So, I turned away, resigned to hold on to my secrets longer than I ever thought I would and sought out my dad to say goodbye.
My dad often was in his den, conducting whatever retirement work he still did. Despite purchasing this house a few years ago, the smell of Dad’s den was familiar, comfortable. The feeling, too, lingered no matter where my dad called his office. And it all had to do with the man himself. Growing up, I’d always been a Daddy’s girl. He’d taught me to ride a bike, to change the brakes on my car, to hold a fishing rod, and how to responsibly invest. He was the one who bandaged up my scraped knees, who’d intimidated assholes who leered at me on the beach when I was still a fresh teenager, and who saved me from the mistakes I’d made—ones that had created a ripple effect through my entire life.
James was the apple of everyone’s eye, but I’d always been the apple of my dad’s.
I rapped my knuckles on the French doors that separated Dad’s den from the living room. When he didn’t answer, I assumed he had his headphones on and couldn’t hear me, so I pushed open the door. He stood behind his desk; his head bent as he faced it.
It took him a second to notice my presence, but it was long enough for me to see him smiling down at his phone. Quickly, he dropped it onto his desk and looked at me guiltily.
My stomach bottomed out.
Oh no.
His desk was mere feet from the door; short enough for me to cross the space with just a single stride, so I saw the phone before the papers he hastily tried to cover it with could obscure my vision.
Just like the last time I’d caught my dad with the same expression, I felt that familiar pit in my stomach, gnawing at my stomach lining. I opened my mouth but didn’t say anything because my throat was so full. It was like being upside down on a rollercoaster you didn’t want to ride and unable to scream to get it to stop.
Not again, I thought. Not again.
I swallowed past the pain.
“Seriously, Dad?” Equal parts betrayal and anger echoed in my mouth and I swallowed in an attempt to get the thunder of my pulse in my ears to calm down.
“It’s not…” He couldn’t even finish his sentence. He shoved a hand through his recently dyed hair, ruffling the front of it as I brushed the papers away from his phone and snatched it before he could.
It was a text exchange with someone my dad had named “Robert” in his phone. That was his MO. Give the woman he was talking to a male name to eradicate any suspicion should a notification pop up within eyesight of someone who wasn’t supposed to see—like my mom. Or me.
That pit in my belly turned to an ache as I scrolled through the messages briefly, but long enough to confirm my suspicions, dodging his efforts to take the phone back.
“It’s just a former client,” he said, grasping the phone from one end, unsuccessfully trying to pull it from my hands.
“A former client you exchange selfies with? A client who sends you kissy face emojis? Who tells you they love you and can’t wait to see you again?” I dropped his phone on his desk, wishing I’d thrown it at him instead. “Are you going to tell Mom, or do I have to? Again.”
My dad looked at me with shame and for the briefest of moments, I felt bad for him. Despite my close relationship with my mom, my bond with my dad was always stronger. Or, at least it had been, before I’d seen him kissing another woman a couple years ago in his den, in our last house.
“It was a mistake,” he began, collapsing onto the chair behind his desk, looking like someone had just dropped a one-hundred-pound box onto his lap. “I’m going to end it.”
“No shit,” I said. Rage built up in me. It was a terrible thing, to witness your own hero’s faults, to watch their fall from grace. “Because you’re married. If you don’t want to be married—that’s on you—but don’t drag Mom through this again.” My lower lip quivered. For two decades, I’d believed my parents to be this insanely perfect couple. They’d had their fights—of course. But they were the epitome of married bliss. Holding hands while they watched television, my dad pulling my mom into random slow dances while she cooked, my mom always bringing him coffee in bed when he woke up, him always bringing flowers home for her, and her always going all out for his birthdays and Father’s Days. When that illusion was shattered by witnessing that one kiss with another woman, a lot of my trust in my parents was broken. Though it wasn’t my mom’s fault that my dad stepped out on her, my view of her had shifted from that moment on. My dad’s transgressions irreparably tainted everything I knew about commitment.
