by Stacey Lynn
“Really? So your joint savings account just walked away on its own?”
“I took what was fair. With your mom’s job, she makes enough for her to take care of herself.”
“That’s my point!” Willow shouts, and her hands slam to her thighs with a brutal slap. “She can’t take care of herself!”
Her voice erupts and before she’s done shouting, I’m moving. Screw this. I won’t allow her to be more upset than she’s already been in the last day and a half.
“Hey,” I call out quietly, loud enough to get Willow’s attention. Her head jerks in my direction and she stumbles backward a step before correcting herself. Her eyes are wide, tears streaming down her cheeks, and as I reach her, I do the only thing that feels right.
I yank her into my arms and hold her. “Give us a minute,” I say to the man who’s only upsetting her further.
I don’t know if it’s my tone or my size—I can totally take this guy down if I have to—or the seriousness in my glare, but he steps back.
“I’m going to go check with her doctor and I’ll be back, Willow, but we will be talking about this. There are some things you need to hear because if you think it was easy for me to walk away from your mom, you don’t know nearly enough.”
In my arms, clinging to me like she needs me to breathe, Willow sobs and shoves her face harder into my shoulder.
“Just go,” I growl at her dad. But by the flash in his eyes, it seems he’s being honest.
There’s more to the story than what Willow knows and she hasn’t told me much, but something tells me she’ll want to hear it.
I hold her for a few minutes, until she calms and her sobs quiet and her shoulders stop trembling, and when her hold on me loosens, I guide her toward a small vinyl-cushioned couch the color of baby poop and sit next to her.
“Thank you,” she murmurs. “He showed up saying someone from the hospital called him, and I didn’t…I couldn’t…”
I don’t want to get into what I saw on her dad’s face as she yelled at him. She’s too angry to see his regret, or his honesty. All I care about right now is Willow, and the way she’s pressed against me like we’ve become stuck together.
“You okay? Your mom?”
She shakes her head against my chest, instantly wetting my shirt with her tears. Not that I care. I’m willing to take all of them if she needs to unleash her emotions on someone.
“She’s—” She hiccups, and stops. I don’t press for more. I just hold her for as long as I can, taking her weight and everything else she’s willing to give me, before leading her to a nearby chair. Eventually, she presses her hand to my chest and I pull back, letting her go even though all I want to do is keep holding her. “She’ll be okay, I think.”
“I’m so sorry.” It’s a pitiful apology, but the only comfort I can give her. “You want to talk?”
“No.” She sniffs and pulls away, swiping at her eyes. “She needs help, and I’ve been so scared and mad. And then my dad. And God, Trey, my family is such a mess.”
There’s nothing I can say to help her feel better so we sit in the hallway, Willow curled into my shoulder until she relaxes. I can tell she’s calmed down and getting antsy to move when her foot taps a rhythm on the floor.
“You want to go see your mom?”
“I need to talk to the doctor. She’s supposed to leave soon.”
“And go home?”
“No.” She stands and brushes her hands down her legs. She’s not making eye contact with me, her eyes scanning the hall, the waiting room. A weight settles in my stomach. “No, I’m supposed to take her to a short-term treatment center.”
“Well, that’s good, right?” I stand with her, but as I do, she steps back, putting distance between us. “It’s good she’s getting help, right?”
“Yeah…” She runs her hand through her hair and squints. Her voice is listless and when she looks at me that weight in my stomach grows. “Listen, Trey. Um, thanks for coming, but I should go.”
“How can I help?” Because I’ll be damned if I’ll let her walk away. Or use this crisis to push me away. It might not be the time to push back, but a gentle nudge might help.
She spins and faces me, with eyes that hold no emotion, and even though she appears to have showered and cleaned up, exhaustion is stamped all over her. Exhaustion and something else that feels suddenly like defeat and regret.
“Willow—” Let me help. Let me hold you. The words stick in my throat as she shuts down in front of me.
I reach for her but she steps back.
“I can’t do this,” she says. Her hand waves between us. “Not now, I can’t. Things are such a mess.”
“Then let me help you. What can I do?”
Another step back. It might as well be a mile. A tightness wraps around my chest, squeezes tight, making it difficult to breathe.
“Nothing. You can’t do anything. Go home, Trey.”
Before I can reach for her again, ask why, say anything, she’s practically running from me, turning down the hall in her hurry to get away.
It takes me a moment to make a decision. I might allow her to push me away today, but I won’t forever. I’m not the only one who felt our connection this weekend and I’ll do anything not to lose her.
At some point, she’ll need some help. She’ll need someone to lean on.
I’m going to be that man for her whether she likes it or not.
Chapter 25
Willow
How in the heck has my life been upturned and shaken so badly I don’t even know which way is up anymore? I’m not even sure what to focus on: My mom, who’s currently meeting with the doctor before she’s discharged? My father, who is still in the hospital waiting room, waiting to talk to me about who knows what? Or Trey…showing up here and seeing me at my absolute worst, with my baggage exploded all over the hospital, laid bare for anyone who happens to walk by?
