by Mia Storm
Dad’s voice comes from the table behind me, low and defeated. I feel the press of tears behind my eyes so I don’t turn to look at him as I prepare his meal.
“It’s been a rough few years for us, hasn’t it?” he continues. “And I’ve done everything possible to make it rougher.”
“None of it’s your fault, Dad,” I say past the lump in my throat as I pour him a glass of ice water.
“All of it’s my fault,” he says.
Finally, I turn to face him and lean against the counter, but I can’t find words, because he’s wrong. The numbness in his eyes has been replaced with anguish. They search my face for forgiveness, but it’s me who should be begging him for that.
“After your mother’s funeral…I should have been there for you. I just…” He trails off and shakes his head. “Did Mom ever tell you how we met?”
“At a book signing, I think?”
He nods. “More than a book signing. Comic Con.” A smile ghosts over his ashen face, illuminating it with some internal light. “I was dressed as Mr. Spock, from Star Trek, and I walked by her publisher’s booth, where she was signing books. She put her hand in the air,” he says, holding up his hand with a split between his middle and ring fingers, “and yelled ‘Live long and prosper!’ I answered and that night we were having dinner together.”
Dad’s always got Star Trek reruns on the TV, especially when he’s drunk. Now I think I get why. “Was she different then?”
His distant gaze focuses on my face. “You mean, did she lose herself in her stories back then?” His mouth quirks as he nods pensively. “She’s always straddled worlds, but for Maggie, it wasn’t really to escape this one, it was to escape one that there was no escape from.”
The microwave beeps, but I’ve forgotten what it’s for. I search Dad’s eyes. They’re tired, but lucid. And his train of thought doesn’t seem to be splintering like it does when he’s been drinking.
“I don’t get what that means.”
He leans back in his chair and shoves a hand through his disheveled salt and pepper hair. “Maggie’s father…wasn’t a good person.”
Dad’s parents live in South Carolina. When I was young, we’d go to out there in the summers to see them. But Mom never talked about her parents. No pictures or anything. I just assumed they’d died when she was little or something. “What do you mean?”
“Your mother was abused as a child.” His face crumbles into a grimace. “Her father…” He trails off again with a shake of his head. “She ran away from home when she was only sixteen and lived on the streets for a while until she ended up in a shelter.”
“So…” I say, trying to absorb everything. “You think she lost herself in her stories to escape her past?”
“I think it started out as her coping mechanism,” he says with a nod. “In her stories, she was in charge. She had total control there when everything in her real life was out of her control.”
I sit on my hands when I feel them start to shake. “But why did she seem to get worse, then? It seemed like the older I got, the more of her went away.”
He shrugs. “Part of it was that you didn’t need her as much, I suppose. But…I don’t think the kind of trauma she experienced ever goes away.”
“Do you think…was she ever happy? With us?”
“She loved you, Addie,” he says, reading the meaning behind my question. “And she loved me, in her way.”
“In her way?”
“As much as she was able to love a man.” His face pulls into a pained grimace. “She was my world, but unfortunately, I was never able to return the favor.”
I wish I’d known these things while she was alive. I might not have expected so much and been so disappointed that it never came. I might not have fought with her all the time.
I might not have killed her.
A stone sinks into the pit of my stomach. “Why didn’t anyone ever tell me this?”
He takes a deep breath and exhales slowly. “You were young, Addie. I think she planned to tell you someday, but…” He shrugs. “I guess someday never came.”
I stare at the table for a really long time, all the ‘what ifs’ cycling through my mind.
“Do you want to go back to therapy, Addie?” Dad asks, pulling me from my head, and I realize everything I was just thinking shone clear from my face. “It seemed like it might have been helping you.”
“I’m fine,” I say and hope he doesn’t hear the bead of panic sprouting in my chest with the thought.
“You’re sure?” he asks. “If I’m getting help, I think you should too.”
My gaze snaps to his weary face. “You’re getting help?”
“I just went to my first AA meeting tonight.” He rubs a hand over the scruff on his chin. “I want to do this, Addie.” His eyes find mine again. “For you. For her. For all of us.”
There’s a second I can’t inhale. That’s the last thing I ever expected him to say. “Dad, that’s…I don’t even know what to say.”
Dad gets up and retrieves his soup from the microwave, then takes it back to the table with a spoon. I find my senses enough to bring him his bread and the glass of water.
“How did the meeting go?” I ask as he slurps.
He looks at me. “It’s going to be hard, but I have to get my life back.”
“Thank you, Dad.”
He tears off a hunk of bread and dips it in his soup. “This is just like Maggie’s.”
My heart dies a little more at the sound of Mom’s name. I sink into my seat and watch him devour his dinner.
When he’s done, he looks up at me. “Do you have any idea how much like your mother you are?”
I shake my head because it’s not true. I never would have been strong enough to survive what she went through.
“You remind me so much of her,” he says, reaching across the table and tugging on one of my corkscrew curls. It springs back when he lets go and brings his hand to his face. I realize it’s to wipe away the tear that rolls down his cheek. “I miss her so much.”
That’s all I can take. As hard as it was when he blamed me, this is harder.