I bit my lip to still its quiver. “God, you suck.” It was the only thing I could say, and it didn’t touch the tip of the iceberg of shit I felt.
“Tori,” he said, leading me away from the doors I was about to go back out of. “It was a mistake,” he said again, but his words landed hollowly within me. Like he’d taken my heart and wrung it out until it was just an empty void.
I didn’t want to look at him, and it hurt so terribly. My gaze landed on the well-worn leather sofa—the sofa I’d sat on a decade earlier and shakily revealed my greatest shame to him—a shame I hadn’t admitted to anyone else, not even my mom. A shame that shouldn’t have been mine to have, because I was taken advantage of by someone else.
But I couldn’t look at that couch now without seeing the tinge of shame—mine and my dad’s. Had “Robert” been in this house? Had “Robert” been in this office the same way the other woman had been in his last office, at our old house? Had “Robert” sat on the sofa that I’d spilled tears on at sixteen-years-old?
I could throw up if I thought about it too long.
“I trusted you,” I said to my dad, barely a whisper, and realized belatedly that he’d broken his trust with my mom—not with me. “You broke my heart. And you’re going to break hers all over again.” My eyes warmed and pain stung me where I couldn’t reach. I couldn’t cry. I couldn’t let my mom see me like this again, right before I left.
Why couldn’t my mom be enough for him? She was perfect. What did she lack that my dad sought from another woman’s arms?
I blinked hot tears away.
“Tori…”
I left his office, slamming the door on my way out.
I hated him. I loved him. He was my dad, the man who had conquered my demons and taught me to be strong enough to face them by myself one day. But this demon wasn’t mine—except somehow, I took part ownership in it.
I wanted to confide in someone—but who? James didn’t know about the first time—that was my parents’ decision to keep him out of it. And this was not something I wanted to tell my best friend because it felt gossipy and dirty, and, selfishly, I didn’t want my best friend to ever look at my dad differently than how she did now. Because I knew what it felt like to look at someone you idolized and realize you didn’t really know them after all. And it fucking sucked.
My mom was already outside by my car, on the phone. She laughed, looking as carefree as anyone might if they were blissfully unaware of what was going on with their spouse. This was possibly the worst time for me to deliver this kind of news—right before skipping town—but keeping it from her didn’t sit well either.
“Tori,” my dad said, coming out of his office. “Look, I blocked her, okay?” He showed me his phone, as if that meant anything to me. He could just as easily unblock her the moment I was out the door. “You’re right, I did a terrible thing. I don’t know what’s wrong with me, I…”
I pointed a finger at his face, watching as it shook and clenched my other fingers tightly. “I don’t know what’s wrong with you, either.” I set my jaw and turned to look back out the window at my mom. “I know she doesn’t deserve to go through this with you, again. And she especially doesn’t deserve to hear it from her daughter.” That was the worst of this all. It was bad enough that my mom didn’t know my dad was chatting—and possibly doing more—with another woman, but for her own daughter to have to be the one to tell her for a second time? That made me feel dirty. Gross
. As if I’d also been colored by this betrayal. “You’re an asshole,” I said, but it landed flatly. I couldn’t look at him. I rubbed my eyes, trying in vain to erase what I’d seen.
“I am.” He sighed, and I heard the scrape of his hand over his scruff—it was a familiar sound, one I’d grown up hearing. “I made a mistake.”
That fucking word again. I set my jaw. “It’s not a mistake if you keep doing it. You hid your phone from me when I went into your office. You knew it was wrong, and still you keep doing it.” I clenched my fists, wanting to pound them into his chest—to shake some kind of sense into him.
“We’ll figure this out when you get back, okay? I promise. It will be different.”
But the thing was, it wouldn’t be different. Because I’d always wonder if my dad was doing this shit again. Would I ever not worry about this? Would I ever see him on his phone and not worry that he was doing something shady again?
