this demon wasn’t mine—except somehow, I took part ownership in it.
I wanted to confide in someone—but who? James didn’t know about the first time—that was my parents’ decision to keep him out of it. And this was not something I wanted to tell my best friend because it felt gossipy and dirty, and, selfishly, I didn’t want my best friend to ever look at my dad differently than how she did now. Because I knew what it felt like to look at someone you idolized and realize you didn’t really know them after all. And it fucking sucked.
My mom was already outside by my car, on the phone. She laughed, looking as carefree as anyone might if they were blissfully unaware of what was going on with their spouse. This was possibly the worst time for me to deliver this kind of news—right before skipping town—but keeping it from her didn’t sit well either.
“Tori,” my dad said, coming out of his office. “Look, I blocked her, okay?” He showed me his phone, as if that meant anything to me. He could just as easily unblock her the moment I was out the door. “You’re right, I did a terrible thing. I don’t know what’s wrong with me, I…”
I pointed a finger at his face, watching as it shook and clenched my other fingers tightly. “I don’t know what’s wrong with you, either.” I set my jaw and turned to look back out the window at my mom. “I know she doesn’t deserve to go through this with you, again. And she especially doesn’t deserve to hear it from her daughter.” That was the worst of this all. It was bad enough that my mom didn’t know my dad was chatting—and possibly doing more—with another woman, but for her own daughter to have to be the one to tell her for a second time? That made me feel dirty. Gross. As if I’d also been colored by this betrayal. “You’re an asshole,” I said, but it landed flatly. I couldn’t look at him. I rubbed my eyes, trying in vain to erase what I’d seen.
“I am.” He sighed, and I heard the scrape of his hand over his scruff—it was a familiar sound, one I’d grown up hearing. “I made a mistake.”
That fucking word again. I set my jaw. “It’s not a mistake if you keep doing it. You hid your phone from me when I went into your office. You knew it was wrong, and still you keep doing it.” I clenched my fists, wanting to pound them into his chest—to shake some kind of sense into him.
“We’ll figure this out when you get back, okay? I promise. It will be different.”
But the thing was, it wouldn’t be different. Because I’d always wonder if my dad was doing this shit again. Would I ever not worry about this? Would I ever see him on his phone and not worry that he was doing something shady again?
So, I didn’t say anything. Everything I wanted to say rolled off my brain like an avalanche, and none of it was productive. I had to put on a cheery face for my mom in order to say goodbye before I jumped in the car for my eight-hour drive to Vegas.
“Just be safe, okay?” he said from behind me. “If you need anything, just let me know. I’ll help you, okay?”
It broke my heart. I wanted to be so angry with him, tell him to fuck off, to go to hell, to eat shit and die. But this was my dad. And though the last few years had been difficult to navigate, that didn’t erase the first twenty years where he was my hero, my knight in shining armor. He knocked up my mom while she was still in college, not once but twice, causing her to drop out and devote her life to James and me. And still, Dad had been my hero. What the fuck was wrong with me? “Mom gave up so much for you, you know.”
“I know,” he said. At least he didn’t deny it. “But you’ll be safe, right? No matter what, you’re still my little girl, Tori.”
I didn’t feel like a little girl. I felt like someone wearing pants she didn’t fit into, pasting smiles on her face that she didn’t feel. “It’s not like I’m going to get arrested. Mom already had the ‘be safe’ talk with me. No drugs, no arrests, no marriages.”