Page 89 of The Relationship Clause

When I finish talking, my mouth is dry, and I grab my glass of orange juice, guzzling it down as if I’m about to die of thirst. Dad doesn’t react right away. He leans against the table again, his gaze dropping to the remnants of his sandwich, which he finished a while ago. Meanwhile, my food has barely been touched, so I take a big bite of my BLT, hungry now that the Band-Aid has been ripped off.

“Oh, and he’d still like to meet you,” I say around my mouthful of food. “Maybe if you’re around when he gets back from his trip? But if not, then definitely the next time you’re back in town.”

I take another bite of my sandwich. Then another. And another. “Sooo are you going to say anything?” I ask finally.

Dad doesn’t quite meet my eyes. “Yeah, no, I’m sorry. I was, you know, processing, that’s all. You’ve never told me about any of your boyfriends before. At least, not like this.”

“Yeah, I know. But I’ve never been serious about any of them like this before either.”

He nods, and he seems to be considering his next words carefully. “And you’re…happy?”

Annoyance pricks at me. Wasn’t he listening? Can’t he see how happy I am? I try to brush it off. “Of course I am.”

Again, he’s silent.

“What, Dad?”

He shakes his head, doing that thing he does with his ear when he’s uncomfortable. “Nothing.”

“No, it’s not nothing. I can tell you want to say something, so say it.”

“Look,” he says, still not meeting my eyes, “I’m happy for you. Really, I am. This guy must be pretty special. I just… I don’t want to see you get hurt the way your mom hurt us.”

A queasy feeling settles in my stomach, and I put my sandwich down, unsure if I can finish it. “Dad, that was a long time ago.”

“I know, but how long have you known this guy? You said you started dating soon after you started your new job, so that’s, what, two or three months? That’s not a long time, sweetheart.”

Yeah…I definitely stretched that truth as thin as I possibly could.

“I know what I’m doing, Dad.” Even to my own ears, my voice sounds clipped, the annoyance I’m trying to ignore showing through.

“I never said you don’t. But if this is your first serious relationship, I want you to be careful. People are fallible; even when you want to believe the best in them, they end up disappointing you. I mean, you said this guy’s on a business trip. How often does he go on those? Are you going to end up being one of those girls who hardly sees their boyfriend because they’re never around? Is he going to put you first ahead of everything else? Because if he’s not, if you think even for one second he might bail on you, I don’t want you left in his dust, blindsided and heartbroken.”

A ninety-year-old streaker could have danced a jig beside our table, and I wouldn’t be as shocked as I am right now. My body feels cold, almost numb, and for a second, I actually question my own sanity, wondering if I hallucinated my dad saying all those things to me.

But I didn’t. And the longer I sit here, reliving his words, the more that shock morphs into something ugly.

“You’re one to talk.” The words pop out of my mouth before I have a chance to stop them.

Dad’s eyebrows lift halfway up his forehead. “Excuse me?”

“I said, you’re one to talk. You never put me first. After Mom left, the only person you put first was yourself.”

His face crumples with anger. The lines beside and between his eyes that used to be fine, barely noticeable, cut deep into his skin. “I put you first all the time.”

“By moving us around every year? By never letting me stay anywhere long enough to make friends or feel any sense of stability?”

“I taught you to look after yourself.”

“No, you taught me not to trust people. All those times we moved, you weren’t thinking of me. You were thinking of yourself, because you could never get over what Mom did to us.”

Dad doesn’t respond. Instead, he looks like he’s been slapped. His jaw hangs slack, and all trace of anger is gone.

“After years of running from relationships, I’m ready to stop running. I’m still scared, but guess what? I’m not running away anymore. I was trying to tell you something good, Dad. Something happy. I wanted you to be happy for me. I needed you to be happy for me.” My lip quivers, and my entire body shakes. I’m once again in the middle of a restaurant, garnering unwanted attention, only, unlike last time, there’s no Owen around to whisk me away and help me calm down the way I did for him.

It’s just me.

Alone.

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