I look at his face, the face that’s probably one of the first ones I saw when I came into this world. It’s a face that I’ve seen nearly every day of my life ever since, a face that means warmth and safety and home.
He means warmth and safety and home. He always will.
And so I can’t lie to him.
I sigh and my shoulders deflate. “Fine. I did slip. But only a little.”
Slowly, those lines deepen some more and he smiles.
My dad is super controlled. He doesn’t smile that often or talk that often either. We’re the ones who talk around him, Mom and me and Brendan, and sometimes we have bets on who can make Dad laugh. I usually win. Well, after Mom.
So this feels like a win. His small but affectionate smile.
I wrap my arms around his waist. “Fine. I can’t lie to you.”
That’s why I want to tell you that… I’m in love with someone. Someone you know. Please, don’t be mad.
I hope he won’t be.
I mean, he wasn’t a big fan of my high school boyfriend, Brad. My dad has never been a fan of any of the boys I used to hang out with even though they were only friends. He’s super protective of me.
I’d always obey him, no matter what.
But sometimes when I wouldn’t understand his highhanded ways, Mom would tell me that I’m his little girl and sometimes I should just cut him some slack. And other times, my mom would shake her head at my dad and let me do my thing, like going to the prom with Brad.
Anyway, Dad likes Dean, doesn’t he? So I’m hoping that he’ll be more receptive of the idea.
Dad’s smile turns into a chuckle. “Well, I’m glad you remember that.”
Smiling myself, I hug him and close my eyes. “I missed you, Dad.”
His own arms come around me and he hugs me back tightly.
For a few seconds he stays silent and I think this is the only gesture I’m going to get, him tightly squeezing me and enfolding me in his strong arms so nothing harmful can ever touch me.
But then he whispers in a tone that can only be called guttural, “Missed you too, kiddo.”
Okay, so today is going to be a tear-fest because hearing my dad’s low voice, tears well up in my eyes again and I clench them shut.
“I love you so much,” I whisper. “It’s so good to be back.”
I sense the change in him then. It’s not a bad change. In fact, I love that he rubs his chin on my head, making me feel all warm.
But I know what he’s going to say, what he’s been saying ever since I announced that I was moving to California for college earlier this year.
“The offer’s still open, Fallon. Just say the word, honey, and you can start your spring semester here,” he says. “In fact, they’re bringing in a couple of new people at the English department that I think you’re going to want to meet.”
My dad is the head of the Psychology department at a college here—he still works at Heartstone Psychiatric Hospital but only in a limited capacity since he wanted to spend more time with us and flexible hours in academia let him do that. And for the longest time, I wanted to go to the same school he teaches at.
But then, Dean up and left for the west coast, and I realized what I’d lost. So after spending two agonizing years away from the man I love, I decided to take the big plunge and move across the country.
Dad wasn’t happy, of course. He couldn’t understand why I’d make such a drastic decision and I couldn’t tell him. Not until I’d told Dean first.
Again, Mom came to my rescue and convinced Dad to let me go. And Dad can never refuse my mom—it’s a fact.
The day I left, I could see the hurt in his eyes, the suppressed water and it broke my heart into a million pieces. I don’t think I’d ever seen my dad on the verge of tears before that day.
I cried all through the six-hour plane ride. I didn’t know leaving my dad to go after the love of my life would hurt me so much, would hurt him so much.
But I’m back now and Dean is with me, and once he tells my dad, I’ll talk to him myself. He’ll understand, won’t he?
I move away from his embrace and look up at him as I paste on a courageous smile. “It’s okay, Dad. I like it in California. I really do. Everyone is really nice.”
By everyone, I mean maybe a handful of people that I’ve talked to.
So I haven’t really made any friends over there yet. I’ve been too busy pining over a certain dark-haired, brown-eyed man. And well, I tried to make friends with my roommate and when she asked me why I was there, I stupidly told her the real reason—that I was there for a man whom I’ve loved all my life and who is fourteen years older than me. Which totally grossed her out so now we don’t talk much.
Besides, I’m like my mom. I don’t like the sun or sunny things or beaches. I’m a winter girl. I like the rain and gray skies and so California isn’t really for me.
Dad frowns down at me, his eyes strangely knowing it all without me even telling him. “You’re lying to me.”
I blink my tears back. “Please, trust me, okay? California isn’t that bad.”
His face sets up in stone. “Well, I’d like it a lot more if it wasn’t three thousand miles away and if you didn’t insist on covering that distance in the longest time possible.”
I grimace. “I’m sorry if I worried you.”
He shakes his head. “Do you have any idea how dangerous it is to travel like that? Staying in motels in unknown places. Driving down highways for hours on end. One blink of an eye and anything can happen.”
“Dad—”
“If you insist on living so far away from us, you’re not doing this again,” he tells me sternly.
Defeated, I agree. “Yes, okay.”
“Good.”
I swallow and before I can change my mind, I say, “He took care of me, Dad. Dean took care of me.”
I say it to him on purpose. This is my tiny way of telling my dad that Dean is a good guy. Not that my dad didn’t know this already. Dean grew up in front of Dad but still.
I had to say it.