I stand and move toward the door. “I need to run out for milk,” I say. Honestly, I don’t remember for sure whether or not there’s milk in the fridge, but I doubt Becky forgot it when she shopped. I back toward the door. “Is there anything you need?”
“Just my family back, Addie.” He pulls himself to his feet and scrubs his sleeve under his eyes. “Just you.”
I bolt out the door without even taking a minute to slip on my flip flops. My heart is pounding like I’ve swum a mile, and my head spins from lack of oxygen. Once I’m around the corner, I support myself from falling over with my hands on my knees and suck in a few deep breaths.
When I’ve got my legs again, I walk with no real clue where I mean to go. Where I end up is school. It’s after nine and I expect the gate to the pool to be locked, but it’s not. There’s a lone figure, cutting at a fish-like pace through the water.
Marcus.
I go to my locker and change, and when I come out, if anything, Marcus’s pace has quickened. I dive into the lane next to him as he’s making the flip on the other end. When I pass him near the midpoint of the pool, I see him breathe my direction.
I turn and swim back to the blocks and find he’s pulled himself out of the water and sits at the end of my lane. I hear him yell something, but I don’t slow down.
I can’t.
But as I reach for the wall on my next lap, preparing to flip turn, his hand brushes along my side. His touch rips through me like white-hot lightning and I inhale a lungful of water.
Marcus hooks his arms under mine and moves me to the edge, pressing my back against the cool tile as I cough. “You all right?”
When I can finally speak, I glare at him. “I was okay right up until you tried to drown me!”
“I was hoping to keep you from drowning, actually. You’re not cleared by your doctor to be
in the pool yet.”
“I’m fine.” Between the swimming, the coughing, and the fact that Marcus still has me in his arms, I’m so winded I can’t get any breath behind it, so the lie doesn’t come out sounding anywhere near as convincing as I mean it to.
He cocks his head and one dark eyebrow raises. “Is it something you want to talk about?”
“What?”
His expression softens and his gaze sinks through mine as he lifts his hand and pushes the wet hair off my forehead. “Whatever demon it is you’re trying to out-swim.”
The water is suddenly electrified. His knee presses between my thighs, his hand rests on my ribcage, his fingers still caress my forehead, and everywhere he’s touching me buzzes with the current.
“No,” I say. I don’t even know where I’d start if I did. I’m still trying to process everything Dad told me.
“Okay.” He lets me go, and I feel as though I’ve been thrown in an ice bath, all the electric heat instantly gone. “I’ll respect that. All I’ll add is, if it’s about your dad, I totally get it.”
I want to press into his arms again, but I feel something black and ugly rising up from my core. So I do what I always do when I feel like this. I lash out.
“You don’t get anything.”
“I get drunk dads.” His voice is low, and I feel his gaze penetrating my armor.
“It’s not that.” I shake my head to free myself from his eyes. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
His full lips press into a line as he bobs a small nod. “Okay. I’ll leave it alone.”
I dip under the water to wash the hair back from my face, then pull myself up to sit on the edge. “Why are you here so late?”
“Didn’t need to be at the gym tonight, and this is where I come when I need to blow off some steam.”
“I thought you had a date.”
His eyes lock on mine again. “It didn’t work out.”
“Anything you want to talk about?” I ask, raising my eyebrows at him.
A smile ghosts over his strong features, but vanishes just as fast. “No.” He pulls himself up from the pool edge in one deft motion and grabs his towel. “You hungry?”
Butterflies erupt in my stomach. If I’m not mistaken, Marcus is asking me to grab dinner with him, and this time it’s not a case of mistaken identity. “Maybe. Where are you going?”
“Where the burgers are laced with crack,” he says with a devious smile.
I know where he means, but Sam Hill is the last place I want to be. Even if Dad hasn’t fallen off the wagon yet, I don’t feel like being reminded of all my public humiliation. “We just had Sam Hill burgers last night. There is other food, you know.”
He shrugs. “What can I say? I need my burger fix. So, you in or what?”
I pull myself up and grab my towel. “I could eat…but not at Sam Hill.”
He looks at me for a long minute and I see understanding dawn on his face. “How about I call Mico’s Pizza for takeout?”
“That would be good,” I say, turning for the locker room. “I’m going to change.”
I’m shaking and I know it’s not from the slight chill in the night air. I’m not stupid. I know he doesn’t mean this to be a date. But that doesn’t stop the cyclone from scattering my thoughts to the wind and tearing up my insides.
I rush through my shower and throw on my clothes, sure that when I come out, he’ll have changed his mind and vanished. But, to the contrary, when I emerge from the locker room, he’s sitting on a starting block with his phone pressed to his ear, freshly showered and wearing worn jeans and a snug white T-shirt.
He stands, sauntering toward me. “Hold on,” he says into the receiver, then to me, “What do you want on it? Say anything but anchovies.”
With the word anchovies, his nose scrunches a little and a questioning smile curves his firm, red lips. And I’ve never wanted to kiss a pair of lips the way I want to kiss his. The unrelenting cyclone inside just took down all my power lines, scrambling my nervous system and setting off sparks. My brain short circuits.
“Addie?” he asks, and I realize he’s waiting for me to say something.
