Unafraid (Beachwood Bay) (29 page)

I see Emerson and Juliet exchange a look over my head.

“I have to pick up some prints from the lab,” Juliet says quickly. “You guys talk, and then I’ll be back to make dinner. I’ll make up the spare room, and you can sleep here.”

“It’s fine,” I reply, not wanting to impose. “You don’t need to—”

“You’re staying,” Juliet says firmly. “I’ll pick up some groceries while I’m out. We can make your favorite, lasagna.” She gives me a warm smile and a kiss on the cheek, then Emerson walks with her to the door. They talk quietly for a moment, then he leans down to kiss her goodbye. It’s a brief embrace, their lips barely touching, but the love between them is clear, so strong, it makes my heart ache all over again.

I want it, so bad. What I thought I had with Hunter. What my brother shares with Juliet. That. That forever, all-in, everything kind of love.

Emerson sees her out, then comes to sit beside me on the couch. “So, kid…” he sighs, pulling my legs up over his lap. “Start at the beginning.”

I tell him everything, curled on the couch in the afternoon sun. Emerson listens without saying a word, as I share the story of how I was foolish enough to think it could be different this time. When I finish, I take a breath, looking around the apartment, and my brother, in the middle of it all, finally at peace.

“You really did it,” I tell him, full of wistful pride. “You got out, you made it.”

“It wasn’t easy.” Emerson replies. “Trusting Juliet, forgiving each other for our mistakes, it’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done. But that’s life, Brit. That’s love. You have to figure out what you want and then fight like hell. Because it’s never easy, not when your heart’s on the line. You get hurt, and angry, and scared as hell.”

“So how do you do it?” I ask, desperate. “How can you tell it’s worth the price?”

Emerson looks at me with certainty in his smile. “You just know. You know it like you know your own name. It’s a part of you, it’s who you are: loving them.” He looks away, suddenly bashful, but his words echo through me.

Hunter.

“Loving him was so easy,” I find myself telling Emerson. “I didn’t even see it when I fell. My brain was making up so many reasons for us not to be together, but my heart just went right ahead and did it anyway.”

Emerson grins at me. “Like me and Jules. I fought it kicking and screaming, but man, I was done from the very first moment we met.”

I swallow back a swell of tears. I’m glad Emerson got his happy ending, I truly am. Nobody deserves it more than him. But it just reminds me that I didn’t. Hunter isn’t mine to have and to hold, I’m still in this world alone. And I probably always will be.

“I don’t know what I can do,” I whisper helplessly, my darkest fears slipping through this cocoon of warm belonging. I feel an ache, the same wretched pain I’ve carried my whole life. “What is it about me that makes them leave?”

“It’s got nothing to do with you,” Emerson objects, but I shake my head.

“There’s no point denying it. God, Em, just look around. Mom couldn’t wait to get away from us, and Dad… I never even got to know him. He was already gone.” I look down, shredding my tissue into a dozen tiny pieces. “I guess I know now, I’ll never be enough to make them stay.”

“Bullshit.” Emerson leans forwards, gripping my hand. “You deserve to be happy, more than anyone I know. Some people just aren’t cut out to be parents is all, but that doesn’t mean we’re doomed to pay for their mistakes. We can do it differently.”

I look up, my mouth drops open. “Does this mean… You, and Juliet--?”

“What? No! We’re not even married yet,” Emerson says, but he can’t hide his grin. “But that doesn’t mean we haven’t talked about it. Not now, but later, one day. You can have the life you want, Brit,” he adds, “Trust me on that.”

I shake my head. “I just can’t help thinking, there’s some reason. That if I try harder, or act better, then they’d stay.” I swallow. “When I was little, I used to tidy my room. Do you remember? I was obsessive about it.”

“I remember,” Emerson smiles. “You were so crazy about everything else, I could never figure it out.”

“I thought, if I kept it neat enough, if I was good, then Dad would come back.” I whisper my confession, avoiding Emerson’s eyes. “It was all I wanted, to be like the other kids. They had fathers who loved them, they took it for granted, every day. But he never came back. And then when Mom started using… That’s when I gave up.” I shrug, remembering my teenage decision, the freedom I finally felt. “I figured if I couldn’t be good enough to make him stay, then I wouldn’t bother with being good at all.”

Emerson squeezes my hand.

I snap out of it. “I just… I can’t help thinking it’s me. If I knew what happened with dad, if I had some answers, maybe I could understand why he left…” I stop, and shake my head, self-conscious. “I’m sorry, I’m babbling on, I know. This is probably the last thing you need, dragging up the past.”

“Sometimes it can be good.” Emerson says quietly. “Sometimes the only way to move on is to face your past.”

He looks at me a long moment, then gets up and moves to the bureau. He opens a drawer and takes out a slip of paper, coming to sit back down on the couch. Emerson looks at the paper for a long moment, then passes it to me.

I stare at the page.

James Ray.
There’s an address too, scribbled under the name.

“Dad?” I breathe, shock rushing through me.

Emerson nods. “Ray Jay found him, a few months back. I didn’t know if you wanted to let sleeping dogs lie. But now, I figure…” He trails off, still looking at me like he’s not sure if I’m going to break down again. If this is the final straw to send me over the edge.

I stare at the paper in my hand. “The address, it’s close,” I realize. I look over at Emerson. “This is less than an hour away.”

He looks sympathetic.

“He was here,” I breathe. “All this time. And he never…”

I stop.

He never came to see how I was; never even cared enough to call.

