Page 73 of Caught from Behind

And then I go out into the hallway to help Storm move his shit back into his room.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Ella

Nova stares at me, brow furrowed in concern and I try to force my expression into an approximation of a smile.

This is fine.

Everything is fine.

The world is just…falling the fuck apart while I’m casually nibbling on a sandwich and trying to ignore the pug snot on my jeans.

While my dad is standing there with his replacement family.

A little girl on his shoulders, a boy clinging to his leg, a wife at his side.

It’s Knox and me and my parents—only it’s reflected in a morbidly wrong mirror.

Because my mom is gone. Because the man in that cruel likeness is long excised from my life.

Because the kids aren’t Knox and me.

“Oh my God,” Nova hisses, her wide eyes coming to mine. “Is that your dad?” Her aghast question channels the whirlwind of feelings in my belly.

I nod tightly, rasp, “Yeah.”

Steve growls.

So does Nova. “Is he here to see you?”

“I-I don’t think so.” I haven’t heard from him in…well, since his generic response to the birthday text I sent him last year—the same response as the previous year.

And the year before that.

And…the year before that.

Happy Birthday, Dad. Hope you have a great day.

Thanks, Daniela.

And that’s it.

I close my eyes for a heartbeat, do my best to disappear into my chair—because it’s either that or go over to my dad and his new wife and his happy family…and I can’t even pretend that I’d survive that.

Not tough, impermeable Ella who’s never met a problem she can’t best.

And certainly not traumatized teenage Ella who’s desperate for her dad, for any semblance of the way things were before.

“Breathe,” Nova murmurs, her hand on mine again, fingers lacing tightly through mine. Her voice is quiet and even, reaching my ears even despite the noise of conversations and kids and traffic in the background. “In, two, three, four…out, two, three, four,” she counts slowly.

I hang on to her words like the lifeline they are, desperate for any anchor in the sea of memories that are slamming through my brain like the relentless tide pounding against the shore.

“Daniela?”

My fingers clench on Nova’s as my eyes shoot open and I see him standing there, surprise written into the lines of his face. He looks different now—somehow younger even though he’s older, like creating this new family that doesn’t include Knox and me has helped him shed the heavy weight of his trauma.

He dumped several hundred pounds of it, I suppose.

---