by Daniels, Viv
“I didn’t really take stock of what he was wearing.”
Dylan was shaking his head at me, very slowly, as something—God, please don’t let it be the truth—worked itself out in his head. “That’s my girlfriend’s dad.”
My breath caught in my throat. “I’m your girlfriend.”
He stared at me, still, silent, and after what seemed like forever, he swept his hair off his brow. “Sorry. Yeah, I meant ex.” But he’d been right the first time, too, even if he hadn’t known it. That was his girlfriend’s father. “That was really weird for me.”
“Yeah,” I replied. “Me, too. It was my house some strange dude just came in.”
And it remained weird for the next hour. Even though we were discussing the geometries of unsteady state transport, I could see unrelated questions in my boyfriend’s eyes. He was asking himself why Steven Swift was at my apartment building, why he’d just walked in the door.
All the Chinese food was gone when Dylan’s phone rang. He glanced down at the display.
“It’s Hannah,” he said flatly.
My heart stopped pumping blood through my body. It was the only explanation for how cold I suddenly felt.
“Hello?”
As close as we sat on the couch, I could hear every word she was saying to Dylan. She was crying. “I’m really sorry—I wouldn’t do this if I had any other option—”
“Hannah,” he said, “calm down.”
“…can’t get the car to start. I think the battery’s dead. My mom is out of town—”
“What’s happening?”
“My dad,” she sobbed. “They just called me. My dad was in a car accident.”
Oh my God. Dad. Daddy.
“Okay.” Dylan’s voice sounded very far away, but his tone was warm, like a blanket. “It’s going to be okay. I’m on my way over. I’ll take you to the hospital.”
Without realizing it, I was nodding my head. It would be okay. He would take me to the hospital.
He hung up the phone and looked at me. “This just keeps getting weirder. Hannah’s dad was in a car accident. It must have been after he left here.”
I swallowed. Like maybe he was so distraught at seeing Dylan in the apartment that he’d had an accident? If so, then it was my fault. My fault that I hadn’t warned him in advance that my new boyfriend was his real daughter’s ex. My fault for breaking the rules so completely that they’d fallen on his head.
“Take me with you,” I blurted.
“What?” He shook his head, distracted. “No, Tess. I’m just taking Hannah to the hospital so she can be with her father.”
There went my head again, nodding like it all made perfect sense. “Yes. Take me with you.” And I needed to text Mom. She could meet us there.
“No,” he repeated. “That’s ridiculous.”
Reality crashed in on me. Of course. Of course that was ridiculous. My mother and I couldn’t visit Dad in the hospital, no more than we could visit him at work or at his home. We weren’t family who could stand by his bedside. I lowered my head, my face burning with shame. Right, right. My boyfriend could go be with my father right now, but not me. Never me.
Dylan was scowling at me, completely misinterpreting the look of anguish that no doubt graced my face. “Don’t be difficult about this, Tess. I’m giving her a ride to the hospital. Hannah and I are over. Come on—you’re not the jealous type.”
“Oh?” I scoffed, because otherwise I would cry. “I’ve never been more jealous of Hannah in my life.”
His eyebrows furrowed, but then, for the second time today, he sighed at me and shook his head. “I don’t have time to talk about this right now. You’re being really petty. I have to go take Hannah to the hospital.” He grabbed his things and left.
I plopped down on the couch. I wasn’t being petty. Petty would be resenting Hannah for everything she’d been given all her life. Petty would be resenting her right now for having Dylan by her side while she went to see our father.
I couldn’t get past the idea that I’d had something to do with the accident. I was to blame. If I’d warned Dad in advance that I was dating Dylan, if I’d made sure to bolt the door so he didn’t walk in on us…. We’d been so careful all these years that no one, not even childhood friends like Sylvia and Annabel, knew that the famous Steven Swift was my father. There was a reason I so rarely had people over to my house. And there’d been no reason for Dad to suspect I’d bring Dylan by today, either. By mutually unspoken agreement, we’d been avoiding each other ever since our last pointed exchange.
