it, and it makes me feel alive. I’m a lot more than an unmarried girl who gave up her virginity to a sweet boy who made her feel special.”
“I know that.” His voice is low and quiet. “Why do you think I wanted more for you than to be their servant?”
I press my palm to my chest and squeeze my eyes shut. “There’s no shame in working your way to a better life. I’m proud of the work I do. I don’t want to do it forever, but that’s exactly why I’m working so hard. So I can have better down the road.”
When he finally turns to look at me, another tear slides down his cheek and slices through my heart. “I’m so sorry.” He scrunches up his nose and draws a breath in through his teeth. “I panicked. I never should have gotten my gun. Don’t hate me. You’re my Mia. I can’t lose you, too.”
My eyes burn and the world goes blurry for the heartbeat before the tears start rolling. My dad’s a lazy, misogynistic drunk, but that doesn’t change the fact that I love him, and I’ve needed to know that he loves me too.
“This can’t go on.” I reach over the console, take his hand, and squeeze it. Tears thicken my throat. How is it we can know something for years, but it only seems real when we finally say it out loud? “You’ve got a problem with alcohol, and we need to get you some help.”
“I’m fine,” he says. His lower lip trembles, and he looks so much older than his fifty years.
“No you’re not, Daddy. You haven’t been fine since Mom left. And it’s time to do something about that. It’s time to sober up.”
He holds my gaze and shakes his head. “I already tried AA. Nic had me going before he . . .” He squeezes his eyes shut and exhales slowly. “It didn’t work.”
“Let’s get you to bed,” I say, because I don’t want to argue. Not today. I promise myself I’ll try again tomorrow, but this morning my heart aches too much to carry on like this.
I get him in the house and tuck him in, then I search for liquor bottles—under the bed, behind the toilet, under the sink—and dump everything I find. I clean the kitchen and tidy the living room and kiss my sleeping father on the forehead before I leave.
When I go out front, I see Sebastian’s car at his grandmother’s trailer and decide to tell him that Dad’s promised to stop drinking.
The screen creaks and rattles as I knock.
“Come on in,” Sebastian calls.
I step into the trailer and smile at the scent of chocolate chip cookies. The trailer is almost identical to Dad’s, though this one’s been better maintained, and where Dad’s feels small and cramped, this one feels warm and cozy. This one reminds me of how Dad’s was before Mom left—always a blanket on the back of the couch and the smell of cookies in the air.
Sebastian sits at the kitchen table with a manila folder in front of him. The folder is open to a thick stack of papers, but he’s holding a single page and staring at it like he’s trying to interpret hieroglyphs.
“What is that?”
Sebastian’s head snaps up. “Mia. I didn’t know it was you.”
I step forward, and he drops the paper on top of the pile and closes the folder.
“Nothing.” He steadies his gaze on the wall behind me.
“Is it about the accident? Are those the police reports you said you’d get me?”
“I didn’t know you’d be here. I wanted to look through them first.” He grimaces.
“Let me see it. Let me see the one you were looking at when I walked in.”
“Mia.”
“You found something, didn’t you? You figured it out.”
Standing, he unzips his backpack and slides the folder inside. “Let this go, okay? Nothing good is going to come of digging any further than you have.” He pushes through the screen door, and I follow him onto the front porch.
“It’s Coach. Emmitt Wright hit Brogan and Nic.”
“Shh.” He does a quick look around us to make sure no one heard me but we’re alone. “Stop talking. Right now. Just stop this while you’re ahead.”
“He did it.” I know it’s true, because I can see it in Sebastian’s eyes—that horror, that need to protect someone who’s protected him. I imagine I’d see the same thing in Arrow’s eyes in this situation. He’d feel trapped by the truth. He’d be torn