by Maya Hughes
“It’s scary shit, having someone love you that much. It’s scary feeling like you don’t deserve it, and if it goes away, then what does that mean about you?” He dropped down to the floor with his back against the desk. “And when you’re the one loving someone when they can’t see it for themselves, you’re bound to get burned. They almost can’t stop themselves from trying to prove to you that your love’s not real. They try to force your hand until they prove it to you.”
I lifted my chin in the direction of his bed. “Is that who she is to you? The one you loved who burned you?”
He leaned over and grabbed the notepad off the bed and stared at it for a long time. “No, I’m the one who did the burning. And she was right to run.” He slid the notepad across the floor.
Staring back up at me was a pretty girl, a little younger than us, with a hidden smile and clear eyes. “You drew this?” I handed it back to him.
“It’s all I can seem to draw.”
“When did you last see her?”
“Almost four years ago. At high school graduation.”
“You haven’t seen her since.”
“I don’t think she’d want to see me. We were…complicated. More complicated than we should’ve been, and we didn’t have the history you and Marisa have.”
“The history didn’t do much good.”
“I wouldn’t say that.”
“Do you think she’ll ever forgive you for whatever you did?”
A faraway look shadowed over his face. “Some things you can’t come back from. Some things haunt you even when you try to move on.” He stared down at the paper and ran his finger along the sheet.
“I hope you get to see her again. Maybe show her you’ve changed.” After knowing Keyton for three years, I couldn’t imagine him ever hurting anyone. Maybe that was how it happened. The ones you least suspected could reach right into your chest and pull out your heart. I pushed up off the wall and walked to the door.
“I hope you’re right. You—” He stood and set the notebook down on the desk. “You should at least hear her out when she comes back.”
“I don’t even know if she will.” I shook my head, still not believing she’d be leaving after telling me she wasn’t.
“She will. She loves you, and that’s some scary shit. Once you realize it, there’s no going back.”
“I don’t know. She hated how her dad ran out on her family, but he was trying to reconnect with her. Her mom isn’t the greatest, so having him there would’ve been great.”
Keyton tilted his head staring at me for a long time before letting out a breath. “I know it’s hard for you to understand.” He rocked back on his heels and glanced up at the ceiling like the words he was looking for were up there. “Sometimes parents fucking suck. I’m not talking about getting grounded for bad grades or having to take out the trash. They’re the people who’re supposed to love us most, but it gives them an in. They can also be the people with the first crack at hurting us most.”
Bile churned in my stomach. This didn’t sound like he was talking in abstracts.
“Your parents are great. They love you. They’re proud of you. They’ll be there for you. Some of us aren’t so lucky. We’ve never had any stability or feeling that if our life goes to shit there’s a safe harbor for us. Sometimes you’re on your own and sometimes it’s better that way. Just because two people made a kid doesn’t mean they’re true parents and it doesn’t mean they deserve all the chances in the world.”
He crossed the room and dropped his hand onto my shoulder. “If her dad is the stand-up guy who can be a dad to her, then that’s for her and him to figure out. You can’t force it. It’s got to be her choice on whether she wants to let her father be a dad. But it can’t go at the speed you think it should.”
With a squeeze, he let me go.
Shoving my hands into my pockets, I nodded. “Night.”
I closed my door, changed, and crawled into bed. My clothes spilled out over the top of my laundry basket in my closet.
Keyton had been right about so many things. Fixing was what I wanted to do. My fingers itched to dive in and get to work, smoothing everything out.
There was no walking this back, only the long hard road of pushing ahead.
She had to figure this out after I’d put all my cards on the table. She’d decide what to do with her dad. There was no room for my interference anymore.
I couldn’t make us work if she didn’t believe in us—in me. I couldn’t make her stop running. I couldn’t make her love me like I loved her.
29
Marisa
The door opened behind me. All the laughter, kids’ TV shows, and music was amplified when it wasn’t muffled by the door.
“Marisa?”
I looked up from the cold spot on the top of the concrete steps in front of Ron’s house.
Surprise was scrawled all over his face. “Are you okay? What happened?” He leapt down the two steps and crouched in front of me. His hand hovered over my arms wrapped around my knees, like he was afraid to touch me.
I didn’t blame him. I was pretty toxic. I was surprised LJ hadn’t figured that out years ago. He was right. I’d been waiting for this shoe to drop from the moment he’d first smiled at me looking up from his multiplication worksheets.
“Sorry.” It came out like a froggy croak. I cleared my throat. Coming here had been a mistake. I didn’t know why I’d done it. Why, out of all the places in the world I could’ve gone, had I shown up here?
I dropped my arms and scooted to the edge of the step.
His hand came down on my arm, stopping me.
“Don’t be sorry. Please, tell me what’s going on. You’re scaring me.” The concern in his voice broke me.
I burst into tears. Deep, racking sobs dredged from the depths of my soul. The kind that left me gasping for air and fighting against the invading lightheadedness.