So, I didn’t say anything. Everything I wanted to say rolled off my brain like an avalanche, and none of it was productive. I had to put on a cheery face for my mom in order to say goodbye before I jumped in the car for my eight-hour drive to Vegas.
“Just be safe, okay?” he said from behind me. “If you need anything, just let me know. I’ll help you, okay?”
It broke my heart. I wanted to be so angry with him, tell him to fuck off, to go to hell, to eat shit and die. But this was my dad. And though the last few years had been difficult to navigate, that didn’t erase the first twenty years where he was my hero, my knight in shining armor. He knocked up my mom while she was still in college, not once but twice, causing her to drop out and devote her life to James and me. And still, Dad had been my hero. What the fuck was wrong with me? “Mom gave up so much for you, you know.”
“I know,” he said. At least he didn’t deny it. “But you’ll be safe, right? No matter what, you’re still my little girl, Tori.”
I didn’t feel like a little girl. I felt like someone wearing pants she didn’t fit into, pasting smiles on her face that she didn’t feel. “It’s not like I’m going to get arrested. Mom already had the ‘be safe’ talk with me. No drugs, no arrests, no marriages.”
He blew out a breath. “Definitely not that last one,” he said with a chuckle, trying so hard to make this feel casual; normal. “I’m not ready for you to grow up that much.”
It irked that he said that. One, because it was as if he was suggesting I wasn’t grown up enough to deal with real-life shit. Except I was, and he’d forced me into some of it. And two, because right at that moment, marriage wasn’t something shiny and fun, something to be excited about. In looking at the one shining example of marriage I’d known, I saw its flaws—its discolorations.
“No worries about that,” I said, pushing the door open without so much as a hug goodbye. “Marriage is bullshit,” I said before the door shut behind me.
I gave my mom a hug by the car, holding onto her a few seconds longer than necessary. “You okay?” she asked, running her hand down my hair. Normally, I hated when she did that and turned my head away to plump my roots back up. But in that moment, I sank in and took comfort in the uncomplicated gesture.
“I’m okay,” I said into her shoulder. While still holding her, I turned so I didn’t have to see my dad standing in the windows. It hurt too much. Would he tell her while I was gone? Would this be the final straw between them? Part of me wanted it to be. I really, really, did. But part of me—the dark, selfish parts—didn’t want to see my family split apart. Then again, had it ever really come back together after my dad’s last transgression?
“Just be safe, okay?” she reminded me when she let go first.
Unable to speak, I just nodded. And then I climbed into my car and began the eight-hour car ride to Vegas.
2
I stared down at my empty drink as a new text message lit up my screen. I didn’t need to read it to know it was the group chat with my best guy friends, but I wasn’t in the right place to reply either. Flipping my phone over, I signaled to the bartender to bring me another greyhound. She was way ahead of me, placing another one of the vodka and grapefruit juice concoctions in front of me the moment my hand was back down.
“Thanks,” I said somewhat sheepishly. “Knew I’d need another one?”
She gave me a knowing smile. “That’s kind of my job.” She threw a towel over her shoulder. “Kitchen’s still open. Want some food to go with that drink?”
I shook my head. “No, I’m fine.” At her look, I pointed one finger upward. “I have a room here. I’m not driving.”
“Okay.” She slid a small wooden bowl toward me and motioned for me to at least grab a few of the pretzels from it. To appease her, I plucked one from the top and gave her a smile that took some effort as I ran my finger over the large salt granules. It was weird to be in my hometown in a hotel. It was the first time I’d ever stayed in a hotel in Vegas, actually. After my mom passed away, I sold her house, bought a place thirty minutes away—closer to the desert. And when I was in town, when I wanted to imbibe and not worry about getting home, I stayed at Will’s.
I knew if I wanted to, I probably could have dropped by his house. It was vacant now, after all. Which was precisely the reason I didn’t want to. I could likely have stayed with Will’s parents, but since I knew they were dealing with more than enough as it was, I had no desire to call them up and impose. And since I very much wanted to have more than one alcoholic drink, getting a hotel made the most sense, though a hotel half an hour from home was a luxury I didn’t often treat myself to.
