Page 168 of Wreck Me

No. it was more than that. I could see it in him and that, combined with his conversation with Caspian. “You’re worried that what happened during my time at Vista Ridge could happen again.”

“What happened clearly destroyed you. It upturned your entire life.”

“It’s different now. I’ve moved past it.”

“It doesn’t help that I don’t actually know what happened, aside from the wipe out aspect.”

“I know. I’m sorry. I couldn’t actually talk about it before.”

His face fell as he clearly thought I was going to shut it down again.

I squeezed his hand on my shoulder. “But I can now.”

He cocked an eyebrow. “Yeah?”

I nodded. “I mean, it won’t exactly be easy and it’s going to be awful for you to hear, so you need to prepare yourself, but if it will take some of your worry away, I’m ready to do it. But I can’t give you the name of the person involved.”

“Sky—”

“Dad, that’s the one condition. It’s too dangerous. I know you. Once you hear what happened, you’ll want to hunt them down and do a whole lot worse than that. I can’t let that happen, given who they’re connected to. The idea of you being hurt because of me terrifies me, okay?”

It took him a moment, then he nodded. “Condition accepted.”

I pulled away and took a seat on the foot of my bed, trying to settle in to what I was about to confess—for the second time now.

After the first, it had been a lot to take because I’d kept it bottled up for so long.

But then had come the relief, a definite weight lifted from putting it out there.

It was why I felt like I could actually finally tell my dad what had happened, to finally put his mind at ease.

He pulled my rolling chair out from under my desk in the corner, then took a seat on it backward, folding his arms over the back.

I sucked in a breath and steeled myself.

And then I got to it.

I told him the whole deal.

Except the text messages and the fact that Jett Bane was still bothering me.

I left it at him having disappeared into the ozone.

I had to.

I couldn’t let my dad go after him. It was way too dangerous. On so many levels. I’d never forgive myself if something happened to him because of me.

After I’d finished recounting everything, he looked absolutely sick.

He didn’t say anything for such a long time.

And I let him have that. I knew it was a lot to absorb.

“My daughter,” he was rasping after a while. “Not my daughter.”

I reached out and rubbed his arm. “Dad, the fact you taught me all that you did enabled me to survive all of that, to counter it and fight back. Without that, it would’ve been a whole lot worse. I honestly doubt I would’ve made it.”

Tears spilled down his cheeks and it wrenched at my heart. I’d only seen him cry once, after he’d come home from a really long deployment and things had gone really bad out there.

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