Ron moved beside me and wrapped his arm around me. He held me close, and I buried my face in his chest, holding onto his sweater like I might blow away at any second.
His noises of comfort only made it worse. The low murmur that it would be alright was something I’d only ever gotten from LJ’s parents the one time I’d broken down after a bad fight with my mom.
The sobbing gave way to tears, which gave way to embarrassment.
I pulled back. Ron let me sit straight up, but didn’t take his arm from around my shoulder.
“Come inside.” I looked behind us. Someone had closed the door, probably not wanting to hear the hysterical breakdown of that random girl on the doorstep.
“No, it’s okay. I shouldn’t have come. I’m sorry I did.”
“Please don’t say that.” The pain in his voice sliced me deep.
I wanted to be angry. I wanted to fall straight into that emotion around him. But more than that, I wanted answers.
I needed to finally ask the questions that had taken up residence in the dark, cobwebbed corner of my brain that I pretended didn’t exist and that I didn’t care about.
“Did—” Sucking in a shuddering breath, I shivered not from the cold, but from the fear overtaking every cell in my body. “Did you ever—” My voice cracked and I wiped my nose with my sleeve. “Did you ever miss me?” The tears I’d thought were finished filled my eyes. I blinked to keep them from cresting over the edges of my eyelids. “Did you ever wish you hadn’t left, or that you’d come back for me?”
The words came out in a rush, like my mouth didn’t trust the rest of my body not to take off running down the street before they all came tumbling out.
He stared back at me, ruddy faced, with tears dripping off his chin onto his sweater. “Every day.”
“You didn’t even come after me when I left.”
His jaw clenched. “I wanted to. I wanted to run right after you when LJ did, but Nora suggested I give you some space. She thought I should wait for you to come to me, if I hadn’t fucked things up beyond repair already. Whate
ver relationship we had—we have—needed to be on your terms. Not mine.”
I stared into his eyes, which swam with uncertainty and the smallest shred of hope.
Clearing his throat, he covered his mouth with his hand and stared up at the sky. “I’ve made a lot of mistakes—more than you ever need to know about—but they all pale in comparison to not being the dad you deserved. And that’s a regret I’ll carry for the rest of my life. But I hope it won’t be one you have to. Wait one second.” He jumped up and rushed back inside.
I sat on the steps and fished some tissues out of my pockets, using ten and shoving them back into my pockets before he came back.
The door opened again and he sat beside me with a piece of paper held between his two hands. It was long and thin, with numbers and letters written on it. “I wasn’t ever sure if I’d give this to you.”
He looked over at me. Sweat beaded on his forehead even though it was in the 40s. His hands shook, and he held out the paper to me. “The top one is the email provider. The middle is the username and the bottom one is the password. I owe you so much more than is there, but I hope maybe it’ll help answer some of the questions you have.”
I stood, and he did too, his eyes darting to the paper between my fingers.
“I have always and will always love you, Marisa.”
I nodded, but didn’t hug him back, still trying to figure out what was going on and what waited for me when I logged into the inbox.
Professor Morgan’s house wasn’t far from Ron’s. I ran most of the way. I was still in my coat, sweaty and clammy, as I dove for my computer.
With trembling fingers, I had to type in the password twice along with the username ForMarisaSaunders before it would log me in.
The inbox loaded and I slammed my laptop closed. My chest was tight like a fist was squeezing it, not letting my heart fully pump. I unbuttoned and slid off my coat. With shaky fingers, I took my laptop from the desk in the living room to the coffee table.
I sat on the floor and took a long, unsteady breath before opening the laptop lid again. All the emails had loaded.
There were over 1500 of them. I reverse sorted them by date to see the very first one. I gasped and covered my mouth with both hands. It was dated the day after my dad left. Daily emails stretched out over the first three years he’d been gone. Weekly for five years or so and monthly until they picked back up to weekly once I’d started at Fulton U. I went back to the first email and clicked the unread message.
TO: [email protected]
FROM: [email protected]
SUBJECT:
Dear Marisa,
I hope you’ll never have to see this. I hope tomorrow I’ll be able to come home and you’ll run up to me and give me a big hug like you always did when I came home from the road. But now I’m not sure of much, least of all when I’ll be able to see you again.
No matter what happens, I want you to know I have always and will always love you. And I hope this message never makes it to you. I hope I can delete this account or forget about it, but a part of me is scared to death it won’t be the case.
Love you always,
Dad
I chose another email a year later.
TO: [email protected]
FROM: [email protected]
SUBJECT: Happy Belated Birthday
Marisa,
I’m struggling today. I really am, and I wonder how much to even tell you in these emails. Your birthday has come and gone. Did you get the presents I sent? Your mom said she’d give them to you, but at this point I don’t even know. She’s missed more court dates than she’s made, and each one seems to mean I’m further away from finally being able to see you again.
I refuse to bad mouth your mother to you, and I hope she’s doing the same. I truly love you and miss you so much. It hurts knowing I won’t be able to watch you open your Christmas presents again this year.