And as soon as I do, I feel him in the hallway.
Dean.
I feel his presence and my dad does too. He looks away from me and probably at Dean. I detect a slight clench in his jaw but I can’t be sure if it’s my own nervousness that’s making me see things or if it’s really there.
Dad lets go of me and I spin around to find him walking up to Dean.
Dean stands at the edge of the hallway with my mom. When he sees that my dad is approaching him, he begins his own journey toward my dad.
They both are dark-haired—my dad’s hair sprinkled with silver though—and tall and broad. Even though my dad is in his fifties now, he still looks distinguished. And well, Dean is… Dean, the man who gets my heart racing just at the thought of him.
When they meet in the middle of the hallway, my dad and Dean, I realize that they’re both exactly the same height as well.
How did that happen? And how did I not know this before?
They both stand in front of each other for a few seconds. I can’t see the expression on my dad’s face but I do see Dean.
I see the respect in his eyes for my dad. Not to mention the love and nostalgia. His brown eyes are brimming with it.
But that’s his only tell.
With my mother, Dean was more open and affectionate. But with my dad, he’s reserved. His features barely show that he’s seeing my dad after two whole years.
“Simon,” Dean greets him with a short nod while offering my dad his hand.
I wait with bated breath for Dad to take it.
Take it, Dad.
My dad doesn’t. He doesn’t take Dean’s hand.
He does one better.
He steps up and gives Dean a hug, which Dean immediately returns. In fact, he even closes his eyes and clenches his jaw in that typical way of his, when he’s overcome by emotions. And I realize
that he was waiting my dad to make the first move.
For some reason, Dean was waiting for my dad to welcome him back into our family.
It’s stupid, right? He’s always been family.
“It’s good to see you,” Dad says and I can sense that his eyes are closed as well, and he’s hugging Dean as tightly as he was hugging me.
“It’s good to be back,” Dean says.
I try to control it but a huge smile stretches across my lips.
I’m so engrossed in watching them together that I have no idea when both Mom and Brendan sidle up to me.
I grab onto Mom’s arm. “Everything is going to be okay, right?”
She kisses the side of my forehead. “Yes.”
Feeling happy, I wind my arm around Brendan’s neck and kiss his cheek; I have to get up on my tiptoes to do that though. “You’ve got a big mouth, don’t you? I’ll stuff it with dirt if you don’t keep it shut.”
He grins, winding his own arm around my neck and hugging me to his side. “I’d like to see you try, Tiny.”
After their meeting in the hallway, Dad and Dean, along with all of us, go into the living room. We spend a couple of hours talking and hanging out and eating all the Christmas cookies that Mom made.
As delicious as they are, I have to admit that I’ll enjoy them more once Dean has his talk with Dad. As it is, I sit there nibbling on things with half a heart that’s beating with a power of two.
The only time I get distracted from the impending conversation is when Mom mentions that there’s going to be a get-together on Christmas Eve—tomorrow—and her friends from Heartstone and a couple of other people are coming.
“So you mean, Aunt Renn and Uncle Tristan and Aunt Penny?” I ask, referring to my mom’s friends.
“Yes.” My mom beams.
“What about Auntie Vi and Uncle Graham?”
“Of course. Everyone’s coming.”
“Like their kids too? Rosie?” My innocence knows no bounds here. “Is Rosie coming?”
Mom’s irritated but she answers anyway, “Yes, Fallon. All the kids are going to be here, including Rosie.”
I shrug, so proud of myself for maintaining my smooth façade. “I was just asking.”
Dean gives me a weird look and so does my dad, but I ignore them both.
My entire focus is on a fourteen-year-old boy called Brendan Blackwood, a.k.a. my brother.
Brendan perked up at the mention of Auntie Vi’s—I only call her auntie because I’m closest to her—and Uncle Graham’s sweet and shy twelve-year-old daughter, Rose Edwards. Everyone calls her Rosie though. I totally get it; she’s super pretty and delicate like a flower.
Completely opposite to how my brother is, loud and playful and brash.
But then, opposites attract, right?
At least I hope so. Because Brendan has a huge crush on her.
Oh, he tries to deny it and act cool and composed when she’s around. But I know him. I know the tips of his ears blush when he’s in extreme distress. And that’s what happens when he sees her.
It’s hilarious actually.
I widen my eyes at him, and he secretly gives me the bird finger from the armchair that he’s sprawled in.
I want to laugh but I don’t.
Tomorrow’s going to be so exciting. Well, once the big talk is done and over with.
Thirty minutes later when we’re in the kitchen though, I regret it. I should’ve laughed right then because I don’t think I’m ever going to laugh again. A very familiar feeling for me but God, this time it feels so real.
So, so real. More real than the illness I have.
Because Dean and my dad are in his study right now and they’re talking. While I’m out here with my mom and my brother in the kitchen.
As soon as they left to go talk, Mom dragged me into the kitchen and gave me some stuff to do—I honestly don’t know what—to keep my mind off it.
“It’s going to be okay. Let them talk,” she told me sternly.
But I can’t focus on anything other than what’s happening inside my dad’s study. I’m running through multiple scenarios in my head.
