"Yes, much to my worry, honey," Daddy said. "Why do you want to live the way I had to? Dirt in my hands, the sun on my neck, and sometimes my father having to choose between paying the electric bill and paying for food. I just don't want you to live like that."
I smiled and came over, sitting in between them, taking both of their hands. "Daddy, that's not going to happen. Your hard work has put me through GT, even if you never give me another dime in your entire life. You've put a roof over my head, food in my belly, and most importantly, love in my heart. After Mom died, you worked hard, but you also loved me hard too. And Brittany, I have to say sorry too. I know you were trying to help me, and I'm not trying to demean who you are or where you come from, but it's just not me. I'm sorry if I couldn't appreciate what you were trying to do."
Daddy squeezed my hand and smiled. "It's hard to believe that my little girl’s grown up so much. I guess part of me still thinks of you as the little girl who used to want to do coloring books and would mess around in the old workshop with me."
"Part of me still is. But I've grown up, too. I know part of me is still a bit jealous that I have to share my daddy with another woman, and again, I'm sorry for that, Brittany. I feel like I haven't always been fair to you about it."
Brittany smiled and squeezed my other hand. "Abby, I think you did more today than anything I've seen to show me that, while you may not exactly fit in with some of the country-club set, you've got more than enough moxie to be able to stand on your own two feet. I'll be honest, I don't think I could have done what you've done over the past few years when I was your age. And one other thing."
"What's that?" I asked, somewhat stunned by her words.
"I love you very much, dear."
I blinked, smiling as tears threatened my eyes again. "I don't say it enough, but I care for you too, Brittany. You've got some ideas that I may not agree with, but you love Daddy, and that’s most important to me. And if you don't mind, I’ll take some of that milk."
Brittany smiled and nodded. “How about we make it chocolate?”
* * *
Despite the improvement in my relationship with Daddy and Brittany, life refused to get back to normal. I was glad that classes were nearly finished for the semester, because I was too caught up in my own drama to be able to focus on tests or papers or anything like that. Still, I had finals coming up in a month, and I knew that when those rolled around, either I had to get my act together, or else my GPA was going to drop. With grad school admissions coming up soon, I didn't want anything to put my chances of getting accepted in danger.
The problem was, I couldn't get Dane out of my head. When I woke up in the mornings, his name was on my lips more often than not, and I hated myself for it. How could I still be obsessed and thinking about this man who was a killer? Was I really that hard up for a relationship, or was there something wrong in my head? I thought about those sick, twisted women who would write convicted murderers in prison and supposedly fall in love with them. Was that what was happening to me?
He said there was more to the story, the little voice in my head would say whenever I thought about him. He sounded so genuine when you were running out of the apartment.
An apartment that wasn't his, I reminded the little voice. An apartment that he was only crashing in because he was a convicted killer who didn't have a job, and probably didn't even have two dimes to rub together.
You mean like Daddy didn't have when he was growing up? the voice asked again. And just how did he turn out?
"That's different," I muttered to myself.
"What'd you say?"
I started, looking up, and realized that Shawnie had spoken to me. We were sitting outside a pizza joint near the GT campus, where she'd invited me to grab some lunch with her before her afternoon lab class. "Sorry, Shawnie. Just talking to myself."
"You've been doing that a lot lately,” she said, taking a sip from her Coke. "People are going to think you've gone crazy."
I shook my head, wondering just how close to the truth she was. I took a deep breath to force my mind off the subject and looked over at my friend. "They already know I'm crazy, Shawnie. About the only sane thing I do is hang out with you."
"My case in point," Shawnie said with a laugh. She was wearing her typical campus clothing, a pair of jeans and a Georgia Tech t-shirt, the G and the H poking out a lot farther than the center of the shirt. If I was to be accused of being curvy, Shawnie was nearly a cartoon caricature come to life. She took it all in stride though, and more than once had shut down a horn dog that tried to ease up on her with a lame 'hey, shawtie' come on. She liked her men intellectual and cultured, something that was pretty hard to find around campus. "Seriously, though, is everything okay? You've been off for the past few weeks."