Oh, God. I hoped it wasn’t our last. Hannah had been crying, but she’d given no indication of how serious Dad’s injuries were.
I jumped to my feet and started pacing the floor. I called Mom, but there was no answer. Either she’d forgotten her phone in her car or she was ignoring it during the salon. Both, for Mom, were par for the course. I texted her.
Dad’s in the hospital. Car accident. Waiting for more info.
We might wait forever. There was no plan in place to deal with situations like this. The best source of info I had was Dylan, and he thought I was acting like a brat. Maybe if I’d gotten hold of my mother, she would have talked me back from the ledge. Maybe she would have explained to me that she and Dad had prepared for what would happen if he was hurt. Maybe my mother was somewhere on the phone tree in his office, listed under something innocuous and discreet.
But all I could think about were the last words I’d hurled at my father. All I could think of was the shock, the utter horror on his face when he’d seen Dylan standing inside our apartment. All I could think of was that no matter what kind of screwed-up half-relationship we were forced to have, he was still my dad.
Dylan had gone to pick up Hannah. If I left now, I might be able to beat them to the hospital.
I didn’t give myself time to think, just rushed to the car and drove.
I didn’t see Dylan’s car in the parking lot, nor a silver BMW that meant Hannah had managed to get hers started. I practically sprinted into the emergency room, then up to reception.
“Steven Swift?” I panted at them.
The nurse at the desk nodded at her computer screen. “Are you family?” she asked mildly, not even looking up.
“Yes.” Somehow, I expected the word to choke in my throat. This was the biggest rule of all, and I’d just broken it. But the nurse didn’t ask for proof, for ID. She didn’t demand to know our relationship. She didn’t even seem to care. I scribbled my name on a sheet and followed her directions down the hall.
Dad was asleep on the bed. His face was bruised badly, and remnants of blood had caked in his hair and along the curves of his ear. One of his arms was wrapped in bandages, and the other was strapped to his chest.
I should probably go. He wasn’t going to die on us tonight. He looked hurt but okay. He wasn’t even plugged into a heart rate monitor or anything. No machines beeped near his bed. No IVs stuck out of his arm. I should probably go. We could see him later. I could apologize some other time.
Instead, I approached cautiously, like trying to sneak up on a wild animal. “Dad?” I whispered.
His eyelids fluttered open. “Tess,” he croaked at me. His eyes seemed unfocused, probably from pain medication. That was why they wanted Hannah here. Not as a bedside vigil. Just to pick her father up. It was silly to have come. Silly and dangerous. Hannah and Dylan could show up at any minute.
“I’m so sorry, Dad. I should have warned you about—”
“What are you doing here?” His voice slurred, but his tone was one I’d heard before. This was against the rules. This was all, all against the rules.
“I came to see you!” Tears blurred my eyes. “I was worried you were really hurt. When Dylan heard you’d been in an accident—”
“You have to leave, Tess,” he said. “You can’t be here. You’re not family.”
I am, I wanted to shout, as petulant as a child. I wiped ineffectually at my eyes, hoping he w
as so out of it that he wouldn’t be able to see.
“I appreciate it,” he went on. “More than you know. But you can’t be here. Go home, Tess. I’ll call when I can.”
Was that what he said to my mother? I’ll call when I can? I’ll let you be a part of my life when I can?
I didn’t want to be his daughter sometimes. I didn’t want to sit at home, twiddling my thumbs, while his real daughter went to his hospital bed. Maybe that was enough for my mother, but it would never be enough for me.
“Daddy,” I whispered, and my voice broke on the last syllable. “Please.”
He turned to me, and I saw from the pain that creased his features how much it cost him to do it. “Go home now, Tess,” he said firmly. “I mean it.”
I turned and ran from the room.
