“Maddie!” James’s voice comes from somewhere not far behind me, but I don’t react.
I can’t.
My body is floating in a bubble of shock and anger that I can’t burst.
This is a nightmare. You’ve fallen asleep, and you’ll wake up any moment now.
Only, when my nails dig into my palms from how tightly I’m closing my fists and reality is still here, it dawns on me that this moment is truly my worst nightmare come to life.
“Maddison? Is it really you?” the man in front of me asks, making no effort to exit the car.
I’d forgotten the sound of his voice, and a prickle of uneasiness travels down my spine at the sight of someone I thought was dead.
He sure acted like I was.
My name sounds rotten and wrong coming from him, and I don’t respond.
My head is frozen in time, prisoner of the last memory I have of my father. Him, yelling at my mother while he thought I was asleep. Pushing her away from the door. Letting her fall to the ground, hurt and scared and confused. His eyes on me as he left.
James’s arms wrap around my middle as he pulls me against his chest. I’m numb, but I still feel his warmth. I still feel his agitated breaths against my back. “Who is this?”
Under any other circumstances, his hands splayed against my stomach would make me melt, but now I only feel sick. Sick of living in an endless nightmare I created all on my own.
“I saw you the other day,” Pete sneers at James behind me, as if my father was entitled to even be in my presence in the first place.
He’s not. He’s really fucking not.
Seventeen years have gone by, and he’s still as disgusting as I remember.
“You my daughter’s boyfriend or some shit? Aren’t you too old for her?”
“I’m not your daughter,” I spit out, ignoring his assumptions. He has no right to ask, no right to look at me after all this time.
Sammy tried, he really tried to prevent this very thing from happening, but this burning hatred I feel for my father is something I’d never blame my older brother for—the skunk in front of me is the only one responsible. No offense to skunks.
“Damn sure are, kid.” He slides his glare toward me.
I stand a little taller, not wanting him to see how unsettled his undivided attention makes me feel.
“Raised you for four years. Been looking for you for seventeen.”
Raised me?
The usually still pool of anger that sits at the pit of my stomach—and has been growing and growing since I became a teenager who finally understood what kind of cards I’d been dealt—roars to life.
“Raised me?” I let out a dry chuckle that makes me sound nothing like the person I am. I’ve turned into a cold, cruel, unforgiving creature, nothing like the woman my brother fought so hard to raise. But then I look at the man in front of me, and the guilt disappears. “You have some fucking nerve claiming that.”
My father frowns. “Language—”
“Shut your mouth,” I growl, the loose grip I have on my sanity slipping through my fingers quickly.
“Hey. Let’s calm down, yeah? He’s not worth it,” James murmurs into my ear, holding me closer. He turns to my father, speaking to him over my shoulder. “She doesn’t want to see you. Get the fuck out of here before I call the cops.”
But my father doesn’t even look at him. He doesn’t give me the privilege of escaping his harsh stare. “Maddie, listen to me.”
“I have nothing to say to you, Pete.”
I’m well aware that my whole body is shaking and I can’t breathe normally. I don’t want him to know he has this effect on me. He doesn’t deserve to, and I hate myself for being curious about what he has to say after all these years. I shouldn’t, damn it.
He left us. He left me when I was a child, when a little girl needs her father the most, for reasons I never knew. And do I want to find out now? Do they even matter?
I grew up with a roof over my head, food on the table, and more love than I could’ve ever asked for. I’m happy, loved, taken care of. I don’t need him, and I never will.
“I tried to come back, you know that?” he continues, ignoring me.
I shake my head and pray to gods I don’t even believe in to keep my tears at bay. “I don’t care.”
I don’t. I may have once, back when I was naïve enough to believe my father left because he loved me. Just like my mom did, I thought he wanted me to grow up with my brother because he was my best chance at a healthy upbringing.
But it’s bullshit.
Pete didn’t look back, not once in seventeen years. Years ago, when I was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, I told myself he’d left because he loved and respected me enough not to hurt me, knowing he couldn’t be the father I needed.
But no. He left because he never wanted me, and he never gave a fuck about me.
Now is his turn to chuckle. The sound is sarcastic and bitter, and I already know I’ll hear it in my nightmares for as long as I live. “He didn’t tell you. Doesn’t fucking surprise me.”
“Who?” I shouldn’t entertain him. I shouldn’t, and I hate myself for giving in so easily. This is what he wants, damn it, but I can’t take my words back.
I watch as his mouth turns into a mocking, bitter smile. He thinks he’s holding a piece of life-changing information over me, the kind that will turn the wheel of fate in his favor, doesn’t he?
