Wanted (Amanda Lance) - By Amanda Lance Page 0,107

to somebody, though.”

I patted him on the hand and did my best to be reassuring. “It’s okay, Dad. I’m okay, everything is okay.”

“If you need to talk,” he said. “I’m here. You know that, right?”

“Yeah, Dad.” I took the plates from Robbie, who bounced into the room. With the onset of attention toward our family, he had several young ladies seeking his affections and it was complimenting his ego more than usual. “I know.”

Dad was anything but stupid. I could lie all I wanted but with all the extra sleeping I was doing, he suspected more than anyone that I was depressed. Sleeping had become my greatest new pastime since I was now capable of dreaming on a regular basis. I blamed it entirely on the head trauma I had endured, but I loved every fleeting second of it. And I abused the ability as frequently as I could, often coming home from class and staying awake for as long as was socially acceptable before taking a nap or going to bed for the evening altogether.

When I dreamed, I could see Charlie as plainly as any given day. While unconscious, I didn’t know that everything was unreal and I would have to wake up and go back to a reality without him—I didn’t have to acknowledge my heart was broken. Sometimes the images were fainter than others. Other times, they were incredibly detailed, like one of Charlie’s sketches, and I could make out every detail of his tattoos and feel his smile with my fingertips. There were some nights when I could only hear his laughter like something erased in the shadows, but even those nights were decent enough and I could make it through another day.

I munched on the pizza, feeling the cheese go rubbery in mouth. Life pre-Charlie, I would have consumed it happily. I looked over at Robbie, who was taking up the slack with the remainder of the slices without hesitation, shoving them in his mouth one after the other.

I made myself laugh. “Don’t they teach you any manners in the Army, Robbie?”

He dabbed at his face with a paper napkin. “I happen to be very sophisticated.”

Dad rolled his eyes but it had me thinking again about how well he and Charlie would probably get along and I felt my heart slacken. It seemed as though I genuinely couldn’t get through anything without thinking of him. I began to think that maybe it was time to put my plan of choice into action—or at the very least, begin the process.

“Hey, Dad?” I put the beaten slice back on the plate. It was clearly defeated.

“Hmm?”

I had to sound casual about this. If I appeared as desperate as I really was then he wouldn’t even bite.

“What would you think about me um—maybe going away to school next semester?” I swirled a hill of garlic salt around with my pinky finger.

Judging from the way he pulled the cheese straight away from his slice of pizza, I could guess how he felt about it.

While less than two years ago Dad would have been okay with me going away for college, with recent events he was definitely not going to agree to it without some serious convincing. Since my return home, he had become uncharacteristically overprotective, even taking a leave of absence to drive me to and from class every day, the library, or anywhere else I might have wanted to go. He even memorized my course schedule so he could call between classes to confirm I was okay and still on campus. Luckily, I had convinced him that he was driving more attention toward me than diverting it. Even Robbie had lent a hand in arguing that he was causing more harm than good. After a couple of weeks he weaned himself of the new habits and returned to work—reluctant to let me return to a new kind of normal.

“I’ve already started applications for a few schools I’m thinking about,” I began “I’ve also sent out a couple.” I mumbled the words into my glass, unsure if I really wanted him to hear them or not.

Dad coughed. I think maybe he was trying to figure out how to play this one out. This was one of those moments he was probably wishing Mom was still alive so he could tag her in and he could just sit this one out on the sidelines.

“Addie, don’t you think maybe you should wait awhile? You’re kind of going through a lot of stuff