Cara had come right before the disastrous standoff with my dad and then took off to get me lunch from the downstairs café. When she returned, she insisted on coming over later to spend time with me, and while I tried to shove her away, she didn’t go away nearly as fast as Trey did when I walked away from him.
Sure, I walked—okay, ran—away, but when I returned a few minutes later, he was gone.
So much for wanting to help.
Whatever. We had a weekend together and now reality has exposed itself as the giant pile of crap it truly is, and I don’t have the time to worry about him, or my feelings for him, or how freaking good it felt to curl up next to him and have his arms around me, the sweet scent of him surrounding me. He didn’t offer pitiful platitudes about how everything will be okay, or how life will work itself out. It felt way too damn good to sit next to him, absorb the heat of his body, and feel the strength of it when he held me in his arms.
It settled me in a way that’s terrifying.
If there’s anything that’s been reinforced through this disaster it’s that Parks women have a way of losing themselves in men. My mom has done it with my dad. I’m guilty of the same with Scott. Until I can figure out how in the hell to avoid that in the future, I’m in no condition to have a relationship with a man. Much less a man like Trey. Someone who so easily consumed me in just a weekend that it’s been nearly impossible to get my mind off of him.
“Hey,” Cara says, hurrying down the hallway. “Was that Trey I saw on his way out? Everything okay there?”
In her hand, she holds out a plastic bag from the cafeteria. I take it even though I’m not hungry. “It’s fine.”
“So why’s he leaving?”
Because I’m scared of something good in my life going tits up. Essentially, I’m a coward. I take a seat in the chair and unwrap my sandwich. “I don’t want to talk about Trey.”
“Okay…” Her gaze bounces
around everywhere but on me and she bites her bottom lip, clearly debating something, but I’m thankful when she takes a seat next to me and asks, “Well, what can I do then?”
The blinds in the window of my mom’s room are open and she and the doctor are still talking. She seems focused and alert this afternoon, so much better than this morning when I was first with her, which helps loosen the knot that’s been blocking my rib cage.
Since I have some time, I need to check off another item. “Can you wait here and text me when the doctor leaves? I need to go talk to my dad.”
“Your dad?” Cara chokes out the word. “He’s here?”
“Someone from the hospital called him.”
“Well, that’s nice.” Her face pinches in a way that I totally understand. Is it nice? Or totally selfish?
“We’ll see. There’s a high probability he came because he’s embarrassed word will get out his soon-to-be ex-wife is a nutcase.”
She opens her mouth to speak and closes it. Good call. I’ve told her everything about my dad taking off and leaving Mom high and dry. I rewrap my uneaten sub sandwich and stand. “Text me when the doctor leaves. If anything it’ll give me an excuse to end whatever conversation he wants to have.”
“Of course I will. Go and take care.” She gives me a quick hug and then I’m heading down the hallway, steps moving slowly, like the speckled linoleum flooring has turned to sludge.
I still can’t believe my dad is here. I can’t believe our first conversation in six months began with me screaming at him. He deserves it, and yet since the day he left, not even bothering to let me know until he was already gone, I’ve often wondered what I’d say to him when I see him again.
Apparently, What in the hell are you doing here wins.
I reach the waiting room, where I expect to see my dad on his cellphone with Bluetooth earbuds shoved in his ears, working, or who knows, maybe speaking to his new girlfriend, but he’s doing neither. I’m not sure how to process him sitting in a chair that’s almost too small for his large frame, knees bent, elbows on them with his hands clasped in front of them, head bowed. His short hair, the same color as mine, is mussed like he’s been shoving his hands through it and from his profile, I can see lines are etched at the corner of his eye, his mouth not in his typical straight line, but turned down. It’s not a posture I’ve ever seen him wear before and it’s difficult to see him looking so lost.
For a moment, albeit a brief one, it concerns me he looks so worried. Except what I said earlier is still true: If he’d left Mom in any way better than he had, she might not have gotten so bad. So yeah, I blame him. Me, too, but he’s getting more of it.
I step toward him. The sooner we get this conversation over with, the sooner I can get Mom out of here and checked in for treatment.
“You wanted to talk?”
My dad’s head pops up and he stands. “There’s a private room down the hall. Can we go talk there?”
If he expects me to be happy to see him, he’s wrong. I shrug and spin on my heels, waiting for him to take the lead. We walk like that down a long hall, turning left when we leave the mental-health wing. There’s a thick wall of tension between us and although he occasionally glances behind his shoulder as if to ensure I’m still following him, neither of us speak until we’ve entered what looks like a small conference room. There’s a rectangular table with eight chairs, and a beverage setup with coffee and a mini fridge filled with water bottles.
Without asking, I take one for myself and twist the top, retightening it without taking a sip.
I take a seat at the table on one of the long sides and my dad again does something I don’t expect, which would have been to take a seat across from me. Instead, he sits at the end, around the corner from me, and pulls out his chair so he’s facing me.
He adopts a similar posture as in the waiting room.
“How have you been?”