“Your brother. I found him, found you years ago and asked to see you, but he had full custody and wouldn’t allow it.”
A small pang of disappointment in Sammy for keeping this to himself hits me for a fleeting second. And then I come to my senses. “Do you seriously think you can come out of nowhere after seventeen years and talk shit about my brother?”
I know I’m raising my voice when James pulls me closer, but I don’t care. I’ve been keeping this inside for years, and he’s going to hear me.
“What’s your endgame here, Pete? Make me hate him and turn to you? Good luck with that. You’re nothing to me. Nothing. You’re not my father, and I couldn’t be happier that my brother kept me away from you all those years ago. You don’t deserve me. You never did, and you sure don’t deserve me now.”
He blinks once, his expression not cruel but not welcoming either, and that’s all the emotions he shows, like a psychopath. To be fair, I’m not entirely sure he isn’t one.
I know nothing about my father. I don’t know where he’s been for the past seventeen years, what trouble he’s gotten himself into, if any. He could’ve murdered someone for all I know.
I’ve never been more grateful to have James with me.
“I know I’ve made mistakes,” Pete has the nerve to say. “I’m a changed man, Maddie. I’ve been working really hard on myself all these years, trying to become a better man. I realized I wasn’t a good dad, but I promise I’m ready to be the father you deserve.”
“Oh, now you’re ready? How convenient.” I cross my arms as best as I can with James’s hands still on my stomach. He doesn’t let go, and I’m thankful for the anchor that is his presence. “Tell me how you found me. You’ve been following me around, haven’t you?”
“I didn’t know how to approach you best,” he confesses.
Never in a million years would I have guessed my father was stalking me. I guess my life really is a shit show.
“I saw an article in the newspaper about a ballet show a few months ago. Your picture was there with your name.”
The summer recital. Our college organizes one every summer for dance students, right before graduation, and it’s kind of a big deal. Scouts come to look for talent, as well as agents and other professionals of the world of dance. It doesn’t come as a surprise it made the local news, but it feels like a violation that he found out about it. That he found me because of it.
I sober up, set on not letting him see how desperately I want to cry right now. “Okay, thanks for letting me know. You can leave now.”
“You don’t understand—”
“I understand perfectly.” My gaze digs into his, and I take comfort in knowing this may be the last time I look at my so-called father. Just do this, and it’s over. Stay strong. “You’re going to drive away and never follow me again. Do you understand me? Don’t you ever attempt to contact me or my family in any way ever again. I have camera footage of your car stalking me outside of this restaurant, an eyewitness, and a police report of child neglect and emotional abuse from years ago that would still hold in court.” It probably won’t since I’m twenty-one, but I have the feeling he doesn’t know this. I have no idea if the cameras outside showed his car, either. Will that stop me from using both as ammunition? Not at all. “So, unless you want to live behind bars for a while, I’d suggest you leave me alone for good.”
For the first time since our conversation started, Pete makes an attempt to exit the car. He has his fingers wrapped around the handle when James’s hand reaches forward, shutting his door with such a strong force, the car shakes. “Stay where you are,” he growls. “Don’t come near her.”
The blazing fire in Pete’s eyes grows. And in this moment, with his anger mirroring mine, I’ve never felt so disgusted with myself.
You’re just like him.
“You her guard dog or some shit?” He turns to me, the cruelty in his gaze making me relive the worst day of my childhood. Of my entire life. “Who is this motherfucker?”
“You don’t have the right to ask,” I spit out, tired of this whole situation. “Don’t talk to him. Don’t talk to me. Leave me alone, Pete. I don’t want to see you ever again.”
He laughs. He full-on laughs like a maniac as if any of this were funny.
“I understand now. I’ve heard about this—daddy issues, is that it? How fucking surprising. What was it, again? When young girls like older men because their dad wasn’t around?”
I’m so done. I’m so done with this man.
“What are you even saying?” My breaths are agitated, my pulse hammering in my throat. “I did grow up with a father. It just wasn’t you, and I couldn’t be happier about that.”
He frowns like I’ve just personally offended him. “Your brother isn’t your father.”
“He has more father in his pinky finger than you do in all your body.”
For a moment, he says nothing. All I hear is my own nervous breathing and my hammering heart, paired with a sick feeling in my stomach that makes me want to throw up.
I thought I knew what anger felt like, but I was wrong. I was so wrong. My father is so acidic, so damn toxic, I burn just looking at him.
Don’t cry. Don’t cry now. Not in front of the man who was responsible for so many of your tears.
