My father has finally convinced me to have breakfast with him.
Unfortunately, it’s Tuesday, I have school and he has work, and this breakfast is taking place at 6:00 a.m.
The Double T Diner is packed, which I didn’t expect, and louder than necessary for this time of the morning. There’s a tiny jukebox on every table, and half of them are playing. The waitstaff bustle around, pouring coffee and slinging plates at high speed.
I’m half asleep in the corner of a booth, wishing I had a pair of sunglasses. Don’t these people need to sleep?
It was weird for Dad to pick me up, too. I sat in the foyer, waiting for his headlights to cruise up the street. I wonder if this is what it’s going to be like when they stop arguing about visitation rights.
My throat closes up, and I take a gulp of coffee. It’s hot and I almost cough it all over the table.
“Careful,” my father says. “She just poured that.”
It’s the first words he’s spoken to me since we sat down.
This whole breakfast feels remarkably awkward. I just need to get through the next ninety minutes, and then he can drop me off at school.
Where I can be remarkably awkward around Cait and Rev. And everyone else.
Dad is texting someone. I’m super glad he wanted to go out for breakfast. I could have been ignored in my pajamas.
I can’t believe I was so excited to show him OtherLANDS.
My phone pings with a message. It’s way too early for Ethan, or even Cait, so it’s probably spam.
No. It’s a different kind of nightmare.
Tuesday, March 20 6:42 a.m.
From: N1ghtm@re5
To: Azure M
Is it your birthday? Because I have a little surprise for you.
I freeze. There’s no attachment to his message.
My heart rate has tripled. I haven’t heard from him in days. I had actually started to hope he’d grown bored with this.
“Were you up late?” Dad says.
His voice interrupts my thoughts, though he’s still looking at his phone. For a minute, it makes me wonder if he’s talking to me at all.
I swallow and jerk my attention up. “Yeah,” I say. “I have a new friend I’m gaming with.”
“Oh yeah? Someone from school?”
“No, just a guy I met online.” I can’t stop staring at my phone.
What kind of surprise?
I want to write back.
At the same time, I don’t.
And I can’t block him from here.
I can’t stop thinking about his comment about my profile picture, how the Hamilton High sweatshirt is visible.
“What guy?” My father’s eyes snap up briefly, before returning to his phone.
I wave a hand. “I don’t know him in person. We just game together sometimes.”
“Are you being safe?”
For the first time, my father’s words get my full attention. He’s worried about Ethan when I have some guy promising a surprise. I glare at him. “I don’t know, is it safe to send him naked pictures? Or could that go badly?”
“Emma.” I almost have his full attention now. He actually makes eye contact.
“I’m sixteen years old, Dad. I’m not an idiot.”
“You never know who’s on the other side of the screen, Emma.”
“I know that.” I am literally living with that right this very second.
I should tell him about Nightmare. But right now I don’t want to tell him about anything. Fear and irritation and anger are having a cage match in my belly.
Our waitress appears beside the table. “Are y’all ready to order?”
“Go ahead,” my dad says, attention back on his phone. “I’m just having coffee.”
Irritation wins the match. “You asked me to breakfast and you’re only going to drink coffee?”
His eyes flash up again. “Emma.”
“I’ll have the Chesapeake Benedict,” I say, just to irritate him further. It’s the most expensive thing on the menu: eggs Benedict with a crab cake on top.
My dad doesn’t even flinch.
“You got it,” says the waitress, scribbling on her pad.
Guilt socks me in the face as I remember Mom talking about putting the house on the market because of money.
“Actually,” I say, “I’ll have the pancake short stack.”
She scribbles out whatever she wrote first. “Sure thing.”
Then she takes our menus and she disappears.
My dad keeps texting.
I take a slower sip of my coffee. “What’s going on?” I say to him.
“Oh, you know how these things get. Last-minute fixes before release.”
“They must be really missing you this morning.”
He snorts. “You have no idea.”
HE DOESN’T EVEN GET THE IRONY.
Another sip of coffee. Maybe I need to hammer it home. “It’s a shame you had to waste your time with me.”
“It’s not a waste of time,” he says, tap-tap-tapping at the screen. “I can do both.”
My expression turns into a line-face emoji.
Whatever. I pull out my own phone. Nightmare’s message is still sitting on top. I close it before I start hyperventilating again.
Besides, what’s the worst thing he can do? Show up at school? It’s not like he can find me from an image of my back. He might have a hard time if the only identifying mark is a girl with a dark ponytail. He’s already sent me an image of my avatar—not like I haven’t been down that road before.
I take a deep breath. This will be okay.
I want to text Cait but I’ve burned that bridge.
I’ve burned the bridge with Rev, too.
I’m stranded on this island all alone.
Maybe I could write Rev a note. He said his best friend used to exchange notes with his girlfriend before they met in person.
I pull up a browser on my phone and look for a Bible verse about divorce.
Anyone who divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery.
Nope, not that one.
A woman is bound to her husband as long as he lives. But if her husband dies—
Okay, definitely not that one.
However, each one of you must also love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.
According to that one, my dad is married to his iPhone.
A lot of these are about sex—and exactly zero of them are reassuring. I wrinkle my nose.
“What are you frowning about?” says Dad.
“I’m reading the Bible.”
“You’re—what?”
“You heard me.” I wave my hand, making no effort to hide my irritation. “Go back to your game stuff.”
“Emma …” He sounds like he’s not sure how to proceed from here.
I can’t help him. I personally have no idea how to proceed. Burying my face in electronics has worked in the past. At least computers do what I want. I don’t glance up.
I don’t understand how Rev can find any of this reassuring at all. Honestly, I’m tired of reading about how divorce is seventeen kinds of forbidden unless someone dies.
I change my search query to Bible verses about forgiveness.
