an incoming email.
Coach blinked at my announcement before recovering quickly. “And how do you figure that?”
“Because,” I slowly answered while panting, “there’s someone out there better suited for this. Someone who wants this.”
While my father was shocked into silence, I seized the opportunity to check my phone. It was an email from the Theodore Lidle Foundation. Feeling my hands shake, I plucked my phone from the counter and abandoned the pancake batter. I was slightly bent over, and each step felt impossible as I slowly made my way toward the stairs. My mind was in two places, and I couldn’t decide which crisis to focus on. Thinking it would distract me from the pain, I shifted my mind toward the email.
It couldn’t be good news if they were emailing me.
My heart began pounding faster in anticipation of the bad news while my breaths grew shorter. By the time I finally made it upstairs, I was clutching my belly. Another cramp hit me that nearly doubled me over. My gaze widened in alarm as the pressure in my pelvis increased, and the world seemed to spin. I’d read about this happening but never thought it would be this intense. The Harvard clinic doctors had even made them sound harmless.
Something’s not right.
Passing my bedroom for the bathroom down the hall, I stumbled inside, and just as I reached for my leggings, I felt fluid gushing down my thighs. My lips parted in horror. Unwilling to accept it, for months I’d distanced myself from reality to the point that I’d been almost cruel. My callousness was the reason for my surprise when the wail that ripped from my chest a moment later wasn’t from physical pain but an emotional one.
It was much too early.
THE SNOW MELTED, AND INCH by inch, it revealed the world I’d left behind buried underneath. I didn’t recognize any of it, not after being away for so long. My nostrils flared as I inhaled the fresh, frigid air and wondered if it had always been this heavy. Even though I wasn’t kept in a dungeon or anything quite so dramatic, my eyes had trouble adjusting when I stepped through the iron doors.
Freedom.
It didn’t matter how harshly the sun stung or that each step strangely felt like learning to walk again.
I had freedom.
I only wondered why. I’d been told that it was never wise to look a gift horse in the mouth, but I couldn’t help questioning the reason my father had let me out of my cage. He wasn’t a benevolent man; he was a calculating man. He’d implied as much, mere moments ago, the conversation and its meaning still heavy on my mind.
Walking through the doors of my father’s office, I found him waiting for me with a drink in hand that he offered to me as soon as I stood in front of him.
“What is this?” I asked once the doors closed behind me. Jeremy was left outside, and I took pleasure in knowing how much that must have annoyed him. Antonov hadn’t been thrilled about being reduced to a glorified babysitter and made his feelings known, so I slept with one eye open. Or not all.
“A toast.”
Swallowing my pride, I accepted the glass. Even though I’d rather suck my own dick than share a drink with my father, I needed it. Feeling the alcohol burn its way down my throat, I snatched the crystal decanter from the sideboard and helped myself to more before asking the question foremost in my mind. “For?”
“Jeremy tells me you’ve been drinking more,” he observed as if this was a goddamn AA meeting. I needed therapy, all right, and my father was the reason.
“Did he also mention I shit twice a day, too?”
“Careful, boy. I still have eyes and ears everywhere.”
Recognizing the threat that had kept me under his heel for months, I took a deep breath and forced the anger from my tone. “What are we toasting?”
“Your recent accomplishments.”
“I have none. I’ve been here. What is this really about?”
“Exactly as I said, son.” Sensing the dread pooling in my gut as the wheels in my head turned desperately, he continued, “All will be revealed in due time.” With a dismissive wave of his hand, he started for his desk. “For now, you’re free to go.”
The part of me that wanted to stay and grill my father for answers lost to the part that didn’t give a shit and wanted out. I had my hand on the doorknob, ready to flee