I could hardly see where I was going, but I had almost reached the exit when the automatic doors parted and Dylan and Hannah walked in. Her silky blonde hair was straight and shiny. She had a colorful scarf wrapped around her neck, and the flaps of her expensive white wool coat streamed out like the wings of an angel. They weren’t holding hands or cuddling, but all of Dylan’s attention was on her. I stopped short.
So did Hannah. “What is she doing here?” she spat at me. They were the same words our father had used. They were right. What was I doing here? Why had I come?
Dylan turned to Hannah. “Go check on your dad. I’ll be right there.”
She swept by me, regal and infuriated, and up to the front desk.
Dylan’s hand was on my elbow. “Come with me.” He led me through the big doors and out to the front receiving area of the hospital, where there was a wide, awning-covered space lined with potted plants and park benches. There he dropped my arm and took two steps back.
I wrapped my arms around myself for warmth, for comfort, for protection, but nothing could guard me from the expression on his face. He was bewildered, angry, lost.
“What the hell, Tess? Have you gone crazy?”
I said nothing.
“I told you to stay home. I was taking a friend to the hospital. That’s all. We weren’t running off together. We weren’t having some hot hookup.” I’d never heard him mad at me. Even in that last email he’d sent, when I’d abandoned him after Cornell. Even when he told me how I’d broken his heart. Even when I’d run from him at the frat party.
“Well?” he prompted.
I made no statement of defense.
“You’d better tell me what you’re thinking right now. You’re really scaring me.”
There was nothing I could say. The lie he believed—that I’d come because I thought he’d reunite with Hannah if I wasn’t there to stop it—was awful. The truth was impossible. There was nothing in between. I hadn’t had a sudden hankering to become a candy striper. I didn’t have a neighbor who’d slipped in the bath and needed transport to the ER.
He was shaking his head in disbelief. “What’s going on, Tess?”
I found my tongue at last. “Did you tell Hannah we saw her father tonight?”
He blinked at me. “No—it didn’t seem…” He trailed off, his expression growing even more confused.
I turned and walked away from the doors, away from the light of the loading dock. Down the path everything was dark and quiet. Safe. There was another bench there, far from the entrance. A stone urn filled with cigarette butts sat at the base. This must be where employees went to smoke.
Dylan caught up with me. I felt his hand on my arm. I looked up into blue eyes burning with questions. He was wearing his glasses. He was mine.
I didn’t take time to think. I didn’t take time to breathe. I spoke before I could stop myself. “Steven Swift is my father.”
I had never spoken those words aloud before. I expected a crack of thunder, a whiff of brimstone, but the Earth remained steady beneath my feet. My heart didn’t stop beating. Then I caught sight of Dylan’s face. He looked so surprised I was afraid his glasses might fall right off his nose.
“He’s my father,” I repeated. “Hannah is my sister. She doesn’t know it, but she is.”
A strangled sound came from Dylan then. I plowed forward anyway.
“That’s why he was at our apartment tonight. To see my mom.”
“Your mom…and Mr. Swift—”
But I wasn’t holding a press conference. I wasn’t here to answer questions. “No one knows about me. No one can know.”
Except I’d just told Dylan. I’d just broken every rule there was.
He stared at me for a minute, silent with shock. “You…you knew I was dating your sister?”
I jerked my head up and down in some semblance of a nod.
“Is that—that’s not why you—”
“No!” I cried. “Of course not.” I wanted to say the mantra I’d repeated to myself during that awful week of waiting. We were together first. We were together first. But it suddenly sounded hollow in my ears. I stepped forward and placed a hand on his jacketed chest. “Dylan, I love you.”
He reared back as if struck. “You lied to me.”
My hand dropped uselessly to my side.
“You’ve been lying this whole time. Every time I talked about Hannah, every time I talked about her family…” A shudder seemed to pass through him. “You lied to me like it was nothing.”
I was cold and hot all at once. A giant lump of hot lead seemed to have taken up residence in my lungs, scalding my breath, scorching my throat, bleeding from my eyes. “I had to.”
