have no idea what to do, but I want to help. If this was a girl situation, I’d do what I did with my friends when we got our hearts broken. Get drunk, be stupid, cry it out. Not be alone. I don’t know what you need, and I don’t know what you want, but if I can help… I want to.”
Justin blinked. That might have been more words from his dad at once than he’d heard in years. His gaze drifted to his dad, soaking wet from the rain, sitting beside him, holding out his hand and asking him to stay.
His dad didn’t have to be here.
He picked up his beer and chugged, upending half the bottle down his throat. His dad sighed, a tired smile tugging up one side of his face. “College is teaching you all kinds of things.”
He could leave. Or he could stay, let his dad try to talk to him, see what wisdom he would try to shovel into Justin. Sighing, Justin sank into the lounge. “I’m going to need more beer if you want to get drunk and stupid.”
“I’ve got more inside.” His dad’s smile faded. “I bought some for the two of us. Your mom is at a church night with her friends.”
“And you stayed to get drunk with your son?”
“I stayed to talk to you.”
“So talk, Dad. What do you want to say to me? How I need to get over it? How I’ve been moping for a month, and what good has it gotten me? How I’m being ridiculous? That it was only three weeks?”
Silence. Justin gnashed his teeth. Glared up at the awning.
“I knew I wanted to marry your mother five days after I met her.” His dad held up his hand, fingers spread. “Five days. I saw her every day for a week, and I knew. She was the woman I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. The woman I wanted to have children with.”
Justin squirmed. His eyes slid to the pool, to the raindrops. They’d wanted children, and all they got was him. Something about the pregnancy. His mom couldn’t have any more children after him. Sometimes he wondered, if she could go back, have the chance to wipe him away, would she? Would she say No, not this one, I’ll try again next month? Would another egg and sperm have created an easier, less complicated child? Who led a less complicated life?
“I’m not going to tell you that you need to get over something that lasted three weeks, not if it meant as much to you as it did. I saw you happier than you’ve ever been. Never, not once, have you smiled at us like you did at the airport. Or said that many words to us in one afternoon. Not since you were eight years old. Whatever happened… Jesus, Justin, you were happy. And I’m fucking sorry that you’re not now.”
“Dad…”
“Here.” His dad passed him his nearly full beer bottle. “I’ll get more.”
He took a sip, and the bubbles, the goddamn bubbles burst inside him, destroying the dam he’d erected over his heart. Memories crashed through him, soaked with champagne and tears. He set the bottle down too hard, nearly toppling it. Nearly spat out the beer, and the bubbles, and the memories.
“That’s how it felt in Paris,” he choked out. “Like what you said about Mom. It felt like I’d met the guy I was supposed to be with forever. I guess he didn’t feel the same way.”
“His loss,” his dad grumbled, glowering at the rain. “That’s his damn loss. If this asshole used you and then dumped you—”
“He didn’t use me, Dad. We were…” He swallowed. “I loved him. And I thought he loved me, too.”
“What happened?” His dad grabbed Justin’s beer bottle and rolled it between his palms, watching the soggy label come apart. “You never said what happened.”
Everything was wonderful and then everything was terrible. His parents had had to uncover the clues themselves, pick apart his one-word answers and his weeks-long despondency to put the pieces together. “He told me to forget him.” Forget you know me. I can’t do this.
His dad cursed. Glared at the bottle. “Was he French? Someone you met over there?”
Justin shook his head. You would love him, Dad. You’d be so proud of me if I brought him home. Maybe it would be weird for a minute, but you’d get over it, because you’d love Wes. He’d be like the son