by Lexi Scott
“Maren? You okay?” He stoops down a bit so he’s eye level with me.
“Just take me home.” I try to glare at him, but I’m full of too many emotions to put the effort into being pissed. I mostly just feel numb.
And disappointed.
So damn disappointed.
“See ya, bro,” Deo says as Cohen opens the passenger side door for me. “And Maren?” I turn, and Deo holds his hands at his sides, like he’s asking for mercy. “Remember, he’s crazy about you.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Cohen
“I’m sorry I dropped that today. I wasn’t going to say anything to them until I had an offer in the bag, but damn Lydia—”
“What about to me? When were you going to say something to me?” It’s the first thing she’s said since we left my parents’ house, and honestly, I don’t have a spectacular answer.
I wanted to tell her, but I felt like I needed something more concrete. I wanted to have a good, stable job, then ask her to come and stay with me. To move in with me. It sounds crazy. It sounds way too fast, and I was too nervous to explain all of that to her and scare her off.
I downshift, slowing the car to make a turn, then reach over to rub Maren’s shoulder.
“You’re going the wrong way,” she says, her words biting out.
We just need to be together, to be alone. We need to talk. We probably need to fight. We hopefully need to crack the headboard having make-up sex after. I glance over at her. She’s pissed but so damn sexy; it tears at me.
“No, this is just a shortcut to my place.”
She whips her head my way, and her eyes are fiery. “I said to take me home, Cohen. Take me home.”
Whoa. Shit.
“Maren, I get it wasn’t the best first meeting of the parents in the history of time, but trust me, we get over stuff quick in my family. By next Sunday, they aren’t even going to mention it. Their first reactions are always to freak out. But once they think about it, they’ll be happy for me. I’m positive. Don’t worry.”
I reach a hand to touch her because I want so badly to fix this. But I decide to wait for some reaction from her, some indication that she wants me to touch her again.
Silence.
I take another swing, desperate to get things back to right. “Plus, this way I get you home and to myself quicker, anyway.”
Nothing.
The warning look that Deo gave me before we climbed into the car suddenly makes much more sense. Something went down between them when I was still inside battling with the parents.
Fuck. I bet she knows.
“Maren, what’s going on? Talk to me.”
She shifts in the seat. Away from me.
Fuck!
“How could you go and talk to my dad? And then keep it from me?” She shifts again, irritated by the seat belt holding her in, pressing down on her sexy little skirt with frustrated swipes of her hands. When she looks back at me, her eyes are snapping. “I know we slept together, but that doesn’t give you a right to stomp in and talk to my dad, who I didn’t even get to introduce you to properly! You don’t get to make my decisions for me, Cohen. I can take care of things myself.”
“I know that.” It’s crazy how I imagine my voice staying calm in my head, but when it comes out of my mouth, I’m practically shouting. “You are one of the most generous, caring people I know. I talked to your dad because I knew you’d tried before, for so long, and didn’t make any headway. Okay?”
She crosses her arms. “No. Not okay. I have no idea what he’ll be like when I get home. Trust me, Rowan tried the tough love crap a million times, and it always made it worse. Which I would have told you if you’d bothered to discuss it.” She pushes her hands to the side of her face, her dark hair falling over her fingers. “You should have talked to me first.”
I grab the steering wheel hard. “I may have helped, you know.”
She leans her forehead on the window. “I guess.” She doesn’t sound like she has any hope that I might be right.
“I wanted to help, Maren. It’s not like I have some hidden agenda. I wanted to help you do all the things you told me you wanted. I swear I’m on your side.” I manage to take my voice down a few notches when I say this, and it seems to take the wind out of this argument’s sails.
She turns to look at me, and I hate the way she looks so exhausted, her eyes ringed in dark circles, her skin pale. I guess all I noticed when I went to pick her up was how gorgeous she looked. It sucks, because I honestly thought I was helping lighten her load, but I just may have made things worse.