I rubbed a fist over the eye that regularly watered when I thought of the reason I was here too much. Though I lived thirty minutes outside of Las Vegas, I rarely had reason to venture into the city. This was my first time back in six months, and in the confines of this white marble and black iron-clad hotel, it didn’t feel that welcoming. But I knew that was due to the reason I was here in the first place. Funerals tended to cast a dark cloud over even the brightest places.
My phone buzzed again. I would inevitably need to meet up with my buddies, but for my first night in our old stomping grounds, I wanted to be alone. It was impossible to ignore someone’s absence when you were surrounded by the people who loved them, so being alone was a salve to my soul tonight. We were a tight group of friends and I knew they meant well, but they didn’t know me like Will had. Will knew that I needed space. He respected that. He never pushed. He let me breathe. Which was something I was having more and more trouble with since I’d gotten the news that he’d passed away.
Discarding the forgotten pretzel into my napkin, I picked up my glass. The ice clinked, sending up with it the aroma of grapefruit. Normally, I would observe other people, taking them in as I drank, but tonight I wanted nothing more than to focus on my glass and not my surroundings. I supposed taking the drink in my room would have been smarter, but I knew I was less likely to break down if I was surrounded by strangers. And since my head had been fucking pounding for the last few days, I needed to stay away from solitude as long as I could. How odd that I felt safer in the company of strangers than the company of the friends who knew my late friend.
Will wasn’t just any friend, though. He was my best friend—the one who held my arm when I broke it after doing a trick on my bike. He was the one who gave me all of his Halloween candy when some bigger kids swiped my entire bucket. The one who lied to my mom for me when I snuck out to see a girl in high school—claiming I was at his house. The guy who gave me my first underage beer and who told me ridiculous stories to keep me upbeat as I threw up the fourth and fifth beers I’d stupidly insisted I could handle. He was the guy who dropped everything when my mom died, whose parents swooped in and took care of all the things that were too much for an orphaned young adult to handle. He stayed with me at my mom’s house, helping me pack up the things that were hers. He sat in my car as I visited my dad for the last time, hyping me up to tell my sperm donor exactly what I thought of him thro
ugh the safety of thick prison glass.
Will’s family was my family—the people who watched me walk across the stage and receive my college diploma; whose cheers seemed a million decibels louder than the cheers for everyone that followed me. Will was the one who went with me to my mom’s grave immediately after, still wearing my cap and gown and sat a few dozen feet away as I talked to her. In the background, but waiting for me if I needed him. Again, letting me breathe but never leaving me alone.
I didn’t know how to not need him. How did someone move on from losing their best friend? I knew what it was like to have him by my side, but I didn’t know what it was like to go at this alone.
And his parents. Fuck.
I rubbed the heel of my palm against my watery eye. His parents, saints from above, who treated me like their own—hell, better than their own. They did more for me than most parents do for their own children. And now they were grieving the loss of their vibrant, funny, charismatic son.
I hadn’t reached out to them yet. It had been a year since I last saw them, and I didn’t know how much they knew—about the circumstances prior to Will’s death, about my own estranged friendship with Will over the last six months. I regretted much in my life, but nothing more than those six months of discomfort between Will and me.
Will was always a risk-taker—so much so that maybe he had believed himself immortal, or unsusceptible to injury. But his last trip—creeking—had proved that immortality was still out of reach for even the bravest of humans.
Done with attempting to drown my sorrows, I lifted my hand to ask for the bill, but the bartender was distracted by a group of four women that came through the door. Lowering my hand, I took them in. They were dressed in typical bachelorette party attire—with glowing pink penises hanging from their necks, sashes across their cocktail dresses, and heels that looked like they could serve as a weapon if need be.
One Little Dare Page 2