“I have never lied to you,” he replied. “Never.”
“You don’t understand—”
“You never gave me the chance to!” His eyes were like ice, so frigid and distant I could have been looking at a glacier. “You just let me believe… Fuck, Tess. You’re sisters. That’s—”
“What?” I croaked. “Against the rules?”
“Yeah, usually,” he replied, as if that should be obvious. “I have no idea what to think. No one has ever lied to me like this. I don’t know what to believe.”
“I just told you everything.”
“Have you? You’ve just been lying about who you are—”
“No!” I said, my heart shattering. “You have always known who I am.” His lab partner, his first lover, the girl he thought of for two years… I wasn’t just Steven Swift’s dirty little secret. I wasn’t just the product of my parents’ long lies.
But all of that was gone now. I could see it on his face.
He cast a long glance back at the hospital doors. “I think you should go home now. Mr.—” He stumbled for a second, as if deciding whether or not to call him my father. “Mr. Swift’s injuries aren’t that bad. Hannah says they told her on the phone that they’ll release him in the morning.”
“Dylan—”
“You should let your mother know, too, I guess,” he went on. “I can’t believe I’m saying that. I—I should probably get back to Hannah.”
“Please,” I said. “You can’t tell her. You can’t tell anyone.”
He glared at me, so long and so hard I thought I’d melt under the intensity of his gaze. The glasses were there, but he was no longer mine. “Yes, Tess,” he said at last. “You’ve made a liar out of me, too.”
And that, I realized, was the worst thing of all.
TWENTY-THREE
My father did come home from the hospital the following day, but due to his broken arm, it would be a while before he’d be able to drive himself to our apartment. My mother managed to meet him for lunch but I didn’t see him at all, a fact that I think we were all okay with.
“Is he very mad?” I asked her.
She shrugged.
“Does that mean yes?”
Again, she shrugged. “Your father and I disagree on this matter. He was in the hospital. Of course you wanted to see him.”
Except he hadn’t visited me when I was eight and had my appendix out. To Dad, trips to the hospital were no excuse to break the rules. I didn’t point this out to Mom, thou
gh. I was just glad she’d taken my side for once. I’d actually never seen her disagree with him before.
Which made me wonder how angry he’d be about Dylan, once the drugs wore off.
I didn’t see Dylan, either. Classes were over for the semester—we were well into reading period, where we spent our days studying for the upcoming exams. When Sylvia texted, asking if I had shifts this week, I told her to redistribute my hours to some of the other servers. She seemed excited about the idea, and I needed to study. I knew Dylan was deep in his books, too, but still… He didn’t call; he didn’t email.
Though to be fair, I didn’t either. I wasn’t sure what I could say. The few times I’d opened the Compose box on my email, the only thing I could think to type was something I was far too terrified to put into words.
Are we broken up?
I wondered if this was how Dylan had felt, after Cornell, when he’d sent me text after text, email after email, and I’d never responded. Maybe Dylan figured turnabout was fair play. No contact meant it was over. And I was totally capable of getting the message more quickly than he had back then.
Except…that was never the way Dylan had been. I was the one who lied, the one who thought silence was better than speech.
The symposium was held two days after the hospital. When I woke up in the morning, there was a message from Dylan waiting.
Tess,
Sorry I didn’t get back to you yesterday. I’d had a long night. I’ve been over all our notes for the public presentation. I hope you’ve done the same. Unfortunately, my morning’s pretty booked up with study groups, but if you want to rehearse before tonight, I can meet you in Lab C at Bio-E at 2.
Dylan
The lump of lead where my heart once lived clanged, reading his note. I fingered the T around my neck. Did I want to meet him? Would we really be rehearsing? Would he be breaking up with me? Could I bear to go into the symposium with this question hanging over my head? Could I even do a presentation at his side if he told me we were through?
Dylan,
I’d like to meet beforehand, but not to rehearse.