“I appreciate you trying to help.” Her words sound wooden. “But I can handle this. I want to. I don’t want anything or anyone else to destroy my relationship with my dad. I can do this on my own.”
“So, you can do all of the helping, but no one can ever offer you a hand? That’s insane, Maren.” We’re pulling up to her complex’s parking lot, and I wish I’d driven slower. I wish I’d stalled more at my parents’ house. I want more time, and now I may not get any.
She puts a hand out and grabs mine, pulls it to her mouth, and kisses it. “I know it sounds crazy. I deserve that, I guess. But it’s the way I need it to be right now. So, you need to back off. Okay?”
I want her to pull me closer. I want her to wrap herself around me, tell me she chooses me over her boozing dad, tell me she’s thankful for what we have and doesn’t plan on letting me go.
But she gives me a sad smile, the kind of smile that makes my heart seize.
Fuck.
Is that a good-bye smile? Not yet. Holy fucking hell, please not good-bye.
She licks her lips. “I’ll call you.” She slides out of the car, then turns to lean back in the passenger window, switching from foot to foot. I hate that she’s nervous. I especially hate that there’s not a damn thing I can do.
I nod and grip the steering wheel hard.
I hate to have things out of my hands. I hate to have things unknown. I hate that my only real chance at keeping Maren is letting her go without me.
“You better call,” I say and try to smile at her. “I’ll be waiting for you. Whenever you need me. Remember that.”
I don’t know if I’m just imagining that her eyes are full of tears as she rushes back to the shadowed apartments.
I sit in the parking lot for more than a half hour, staring at my phone like I can will it to ring with her number on the screen. Finally, I go home to wait some more, hoping like hell I haven’t screwed this all up.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Maren
“Dad! I’m home.” I swing the door wide open and look around, but he’s not in the recliner, and my lungs freeze. I know what this means. I’ve played out the nightmare a thousand times in my brain. To prepare myself.
My first instinct is to call Cohen, because I don’t want to find my dad’s body alone. But I can’t waste the seconds. What if I can still save him? Do I remember CPR? I run down the short hall to the bedroom where Dad has a bed he hardly ever sleeps in, but it’s empty. I’m about to rush to check the bathroom when I turn on my heel, my brain whirring.
My hand taps on the wall, painted a glossy, harsh yellow. When my fingers find the light switch, I flick it on. The room comes into focus, dirty and exposed. My eyes do a quick sweep, but I can’t make sense of what I see for a few seconds.
He’s sprawled on the bed, half naked, a broken whiskey bottle next to his prized guitar—smashed.
I bend down and pick up a shard of the wood and feel sick to my stomach. That was the guitar his grandfather brought over from Ireland. That was a family heirloom, a prized possession, the instrument he used for every single album writing session.
I close my hand around the shard and feel the wood bite into my skin. It takes a lot for my father’s behavior to shock me, but I’m officially shocked. I feel a breeze in the room, and when I look up, the window glass is shattered. There is also a spoon and a lighter on the bedside table, right nex
t to the framed photo of the four of us from the Christmas I was eight, Dad’s favorite picture.
My heart is pounding so hard and loud I feel a few gasps away from fainting. Was Murdock here, using? Or did my dad succumb to heavier drugs?
I don’t know what to do, where to go. I walk to the kitchen and pace back and forth like a caged jungle cat, not sure what to do with all the adrenaline-based energy pulsing through me. I slide to the floor and sprawl out on the linoleum, the neon light buzzing overhead.
The tough love made him lash out, the way he used to with Rowan. I’d worked so hard to prevent this kind of meltdown, maybe because it breaks my heart to know this is what he’s capable of.
In my memory, there’s the handsome, laughing father of my youth, a brilliant man who loved me unconditionally. In my reality, there’s the petty, self-destructive man who seems to take pleasure in ruining every good thing in his life. I’ve held out as the sole survivor of his wrecked life for years now. Maybe it’s time to admit that my being here is just stalling the inevitable.