My lip curls into a sneer before I can hide it. “If you wanted to know, you should have called.” Or texted. Or emailed. Or sent a smoke signal. I don’t know when I started hating my dad but I’m sure him skipping out on my sixteenth birthday without a phone call set that spiral in motion.
“I deserve that, and I deserve a lot of things, Willow, but I’d really like to apologize. I know you’re angry. You have every right to be and I’m sure you’re scared with everything that’s happened the last few days.”
How kind of him to give me permission for my own emotions. I reopen the bottled water and take a healthy drink. When I don’t respond, he continues.
Running a hand through his already messed hair, he sighs and leans forward, knees on elbows again. “I want you to know I fell in love with your mom the moment I saw her.” At my look, which I’m guessing is full of doubt, he lifts his hand. “Please, let me get this out, okay?”
“Fine.” I sit back and cross my arms, prepping for his story. I have no plans to make this easy for him. I might be copping a bit of a petulant teenage attitude, but since he was hardly around during my teenage years, I’d say he’s due.
“I was at a bar with some friends of mine from college,” he says, and the way he begins almost makes me think he means all of it. “We’d just finished an exam that kicked our asses and there I was, this computer tech nerd, and in walked your mom. I heard her laugh before I saw her, and it was the most beautiful sound I’d ever heard in my entire life, Willow. And that’s what she was. So beautiful. She lit up a room and turned everything into a party. When I found the nerve to talk to her that night, certain I’d be shot down but wasn’t, I was done. She had me from the very first night and, God, I loved every minute of those first few years with her.”
I scoff and take another drink. Too bad the water isn’t laced with vodka. He continues like he’s lost in the story, or the memories, or choosing to ignore me. Whichever.
“She drew me into this world of excitement and life and constantly being on the go. She’s the reason I finished college so successfully,” he says, and smiles, “I’d race back to my apartment, bang out my homework, and study my head off for as long as I possibly could, refusing to ever procrastinate because every moment I wasn’t with her was torture. I was always this straitlaced guy, focused on school since the day I could remember, never really did sports, just studied and read, and your mom…your mom thrust me into experiencing everything life offered without, it seemed, a care in the world. And then she spiraled for the first time.”
A small lump forms in my throat, and I wash it down with another drink. “Spiraled?”
“I…it’s not the right term. But it’s what happened. One night we were partying and laughing and the next day she could barely get out of bed. Then she stayed there, and I was helpless. She was like that for days, refusing to do anything, claiming she was tired, and I was so worried, so worried. I tried to get her to go get help. The doctor, hospital…anything, but she refused. And then one day, a few days later, she was laughing and baking and dragging me off dancing, and I just sort of…forgot about those days I’d been so worried about her.” He pauses, and a pain flashes across his face so deep I can feel it as it hits him. “The first time she cheated on me was before our wedding.”
“What?” She would never. Anger pummels me. This is his version? “You’re lying.”
He lifts a hand. “I swear, Willow. I am not trying to get you to hate her, or get mad at her. I loved your mom. And after years of watching her, helpless, and then forcing her to get help…it wasn’t the first time, I was sure of it, just the first time I caught her, but I loved her so damn much I believed I could get her the help she needed so she didn’t do it again.”
Tears are now in my dad’s eyes, and my own form. His voice has gone gritty, like he’s still imagining this pain, and for the first time in a long time, I feel bad for him. He’d have to be a sociopath to make up a story like this and show the hur
t as brutally as he’s doing.
“I tried so damn hard, Willow. I swear I did. I clung to the times when she’d light up the room and I lived in fear of the times she’d fall into this hole where nothing I did helped. And yeah, I lost myself in my work, but somehow, I kept thinking if I could work harder, give her everything she wanted, she’d be happier, and the rest would take care of itself.”
“You’re a liar.” I shove back from my chair. Pace. A maelstrom of emotion rages through me. “She’d never cheat. She loves you. She’s not depressed.” I whip around, hair smacking and stinging my cheek. “At least she wasn’t until you left.”
“Think, Willow. Think of all the days…you might want to remember your mom and think of her as perfect, and, good Lord, she is in so many ways…but you can’t have forgotten everything.”
He’s wrong. He’s so wrong. “She was always there for me.”
“Like when she forgot to take you to ballet pictures when you were twelve?”
“What?” I stumble back. How in the world does he remember that? Or the vitriol I’d spewed at my mom after I’d gone to dance class Monday and everyone asked where I’d been.
“Think, Willow. Your mom loves you, yes, and I know that. But I think you’ve put her on some pedestal, casting me as the villain, and that can’t be all true. She’s sick. She needs help, and I can’t be the person who stands by her, continually, while she refuses to see it. I can’t do it anymore.”
He’s opened a vault. Flashes of memories come to my mind. The missed ballet photos. Halloween, when she was too tired to go trick-or-treating with us. The nights I spent at ballet class waiting for someone to pick me up before one of my teachers took pity on me and took me home to find my mom on the couch, resting. The days she said she’d help teach me how to drive later.
But mostly I remember the prayers and the laughter and the dancing and the baking and how much fun she was, always wiping away my frustrations and pain with a cookie or a girls’ day out to get our nails done and buy new clothes.