid of.”
“Yeah, well, didn’t think you’d hurt me, either, but the moment I became an inconvenience…”
I want to tell her it’s different now. I want to tell her that I’ve learned my lesson, that I’ve grown up. I want to tell her that I’ll never make those same mistakes again. I want to tell her she’s never been an inconvenience. I want to tell her a lot of shit, but none of it will make a difference. They’re just words, and I’ve said a lot of words over the years, including a few that have hurt her.
“I’m here,” I say. “I’m sober. And for the record, I’m not married. I’m not sure where they even got that story, but there was no wedding. Most of what they print is bullshit.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“It does,” I argue. “You’re never going to let me see Madison if that’s the kind of man you think I became, if you believe the shit they say about me is real. I mean, I don’t even know what she looks like now. I could pass my daughter on the street and I wouldn’t even recognize her. And that’s my fault. But the shit they print, if that’s what I’m up against? I’m fucked.”
Closing my eyes, I run a hand through my hair, gripping onto the locks as I let out a long exhale. She says nothing, and after a moment I reopen my eyes, seeing the glow of her cell phone lighting up her face.
I start to say something, to tell her I’ll stop bothering her tonight, when her eyes meet mine. She holds the phone out to me. My gaze flickers to the screen.
My heart nearly stops.
It’s a picture of a little girl with big blue eyes, dark hair and chubby cheeks, flashing the brightest smile I’ve ever seen. She’s posing, hands on her hips, head cocked to the side. She’s a spitting image of her mother, fuck, but those eyes are all mine.
“She looks just like you,” I say.
“Yeah, well, she acts like you.”
I smile at that, grabbing her phone.
“There are a few more pictures on there,” she says, “if you want to look at them.”
“You sure?”
She nods.
A few more turns out to be one hell of an understatement. It feels like hundreds as I scan through them. I’m getting a brief glimpse of the time I lost—birthdays, holidays, the first day of school. A flipbook of memories I’ll never have, the what-could’ve-been, the what-should’ve-been, the time I would’ve had if I hadn’t been so fucked up. She looks happy. They look happy, both of them.
I flip to another picture and pause, stumbling upon another familiar face.
Meghan.
“You see Meghan?” I ask, surprised—although, I shouldn’t be. If anybody would be there throughout the years, loyalty unwavering, it would be Meghan.
“All the time,” she says. “She’s babysitting right now.”
“Meghan babysitting? You sure the kid’s still alive?”
She laughs and snatches the phone back, pressing a button so the screen goes dark. “I’ll have you know, your sister’s great with children.”
“My sister,” I mumble. “Don’t let her hear you call her that.”
My sister. Another amend I have to make.
She won’t make it easy.
“On a scale of one to ten,” I say, “how pissed off at me would you say she still is?”
“One to ten? I’d say she’s about a seventy-three.”
I cringe. “Figures.”
“Anyway, I should get going,” she says, standing up from the picnic table. “Need to get home before it gets too late.”
“Did you drive?” I ask, realizing I haven’t seen a car anywhere out here.
“I got dropped off. Figured I'd walk.” She hesitates, looking at me, like she isn’t sure she wants to continue. “I have an apartment.”
“Oh.”
Oh. That’s all I say, like a fucking idiot, as she grabs the shoes from the ground, not bothering to put them on. She takes a few steps away, barefoot, eyes still guarded.
“Can I walk with you?” I ask.
“I can make it there myself.”
“I don’t doubt that, but…” I hesitate. “Do you mind? I’d like to walk with you. Not to be some misogynistic asshole, but I just…”
“It’s fine,” she says. “But you don’t have to.”
“I know.”
We’re dancing around the fact that I want to, that she’s doing me the favor here and not the other way around, but she motions with her head for me to come along, so I shove to my feet and fall in place at her side.
“So, this sponsor of yours,” she says as we start to walk.
“Jack.”
“Jack,” she repeats. “Must be one hell of a guy if he’s kept you clean.”
“I wouldn’t say he’s kept me clean. He helps, but he’s not why I’m sober. You are.”
“Me?”
“And Madison,” I say. “This. That’s what has kept me clean.”
She’s quiet, her face twisted in concentration, like she’s considering my words, but she doesn’t seem to be buying it. After a moment, her footsteps stall. We haven’t even made it out of the park and she’s already stopping.
“What did it?” she asks.
“What do you mean?”
“What makes this time different?”
“I, uh…”
“Most of the stories they print about you might be lies, but I know you’ve been to rehab a few times, I know they’ve held interventions and detoxed you but you went right back to it. And we were here. We’ve been here. That hasn’t changed, so what did?”
“I don’t know,” I admit. “The last time I came here… last year… when your mom died, I wanted to be there for you, but I showed up drunk and I knew you were grieving, and you looked at me like…”
“Like what?”
“Like nothing had ever hurt you as much as me being there did,” I say. “Up until then, I only saw your anger, but that day I saw your fear, like you were afraid of how much more pain I was going to cause you, when I wanted nothing more than to make it all better.”
She starts walking again, her voice quiet when she says, “I wish I could believe you.”
“Yeah,” I mumble. “Me, too.”
“I’m glad, though,” she says. “Whatever did it, I’m glad you’re sober, and I hope you stay that way. For Maddie’s sake, yeah, because she deserves to know her dad, but for your sake, too. I know I was never enough for you, Jonathan, but I hope you find something that is.”
You’re back in Drama Club.
You’ve been back at it for a month.
This is the fourth week in a row you’ve shown up and participated. Julius Caesar bores you, but it’s better than nothing. An addict will take whatever hit he can get. Besides, you find becoming someone else for a while therapeutic.