“He doesn’t want to change,” I say out loud to no one. “He doesn’t want to get better.” I swallow the enormous lump in my throat, close my eyes, and force myself to say the words I’ve never been able to admit up to this point. “I can’t save him.”
I can’t save him.
I break down, sobbing so hard I can barely breathe, because I’ve finally faced the truth: I have no control over my father. I love him. I’ll love him for the rest of my life. But what I’ve been doing hasn’t helped him at all. All it’s done is hurt me.
I curl in a ball and cry until I’m limp from it, my temple pressed to the cool floor, my head throbbing. When I finally sit up and tilt my head back against the old almond fridge, I want to cry more. But my tear ducts have gone dry. So has my throat. So has my brain and my heart.
For the first time, I feel a little coil of hate unfurl when I think of him.
How selfish can one person be?
How shitty is it for him to have left me in this place, with no options but to let go?
How sad that I’m stuck here, crying my eyes out in this disgusting little apartment with nothing to show for the last few years while he keeps destroying everything he loves?
I feel gritty from the inside out. I feel like nothing can make me good or whole, and I just want to erase everything I’ve gone through and forget. Start over.
I hear my father bashing down the hall, his body slamming against the walls as he tries to keep upright.
“Maren!” he calls, his voice like a strangled goat’s.
His gorgeous voice. His beautiful guitar. His life, full of love, full of happiness and creativity and family— How the hell did he make the decision to throw that all away over and over?
“I’m here.” I stand up, wiping my face with my sleeves.
“You’re here,” he says, staring at my puffy, tear-streaked face. I wait for him to ask me why I’m so upset. “Do you mind running out for a few things, sweetie?” he asks.
I want to scream at him, hurl myself at his chest and beat on it with my fists, shake some sense into him. But I realize it just won’t help.
It breaks my heart to face that fact.
“Sorry,” I say. “I can’t run out for you.”
“What’s that now?”
I brush past him, to my room, and pull the duffel bags I keep mostly packed from under the bed. My room is fairly sparse because I’ve gotten used to middle-of-the-night moves. I toss in my makeup bag, go to the bathroom and grab my toiletries, put them in a plastic travel bag, gather the family pictures I have tacked on the walls, roll up my blanket, sheets, pillow.
I walk out, my arms loaded down, and he’s still in the kitchen, staring at me, his mouth hanging open. It shouldn’t surprise me, but the reason he didn’t run down the hall after me is in his hand.
Two fingers of amber liquid that’s killing him slowly.
Two fingers of whiskey that means more to my father than my happiness.
I choke back a fresh sob because, goddamn, it hurts. It really hurts.
“Where you headed?” he asks, but I ignore him.
I struggle down the stairs, past shady guys who catcall and whistle, past dirty little kids playing in the shadowy hallways with no shoes on. I pass apartments where televisions blare and smell the foul aroma of too many unclean people packed too tight. This is not where I want to live.
I stuff my bedding and one of my duffels into the back seat and head back up for my other bag. My car easily accommodates all my worldly possessions. Sad, but it’s okay. It means I have a fairly clean slate to start my new life.
I trudge back up to the apartment, half thinking I should just leave the remaining duffel bag and drive away while I still have the guts to do it.
But I can’t do that to my father. He’s hurt me, badly, but he’s still my dad. I’ve made peace with the idea that I can’t help him, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want to see him get better.
“Maren, what’s going on?” Dad asks when I open the door.
I close it with a click, walk over to him, and put my arms around him, hugging tight.
“Good-bye, Dad.”
“Are you going out for a while?” he asks nervously, eyeing the duffel bag on the floor.
“I’m leaving.” I pull back and kiss his cheek. “I want you to know how much I love you. I know the last few years have been hard, but there were lots of good times. I don’t regret deciding to move in with you.”
“What are you saying?” he asks, his eyes welling with tears that leak down his face like a dripping faucet. “I don’t know where you’re going with this.”