I’m picturing how it will happen. How they will break the news to us that everything’s okay now. That Dad doesn’t mind if I date Dean.
Will they walk into the kitchen together? Will my dad ask me to see them in his office? Will he have questions? I bet he will.
I imagine and imagine and yet nothing prepares me for it at all.
Nothing prepares me for what Dean says when minutes later, he comes into the kitchen.
Alone.
We have this huge island in the middle, made of white marble, and I’m standing on one side of it and Dean on the other. We’re right opposite to each other.
Technically, the very first thing he should see as he enters the room is me. I’m right there, right where his eyes should land.
But he doesn’t. He doesn’t look at me.
He only looks at Mom, who smiles at him. I was doing the same, smiling at him, but at the expression on his face, my smile dies down.
Dean appears grim. And tight. Strained.
I grab the edge of the island to keep myself steady.
“Smells nice in here,” he says to Mom, his voice deep and deceptively unaffected by whatever’s causing him to look like that, so withdrawn. “But I’m afraid I’ll have to pass on dinner. Thanks for everything, Willow.”
And just like that, he turns around and leaves.
I hear his footsteps walking down the hallway, the hallway where I crashed into my dad, the hallway where my dad embraced him like a son.
That was like, two hours ago, right? Dad and Dean hugged each other two hours ago and now Dean’s leaving.
How’s that possible?
The sound of the door shutting behind him wakes me up and I run after him.
I know Dad said no running inside the house, but I don’t care. No one stops me either. I don’t hear my mom calling out for me. I don’t hear my brother.
They don’t stop me from dashing down the hallway, ripping the door open and launching myself into the winter night.
“Dean,” I call out as I see him walking down the brick pathway.
He doesn’t stop. So I take off after him, climb down the porch steps and pump my legs to go catch up to him.
“Dean, stop,” I pant, grabbing hold of his sweater at the small of his back when I do catch up to him.
He stops then but doesn’t turn around.
I see his shoulders heave. They shift and ripple up and down in a jerky motion. I feel it in my heart that begins to jerk as well. I can’t call it a beat. My heart isn’t beating smoothly. It’s jerking rhythmically in pain.
“Dean?” I whisper his name again. As a question. A plea for him to turn around, a call for help because my heart is hurting so badly.
He hears it and faces me.
His breaths are coming out of his mouth in vapor, same as mine I think, as he says, “Get inside the house, Fallon. It’s cold.”
He looks at me, at what I’m wearing, and that’s when a cold breeze hits my body. Or perhaps that’s when I feel it hitting my body.
I’ve got a Harry Potter t-shirt on along with a pair of jeans. I’d taken off my sweater and coat and even my socks a long time ago.
So now I stand here in clothes that are barely any protection from the weather but it’s okay. I hardly feel it.
I hardly feel anything other than his pain.
“What happened?” I ask him, stepping closer, my bare feet sticking to the brick walkway with cold.
“Get inside the house,” he orders, his face edged with shadows and his eyes so dark that they make me think of the depths of a bottomless well.
“No, not until you tell me. Did he say something? He said something, didn’t he?” I grab his sweater with both hands. “I told you that I’d talk to him with you. I told you—”
; “And I told you that I’d protect you from whatever his reaction might be.”
His words vibrate between us, authoritative and possessive, a burst of heat in this cold weather.
I go to say something to him but I hear my dad come out on the porch.
“Fallon, come inside.”
Just three words. One of them is my name and still, I feel my dad’s command right down to my bones.
I feel it to the point where I know, I know that any second now, my fists in Dean’s sweater will unfurl and he’ll slip through my grasp. Any second now, I’ll have to watch him leave while I stand here, watching him walk away.
Because I can’t defy my dad.
One defiance was enough. Moving away for college was enough. And then, taking this road trip.
So two of them then. Two rebellions.
Still, whatever the number, they were enough to last me a lifetime now.
I look up at Dean with wide, fearful eyes, my fists tightening despite my dad’s words. I don’t wanna let him go. I wanna talk to him, to my dad, and figure this out.
We can figure this out, can’t we?
It’s Dean. My dad loves Dean. He’s family.
What even happened in there that was so terrible that Dean has to leave?
Dean’s jaw tightens up when I don’t obey my dad and let go of him. He puts his hands on mine—his warm, brimming-with-heat hands—and forces me to let him go. When my fingers lose contact with the fabric, Dean dips his face even lower.
With my heart pounding in my chest, I feel him kiss the top of my head. It’s a soft kiss. A feathery kiss, but still, it dislodges my tears and they drip down my cheeks.
“Your dad’s right. Get inside the house, Tiny,” he whispers to me, his gaze swimming with intensity and struggle while he wipes off my tears.
At last, he steps away from me and looks up at my dad. A look passes between them that I don’t really get except that it’s laced with… hostility. At least, on my dad’s part.
And then, what I predicted just now comes true.
He slips away and I watch him leave while I stand in the same spot where he kissed me and wiped off my tears.
I remember the day Fallon was born.
I remember the panic I’d felt. The panic at the first few contractions. The panic at finding out that my baby girl was coming. I was overdue actually so it shouldn’t have been such a shock but still.
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