“Anchovies,” I repeat. Partly because it’s the last word I heard him say, and it’s playing on repeat like a stuck record in my broken brain. But also because anchovies are my favorite.
Friday nights were pizza night when I was little. Mom used to order me a small anchovy pizza all my own and set up the table on the back porch for us so my pizza never had to be in the actual house. She sat at the other end, as far away from my “disgusting fish pizza” as she could get and wouldn’t even let me keep any leftovers. The whole thing, box and all, went right into the trash bin when I was done. Dad used to take a bite of my pizza, then try to kiss Mom. She’d shove him away by the face and go wash her hand because it had touched his mouth and was contaminated.
“Seriously?” Marcus says, his face creasing deeper.
I take a deep breath. “Seriously.”
“Okay,” he drawls into the phone. “I apparently need one large anchovy pizza for pick up.”
I hold up my hands. “You don’t have to get anchovies!”
He listens for a second to whatever the Mico’s person is saying, then hangs up the phone. “Tonight is about solidarity,” he says, shoving it in his pocket. “If that means I have to eat anchovies, then so be it.”
My chest swells with emotion. “You’d do that for me?”
A smile tugs at his mouth. “No hypotheticals. I am doing this for you.”
“Why?”
“That’s what friends do,” he says, causing a shower of sparks in my belly.
It only gets worse when he hikes his duffel bag onto his shoulder and gently takes my elbow in his hand, directing me toward the faculty parking lot. His touch sets off a chain reaction down my spine that settles low in my belly. I’m all electric jitters by the time he clicks the locks on his old black pickup truck and opens the door for me.
I look at him for a long minute, not sure I trust myself not to do or say something stupid alone in a car with him.
He quirks an amused smile. “You don’t trust me?”
“If my alternative is running alongside, I guess I have no choice.”
He takes my elbow again and helps me into the passenger seat, and when sparklers go off under my skin, I know I’m in trouble.
We pass Sam Hill on the way to Mico’s, and Dad’s car isn’t there. Marcus must see me looking.
“We can drive over to Crazy Eights later and check for him, if you want.”
“I think he’s home.” I hope.
He cuts me a sideways glance. “That’s good, right?”
“Yeah. I think so.”
He pulls into a parking spot in front of Mico’s. “Give me a sec,” he says, climbing out.
I watch him disappear into the pizzeria and try to convince myself that I didn’t just notice he has an incredible ass.
He’s back a few minutes later with a large pizza box, two cans of Coke, and a stack of napkins. The minute he opens the passenger door and hands the box through, I’m engulfed in the smell of salty fish and marinara.
“I’m having my doubts about this,” he says, pulling a face and indicating the pizza with a tip of his head.
“I told you that you didn’t have to get anchovies,” I say defensively.
He gives the box a disparaging look and closes my door. He drops into the driver’s seat and turns the key, then backs out and heads up the road toward my house. For a minute, I’m nervous that he thinks we’re eating there, but when he takes the left at the corner and heads for the park, I know where we’re going.
He parks on the side of the road near the shelter and reaches across for the pizza. We get out and start up the hill toward our bench. When we reach it, I lower myself onto one end and trace the deep carving of his name with my index finger. “Is this you?”
He sits and sets the pizza box on the bench between us, looking a litt
le chagrinned. “Can I plead the fifth?”
I look at him with raised eyebrows. “So what it says is true?”
The second it’s out of my mouth, I can’t believe I said it. But when he bursts out laughing, it’s a rich sound that vibrates through me and melts my insides. His whole face changes, becoming more boyish—warm and full of life.
I start to laugh along and it sounds totally foreign to my ears. I can’t remember the last time I laughed.
“Right to the point,” he says as our laughter dies down. “For the record, my friend gouged that into this bench when we were twelve. We barely knew what pussy was, let alone what it tasted like. It was more wishful thinking.”
I’m suddenly warm all over. I blame it on the walk rather than the conversation.
“Speaking of eating…” He trails off and opens the box at arm’s length, as if he’s expecting something to spring out and attach itself to his face, like in Alien.
“They’re all dead,” I say.
He looks up at me, concern flashing in his eyes.
“The anchovies. They’re dead,” I say with a wave at the pizza. “I mention this because you look like you think they might jump off the pizza or something.”
“If you’re so sure...” He slides the box toward me. “Ladies first.”
I pull a slice from the pie and bite off the end. And God, it’s amazing. “Mmm…” I moan as I chew.
I realize my eyes are closed, savoring the salty goodness. When I open them, Marcus is looking at me. Scratch that. He’s staring at me, watching my face with rapt interest.
“What?” I say, rubbing the back of my hand over the grease slick on my chin.
His eyes flash with amusement in the moonlight. “I’ve never seen anyone look like eating pizza was a religious experience.”
He pulls a slice from the box and brings it to his face. He sniffs it, then touches the tip of his tongue to an anchovy near the edge. And suddenly I’m jealous of that slice of pizza. His eyebrows go up and he takes a small bite.
“Huh,” he says after he swallows.
“What?” I say again.
He tears off another bite, bigger this time. “I’ve been missing out,” he says through a full mouth.