“I’m sorry,” I say, again and again. “I’m sorry I didn’t call. I’m sorry, Dad. It’s my fault.”
I’m still on his lap when he sits on my bed. He’s so warm, so solid.
I haven’t been this small in years.
“Mace, honey, look at me.”
My vision is blurry, but it’s easy to make out his features.
Greenish-gold eyes, black hair.
Not Dad, Elliot. Still in his tux, eyes bloodshot behind his glasses.
“There you are,” he says. “Come back to me. Where did you go?”
I slide my arms around his neck, jerking him closer, squeezing my eyes closed. I smell the grass on him, the bark of the olive tree. “It’s you.”
“It’s me.”
He needs my apology, too.
“I’m sorry, Ell. I ruined everything because I forgot to call.”
“I saw the lights on,” he whispers. “I came over and found you like this . . . Macy Lea, tell me what’s going on.”
“You needed me, and I wasn’t there.”
He goes quiet, kissing the top of my head. “Mace . . .”
“I needed you even more,” I say, and begin sobbing again. “But I couldn’t figure out how to forgive you.”
Elliot pushes my hair out of my face, eyes searching. “Honey, you’re scaring me. Talk to me.”
“I knew it wasn’t your fault,” I choke out, “but for so long it felt like it was.”
I see the confused tears fill his eyes. “I don’t understand what you . . .” He pulls me into his chest, one hand in my hair as his voice breaks. “Please tell me what’s going on.”
And so I do.
then
monday, january 1
eleven years ago
I woke to the sharp slam of the door, the pounding of footsteps along the entryway tiles.
“Macy?”
I groaned, cupping my stiff neck and sitting up just as Dad rounded the corner into the living room. A father’s first assumption rippled through him, and he rushed to my side, crouching.
“Did he hurt you?” His accent pushed the words together into a ball of anger.
“No.” I winced, stretching. Remembering. My stomach melted away. “Actually, yes.”
Dad’s hands made a careful trek over my shoulders and down my arms, taking my hands in his. He turned my palms over, inspecting them, and then pressed the pads of his thumbs to the centers of my hands.
I remember that touch like it was yesterday.
We linked fingers.
Realization pushed through the fog, and I registered that I was at the cabin, and Dad was here, too—in the freezing cold morning, more than seventy miles away from home. “What are you doing here?”
He gave me a hard look with soft edges. “You never called to tell me you arrived here safely. You didn’t answer your phone.”
Slumping into him, I mumbled, “I’m sorry,” against his broad chest. “I turned it off.”
He sighed a concerned sound. “What happened, min lille blomst?”
“He made a mistake,” I told him. “A big one.”
Dad pulled back to meet my eyes. “Another girl.”
I nodded, and a thick sob escaped at the memory of Elliot’s body, bare, just . . . lying there. Sprawled.
Dad let out a slow breath. “Didn’t see that coming.”
“That makes two of us.”
He helped me up, curling a protective arm around my shoulders. “We’ll come get the Volvo this weekend.”
We’ll come get the Volvo this weekend.
I wonder what ever happened to it.
Dad kept one giant hand on the steering wheel and the other curled around my fingers.
He glanced at me every five seconds or so, no doubt wishing he had Mom’s list right there on the dashboard, to reference the The first time a boy breaks her heart . . . advice. I knew where to find it. Number thirty-two.
His eyes were worried, brows drawn . . . As much as I hated what had happened with Elliot, I loved the warmth of Dad’s attention on me, the reassuring contact of his hand, the quiet questions—what did I want for dinner? Did I want to go to a movie, or stay home?
But his attention on me meant it wasn’t on the road.
I’m not even sure he ever saw the car. It was a blue Corvette, merging from the onramp and already going too fast. Sixty, maybe even seventy. It cut in front of us in the slow lane, screeching into the narrowing space between us and the eighteen-wheeler ahead. The Corvette’s tires skittered, his back end jerked to the side, and his brake lights went a brilliant red, right there. Right in front of us.
Was there a point when it wasn’t too late? This is what I always asked myself. Could I have