I’ve turned down two jobs on the west coast because I don’t want to be too far away, in case you need me, but every day it seems like my chances of getting to hug you on your birthday are worse and worse.
Love you always,
Dad
I skipped to the email from right after I contacted him about coming to Fulton U. As much as I’d hated to reach out to him, once I found out about the tuition waiver and knowing LJ had been there, I’d been willing to send the email. New York had been everything I’d hoped for, but I’d missed LJ. It hurt how much I missed him. So I’d leapt at the chance to go to Fulton U where I had the perfect cover for following him there. They had a great museum studies program, stellar museums and the one person I didn’t want to live without.
But sending the email hadn’t been easy. And two months of psyching myself up to meet with Ron after he’d said yes.
TO: [email protected]
FROM: [email protected]
SUBJECT:
You’re so grown up now, Marisa. It makes me so proud and hurts me so deeply that I’ve missed all your milestones. It’s been so long since I’ve seen you, it’s hard to reconcile the strong, determined young lady who showed up in my Coach’s office with the little girl missing two front teeth who I carried around on my shoulders.
Coming back to Philly was the best choice for me because it meant I was closer to you, and the risk paid off, but from our first talk I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to make any of this up to you. Actually, I know I won’t. For some reason, saying those words to you is so much harder than writing these letters. I still don’t know if you’ll ever see them. You’ll probably think I was crazy for talking to myself all these years.
I hope we can bridge the gap between us and get to know one another. It’s my fault I missed so much. I should’ve fought harder, no matter what the lawyers or judges said. I should’ve, but I gave up because it hurt too much to get my hopes up only to have them killed over and over again. It’s no excuse. What kind of father doesn’t fight for his little girl? I was a coward, afraid I couldn’t do right by you, and now I don’t know if I’ll ever even get to know you.
You’re a beautiful, driven woman, and I wish I’d been the father you deserved.
Love you always,
Dad
TO: [email protected]
FROM: [email protected]
SUBJECT:
Marisa,
You were right about so many things today. It hurts to know how true it all was. So much of my frustration and anger was taken out on someone you love, who loves you too. I see the way you two communicate with a look, never saying a word, and I wish I knew you that well.
I don’t and he does. In a lot of ways, I see myself in LJ, but he’s proven he’s better than I was. He’s willing to make the big sacrifice plays to protect the people he cares about. Maybe my testing him was trying to see how far he’d go, but I already know it was farther than me.
He’s exceptional on the field. Even without playing, his star will rise, and I’m afraid of what that’ll do to you two. I don’t want to be the reason another person in your life lets you down. I do hope he’s a better man than me like I suspect he is, but I’m still afraid that once his star rises, it’ll end with you hurt again.
I’ll do what’s right because I don’t want to lose you. I never wanted to lose you, but I think I might have. Forever. I hope that’s not the case. I feel like I use hope so often in these letters to you, but here’s one thing I know. I love you and I’ll always love you.
Dad
I read the last email when the sun rose over the horizon. My eyes felt like they’d been buffed by sandpaper. A mountain of tissues sat in a pile beside me on the bed. I’d gotten snapshots of my dad’s life over the past fourteen years: the way he’d jumped at the chance to take the position at Fulton U, how hard it had been for him to not say a word against my mother. Even if the emails didn’t go into details, I could fill in the blanks—hell, I’d lived them.
The prese
nts he’d sent. The visits he’d tried to make. The court dates that came and went without the chance to see me.
My brain understood it all. I could piece together how difficult it had been, but in my heart, that little girl still wanted her dad to be the guy who rode in on the horse to save the day. Only, this wasn’t a fairytale. It was the real world, and in the real world, there were court orders and job opportunities, and none of it worked out how we wanted it to.
This didn’t solve anything, not by a long shot. The gaping wound in my chest that I’d tried to cover over when it came to Ron wasn’t deepening, though. It might even be healing a little.
And it showed me how alike he and I were. Just like LJ had said.
I fell back in the bed and stared at the shadow pattern on the ceiling from the slitted blinds. The first people I was supposed to depend on had failed me. There was no other way to slice it, even knowing more about my dad’s side of things—so how could I have expected LJ to weather the storms coming our way?
Only, I should’ve.
He’d been the one person I could turn to no matter what. The one person who’d never let me down. The one person who’d lied to protect me when all it did was hurt him. He’d proven himself time and time again, but at even a hint of trouble, I’d run. No, I’d pushed him away.
He’d been right about me, but I wasn’t going to be that person anymore.
All I could hope was it wasn’t too late to show him how much I loved him and salvage our relationship.
30
LJ
Classes dragged. Spring workouts dragged. Even fielding questions from fans about what was coming next dragged. It all slowed to an excruciating pace, grinding out day after day.
Even hearing that my dad’s results had all come back negative and he could now switch to annual visits instead of every six months hadn’t lifted my spirits like it should have.