“It’s up to you what you do with it.” Emerson sighs. “I don’t know what shape he’s in, or if he’ll have any answers for you. And maybe you shouldn’t even try—”

“I’m going.” I leap to my feet.

“What, now? Brit, wait a minute,” Emerson tries to calm me, but for the first time since this mess with Hunter, I have a sense of clarity—some calm cutting through the terrible ache in my chest.

“No, I need to talk to him,” I insist, reaching for my purse. “You’re right. I need answers. I need to face the past.”

“At least think about it,” Emerson follows me across the room. “Sleep on it, maybe when you’ve had time—”

“No,” I stop him. “I have to do this now. I’ll be back before dinner,” I add. “I promise, I’ll be OK.”

Emerson doesn’t look convinced, but he can’t stop me, and he knows it. “Be careful,” he murmurs, “We don’t know what he’s into these days. He could have done time, been mixed up in all kinds of stuff.”

“I know,” I reassure him. “Believe me, I’m not expecting daddy dearest to come meet me with open arms. I just want to talk to him.”

Emerson nods. “Call me the minute you need, and I’ll be there, you know that, right?”

“I know.” I smile at him. “Love you.”

“Love you right back.”

I drive fast, flirting with the speed limit as I head out to the address on that scribbled sheet of paper. I clench the steering wheel, my thoughts in a whirl, a million questions running around in my mind. Like why he left, what made him turn around and walk away from his family, his own flesh-and-blood? Did he think of me the way I thought about him when I was younger, watching other kids in school get picked up by their fathers, safe in a world of belonging I could only dream about?

One thing’s for sure, I need answers from him if I’m ever going to be free. I want so desperately to break this damn cycle I’m in, feeling so worthless that I can’t believe anything good will ever last. I pushed Hunter, I know it, but I can’t help myself. I’m always waiting for the house of cards to tumble and fall, for every moment of happiness to crumble into ash. It was the first thing I ever learned, what if feels like to be left, and that knowledge has colored every day of my life since.

I can’t do it anymore. I can’t live like this, expecting love to leave me. I know I’ll never love anyone the way I love Hunter, but still, I have to have hope. That good things will come into my world, and they’ll stay there. That one day, someone will stay.

My nerves are on edge as the miles speed past, all my emotions focused laser-sharp on the task in front of me as I dream up a hundred ways this could go. I try to talk myself down from this state of wild expectation. Emerson was right: we don’t know what James is into these days. He could be bad news, hell, he was bad news even back when we were kids. I remind myself to expect the worst. Drugs, violence, prison maybe.

But when I pull up across the street from the address, my jaw drops open. Nothing I imagined could have prepared me for this.

It’s an ordinary house, on an ordinary street. Safe. Suburban. The cul-de-sac curves gently past his split-level ranch house, a two-car garage by the small front yard. The grass is trimmed, a tree casts shade over the house, and through the side gate, I can see the brightly-colored frame of a kids’ bike.

I feel a chill, but I don’t have time to process it before a mini-van slows and turns onto the driveway, pulling up outside the house. The doors open, and two kids pile out. A boy, maybe twelve or thirteen, glued to the gaming console in his hand, and a little girl. She’s wearing a ballet outfit: a pink leotard and leg warmers, her hair pulled up in a bun.

“Jamie, help your mom with the groceries!”

I hear the man’s call through my open windows, but the van is blocking him from view. I turn down the radio and lean out, watching across the street as a brunette woman in soccer-mom athletic wear circles round to the back of the van, pulling out bags of groceries. The boy makes a big show of helping her, clearly annoyed, while his sister turns pirouettes on the lawn.

I’m holding my breath. It won’t be, I tell myself. It can’t be. Ray Jay screwed up the address, or maybe he’s already long gone. I never got to know him, but the father I heard about was a deadbeat, a lazy, no-good piece of scum. I was better off without him, that’s what I’ve told myself all these years. I’m better off on my own.

The man finally steps out from behind the van.

My heart freezes.

It’s him. He’s older, sure, but the face and dark hair are just the same as the old photos I saved. My father. Standing fifty feet away from me, reaching to sweep the little girl up in his arms. He tosses her in the air, and she lets out a shriek of delight, laughing happily as he carries her into the house.

The mom and other kid follow, and then the door closes behind them all, and the house is quiet. A happy family, the picture of suburban bliss.

I sit back in my seat, reeling. He has a family – a whole new life? I’ve always known it might be a possibility, but somehow, I never really imagined it. After all, he couldn’t care less about raising us, so I figured he didn’t want a family full stop, that he left us to go his own way, whatever that had been.

I was wrong.

I hear a strange tapping noise and look down to find my hand shaking against the dashboard. My whole body is trembling, overcome with the realization that all these years, he’s been right here: waking up in a house with his other children; fixing them breakfast, driving them to school. He’s been showing up to dance recitals and football games, fixing burgers on the grill on Friday nights, and falling asleep in front of the TV with them tucked safely under his arms.

He chose this. He chose to walk away from us, and never look back. He chose to be there for somebody else, instead of me. He chose this, all over again, every single day.

He chose to stay gone.

I feel something break apart inside of me, cleaved clean in two. Emerson was right, this has nothing to do with me. I couldn’t change it if I tried. Whatever his reasons for leaving me this way, none of them can make a difference to the pain he’s caused, the hurt and rejection I’ve carried with me all these years—tainting every relationship, conditioning me to expect the worst. Accept the worst. No words will ever take back the nights I spent lying in bed, wondering why he didn’t love me enough to stay. No apologies will ever erase my anger, and confusion, and all the tears I’ve cried.