Now they’re all about asking God for forgiveness. Also not what I want.
The sad thing is that I could probably walk up to Rev and say, “Is there a good Bible quote for asking someone to forgive you? I need it.”
Actually, that would make a pretty good opener for an apology, now that I think of it.
No, it might sound like I’m mocking him.
I need to keep looking.
The waitress returns to our table and unloads a plate of pancakes. The cup of butter is melted, which is awesome. I pour it all out, then add a gallon of syrup.
“Do you want to talk,” says Dad, “or are you going to have your face in your phone the whole time?”
I slam my phone down on the table. “Are you kidding? Tell me you’re kidding.”
We draw the attention of everyone around us.
“M&M,” my dad says, his voice low. “I don’t understand what you’re so—”
“You don’t understand what?” I snap. “You don’t understand why I’m upset? How about the fact that I had to get up at 5:00 a.m. to go to breakfast with you, but—”
“I’m sorry it’s such a hardship.” His eyes flash.
“—but you won’t look away from your phone to have a conversation with me. So when I start looking at my phone because I’m bored and you’re not even eating—”
“I have a job, Emma.”
“—you get on my case about ignoring you, when that’s all you’ve been doing since you picked me up.”
“First of all,” he says, punctuating his words with his finger against the table, “I am not goofing off on my phone. You know this is already a tense time for me, without everything else going on. Second of all—”
I snort. “Gee, then maybe you shouldn’t have asked for a divorce.”
“—I asked you to breakfast because I miss you, and I don’t deserve this attitude right now.”
“You’re right,” I say sweetly, my voice dripping with sarcasm. “You don’t deserve this at all. Maybe I should go outside and have a glass of wine, you can roll your eyes over a bottle of beer, and we can have a discussion like grown-ups.”
“What?” he snaps. “What do you want from me, Emma?”
Attention.
I almost say the word. The weight of it is right there in my mouth, like something I need to spit out or I can’t breathe.
I have all of Mom’s attention, and I don’t want it.
I have none of his, and I crave it.
How can they both be so blind?
“Nothing,” I whisper. That dagger of shame buries itself a little more deeply. I clear my throat. “I think you need to take me home.”
He sighs. “Emma.”
“I don’t want to be here. I need to go home.”
“Eat your pancakes. We can talk about school, or whatever game you’re playing—”
“Home.” I shove the plate away. “I want to go home.”
“You’re being ridiculous,” he snaps. “I don’t know what your mother is telling you, but I’m not going to have you behave like this every time I see you.”
My throat tightens again. “She’s not telling me anything.” I slide out of the booth. “You don’t have to worry.”
His phone rings, and he glances at the screen. “Stop. Emma, stop. I want to talk to you about this.” He doesn’t even wait for a response. He answers the phone. “Yeah, Doug, give me thirty seconds, okay?”
Thirty seconds. He thinks we’re going to resolve this in thirty seconds.
“Take your call,” I say. I toss my bag over my shoulder.
“Where are you going?”
“I need some air. Take your call. I’ll wait outside.”
For some reason I expect him to disconnect the call and chase me out of the restaurant. He doesn’t. I hear him behind me saying, “Thanks, Doug. I’m just here with my daughter …”
Hilarious. He makes it sound like Doug is interrupting a nice time.
I find a spot on a bench in front of the restaurant. The air is brisk and stings my ears, but the rain has finally left the area. Cars fly by on Ritchie Highway. I can see Dad through the window, chatting away.
I wish I could just leave. A bus stops just down the road, and I wonder if I have the guts to run and catch it, and just ride forever.
No, I don’t.
Also, that would take some serious cardio.
Without warning, tears form in my eyes. I’ve never felt so alone.
I dial Cait.
Her mom answers. “Hello?”
I sniff and try to hide the tears in my voice. “Hi, Mrs. Cameron. It’s Emma. Is Cait awake yet?”
“She’s in the shower. It’s very early, dear.”
“I know.” I sniff again, and then it’s like my eyes refuse to keep up this fight. I start crying full out. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Can you just tell her I’ll see her at school?”
“Emma? What’s wrong?”
Her voice is so warm. It’s at such odds with my parents, who speak with nothing but vitriol. “It’s nothing.” My voice cracks. “It’s nothing.”
“Oh, sweetheart. You’re crying. It’s not nothing. Are you okay?”
“No.” All this emotion is fighting its way out of me. My sobs make it almost impossible to speak. “My parents are getting a divorce.” A diesel truck revs to life nearby.
“Emma. I’m so sorry. Where are you?”
“I’m sitting outside the Double T Diner. I was supposed to have breakfast with my dad but he’s too busy.”
“Oh, Emma. Do you need me to come get you?”
“Yes,” I say. “Yes. Please.”
“I’ll be there in ten minutes. You stay right there, do you hear me?”
I spend the entire ten minutes wringing my hands and wondering if I should call her back and tell her not to come. Wondering what I’m going to say to Cait when I see her.
Wondering if my dad is going to notice the passage of time, or see that I’m sitting out here sobbing into my hands.
He doesn’t.
I spot Mrs. Cameron’s shiny maroon minivan as it pulls into the lot, and I send my dad a quick text.
Emma: Going to be late for school. Getting a ride with Cait.
Maybe that’ll wake him up.
He glances at his phone, then looks out the window just as the minivan stops in front of me.
He gives me a thumbs-up. A frigging thumbs-up.
I turn back to the minivan. Cait is opening the door.
“I’m sorry,” I say, and I burst into tears again. “Cait, I’m so sorry—”
She launches herself at me and wraps me up in a hug. “Oh, Emma. You should have told me.”
“Come on, girls,” calls Mrs. Cameron. “I need to get the boys to school, too.”
We climb into the van. The door slides closed.
And I remember what it feels like to be wanted.
