I kicked the box full of dolls toward him.
He picked up one and held it up, grinning like crazy.
Like crazy.
“Why did you take the heads off?” he asked, bemused. Never angry. Mommy would never know.
“They look better that way.”
Daddy nodded. “They sure do.” He crooked his finger and beckoned me closer.
I slowly walked towards him. When I was standing right in front of him, he leaned down and whispered. Close to my ear.
“Sometimes people look better that way too.”
Then he was laughing.
And I was laughing.
Because Daddy was right.
Some people would look better that way.
“I wished you had come to see me sooner, Layna,” Daddy scolded. Treating me like a child.
His child.
“I couldn’t,” I admitted.
Daddy nodded. He understood. He always understood.
“You weren’t ready.”
“No, I wasn’t.”
“But you are now.”
Was I?
My father tapped his bottom lip with his finger. Thinking. Thinking. “Do you remember the house? Outside of town. Off the highway and down the gravel path just past Sparrow Lane?”
The house.
As if I could ever forget the house.
The house sat off in the distance. A tomb…waiting.
I nodded.
Down the gravel road. Dark on both sides. Waylon Jennings singing softly as we drove into the night.
“Gonna get my girl a star…” Daddy crooned and I laughed.
“Do you know?” he asked, and I stared at him.
Did I know?
I knew so many things.
“It’s yours,” he whispered, covering the end of his phone with his hand.
“What?” I frowned.
“The house. It’s yours.”
“Why?”
My father grinned and wagged his finger. “You know why. Don’t ask questions when you already have the answers. Hold onto your words until you need them, Layna.”
“It’s mine.”
Daddy grinned brighter. Wider.
“I gave it to you a long time ago.”
“Cain, your time’s up,” the guard barked.
And then I saw it. The regret. My father’s face fell and he became the soft, tender man of my childhood.
The one with whom I shared all my secrets.
Secrets that he kept.
Just as I had always kept his.
“Will you come back to see me?” he asked before hanging up.
I didn’t respond.
The guard took the phone from his hand and slammed it down.
I would never have answered him anyway.
He already knew.
“Are we going home?” Elian asked after I came out of the prison.
The guard had taken Daddy away. He had looked back just before the door closed and he grinned. His mouth moving over silent words.
Words I could feel everywhere.
I love you, Lay.
“Layna? Did you hear me?” I had been sitting in Elian’s car, staring straight ahead of me.
Not really here.
I was still there.
“It’s yours.”
“What?”
“The house. It’s yours.”
He had given me the house.
The house.
Where it all began.
For me.
It was the start of it all.
“Are you ready to go back to Brecken Forest?” Elian asked.
Back.
Back.
No.
“Can we go somewhere else first?”
I could barely hear my voice. I couldn’t stomach the words falling. Falling. Falling from my lips.
Was I going to take Elian there?
To the place where our worlds would collide?
Completely.
Totally.
Finished.
Elian was touching me. Hands in my hair. Fingers digging into my neck. Pulling me. Yanking me. Wanting me closer. I didn’t want him to touch me.
Not right now.
I pushed him away. Away.
Not right now.
“What did he say to you?” Elian asked. Scared. Worried.
“He left me the house,” I whispered. Falling. Falling. From my lips.
“The house?” Elian was confused. I wasn’t looking at him. He wanted my eyes. He wanted to see for himself that I was okay.
Was I okay?
“The house,” I repeated. “Can we go there?”
There was silence. Impenetrable silence. Nothing. No sound.
“Tell me about your stars.”
And I had. I had told him about one.
One star.
One that didn’t mean anything.