“I’m leaving, Dad.”
“Where will you go? Where will you stay?”
“I don’t know. I’ll figure it out. I always do.” I stoop down and grab my duffel.
“Is this about our fight the other night? Because you know I run my mouth sometimes, honey. I don’t mean it.” My big strong father stands in front of me, crying like a little boy.
My heart aches, but I think about the smashed guitar.
He destroys the things he loves. He needs help. He needs to want help.
“I know you don’t. But you need help, Dad. And having me here to bail you out over and over again isn’t helping anyone. You need to do this for yourself.”
“So you’re just leaving?” he says, his voice going sour. “You’re just walking out on me like your mother did?”
It’s an arrow straight into my heart. “Yeah. I guess I am, Dad. I need to live my own life.” I clear my throat. “I have plans, you know. I plan to travel. To get married someday. To have a family. I’d love to see you teach my kids to play the guitar. I’d love to have you over on the weekends for dinner.”
I think about the Rodriguezes’ big, loud, crazy get-togethers and smile.
“When you get cleaned up, call me, Dad. I’ll be waiting.”
“Maren, don’t go,” my father pleads. “Please don’t go.”
I throw my duffel bag over my shoulder and shake my head. “I love you. I really do, Dad. That’s why I’m leaving now.”
I walk down the stairs and try to ignore the sound of my father throwing a tantrum in the apartment. I can’t help fearing he’ll call Murdock, or try to rob a liquor store, or finish what he has at home and pass out on his back. I won’t be there to lock the door, field the phone calls, roll him over. I’m scared. So damn scared.
And a tiny bit hopeful. Maybe this will serve as a wake-up call. Maybe he’ll call the number on one of those pamphlets Cohen left for him.
Cohen.
If I had any more tears left, I’d cry from the hurt of losing him. But I’m all cried out. I get in my car, then pause, looking in the rearview mirror one last time.
I can’t think of this as walking away from anything. I’m walking toward new possibilities.
I pull out of the parking lot and drive until I get to the beach. I park and sit on the hood of
my car, cell phone in my hand, and breathe.
I screwed up with Cohen big time. There’s no denying that. I’m tempted to go running to him, to take him up on his offer to fix things. But that’s not how I want him. I want to choose to be with him, not to need him to fix me. I want him to respect me, not rescue me.
But he taught me some good lessons.
I dial Jacinda, swallow my pride, and tell her I need a place to stay. My crazy co-worker is more than happy to have me crash on her couch.
There, that wasn’t so hard. Pick up the phone again.
I do. I dial Cece, who’s happy to connect me with resources at the college. Forty minutes later, I’m relieved to realize I may not have to spend too long couch surfing. There’s a dorm vacancy, and I just have to get my paperwork in on time.
I pull up Cohen’s contact. It takes every shred of self-control not to call him.
“Soon,” I promise myself. “Get your shit in order, Walshe, then call him up and win him back.”
I close my eyes, breathing in the salty air, and pray I won’t be too late.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Maren
Three weeks later I’m in my clean, neat dorm room staring at the postcard on my bed.
It’s from St. Monica’s Rehab facility.
Hey Pumpkin Pie,
I guess an old dog can learn new tricks. The shrinks here said I’m making great progress. I don’t think it’s gonna be easy, but I’m on the right path. More important, how are you? I was so happy to get the letter you left at the apartment. I’m proud of you, baby girl. Really, really proud. Maybe we can be pen pals? I have a new song I’d love your help with.
Love you. Dad
I can’t believe it. My hands are shaking as I read the card over and over.
He’s not dead. He’s not in a gutter or in jail or in some rotten bar.
This is my sign.
I pick up the phone, then put it back down.
Chicken shit, I think to myself. I have to head to work soon. I’m at the same place, but my job description has changed a little. They’re working to accommodate my school schedule, which is amazing. Funny how a few months ago, I thought I was in a dead end job with no friends and no future.