Without saying a word, Pete starts the car, and an invisible weight lifts off my shoulders. But the tightness in my muscles stays, and so does James’s arm locked around my middle.
My father’s eyes find mine, mirroring the last time he left when I was four. When he abandoned my mother, hurt and confused, and turned his back on his own daughter forever.
He made that choice. He made that choice for me, and he doesn’t get to come back now because he’s ready. Fuck that.
When I was four, I felt scared and confused as to why my mother was crying on the floor and why my father was leaving without a word. Now I only sag with relief at the realization that I told him every venomous word I’d bottled up inside over the years and I’ll never have to see him again.
I’ll make sure of it.
“We’re not done here, Maddie,” he says. There’s an edge to his voice I don’t like one bit. I recognize a threat when I hear one. “You’re my daughter, and I won’t let you get away this time.”
“You’re the one who walked away, not me.” I swallow back my nervous tears, holding them at bay for dear life. “Come near me again, and you’ll face the consequences.”
A look passes between us, and for a moment, I see myself in his eyes. He’s right about something—I’m his daughter, and no matter how hard I try, I can’t change that.
You’re Sammy’s sister. You’re not Pete’s daughter, not in the way that matters.
Tonight, it sounds less convincing than ever before.
And just like seventeen years ago, Pete Stevens slides his eyes away from me, the daughter he never wanted or loved, and drives away.
The sound of his engine dies away in the distance, and the parking lot drowns in silence once more.
He leaves me wondering if the past ten minutes have really happened or if this is one of my cruel nightmares.
I take a deep breath, but I can’t take a second one.
“Look at me, Maddie.”
The ground opens beneath me, and darkness swallows me.
My heart is empty, rid of any emotion but the raw, sore wound of the little girl who has been abandoned far too many times, by too many people who were meant to stay forever, because she can’t make anything last.
Father. Mother. Dreams.
The logical side of me knows this isn’t true. Not completely. My brother and Grace have never abandoned me.
But does it even matter, when this guilt I feel inside is making me push them away? Guilt I feel for having to pause their lives and step in as the abandoned sister who always needs something. All because of her.
I hate you. I hate you. I hate you.
I hate myself.
“Maddie.”
My eyes are open, but I can’t see.
A strong pair of arms pulls me against a familiar-scented chest, and I hear my own sob before I realize tears are rolling down my cheeks.
“Shh. It’s okay, baby. I’ve got you.”
Baby.
My breath hitches, but I ignore how my stomach jumps and my heart rate increases, if only because I have too much on my plate already. It probably slipped out, and it means nothing, anyway.
Instead, I hug him tighter, because if he lets me go right now, I know I’ll crumble.
“I took a picture of his car and license plate. We can report him to the police if you want, okay? I won’t let him get near you again.”
“I’m sorry,” I hiccup, hating myself for putting him in this position. We’d just started being somewhat friends, and now this happens.
I shouldn’t be surprised something else in my life is going downhill so fast, but here we are.
“You have nothing to be sorry about. None of this is your fault.”
“I should… I should have kept walking.” My tears taste sour in my mouth.
“No, Maddie, you did what you had to do. I’m proud of you for standing up to him. You were really brave.”
His words split me open, and his arms stitch me back together.
James starts rubbing comforting circles on my back, calming my breathing. It’s been a long time since I’ve felt this safe in someone’s embrace. “Do you want me to drive you home, or do you need a minute?”
We’re not done here, Maddie. You’re my daughter, and I won’t let you get away this time.
“No,” I choke out, shaking my head against his chest. “Don’t… Don’t leave me alone. I-I can’t.”
What if he comes back? He admitted to following me around. What if he knows where I live?
“Okay.” James grabs my forearms and draws back, putting a small distance between us that feels like miles. “Are you scared of him?”
I don’t want to be, but I can’t lie to him. I can’t lie to myself either. “No. B-But right now, yes.”
With the utmost care, the gentle pads of his fingers wipe the evidence of my tears from under my eyes. He rests his hands on my cheeks for a moment, cradling my face, and I burn with the heat of a thousand suns.
“I don’t want you to be alone either,” he whispers, his face only a few inches away from mine. After what feels like a lifetime of heavy silence, he asks, “Do you want to come home with me?”
Every reason in my head for saying no vanishes. I need him.
He’s not my physical therapist anymore, and I wouldn’t care if he were.
He’s proved time and again that he cares for me, that he feels something, and I’m tired of denying myself what I really want.
“Yes,” I breathe out. “I want to go home with you.”
