Page 96 of Bad & Bossy

No. Come on. Please.

“You’re lying,” he said, his voice sounding far different than before. There was nothing there, nothing behind it, no quiver to his tone, no hint of affection. “He may be insane and he may be annoying, but he wouldn’t do that.”

“Cole—”

“Don’t.” He took a deep breath in through his nose. “I shouldn’t have come in here.”

I watched as he turned the handle, felt the part of me that was fighting for this slowly die. Fine. If he didn’t want to listen to me, if he didn’t want to hear the truth, then my gut was right. “If you leave, we’re done,” I said, the words hurting even as I spoke them.

He hesitated. “Don’t put that on me, Dana,” he sighed, pushing the door open and stepping out into the hallway. “Besides, you already made it clear we were done at the hospital.”

But I don’t want us to be done.

He waited for a moment as I tried to find the right words to say, but the angry part of me was flaring, and I didn’t want to speak because I knew she’d spew flames the moment I tried. He stood there, and I knew if he wouldn’t accept what I’d said, if he couldn’t accept it then he couldn’t change, which meant he couldn’t get better.

I swallowed as I stepped past him out of the room and into the sunny hallway, my emotions firing on all cylinders, confusing me and making me feel sick. “If you’re not willing to listen to me then you’re not willing to change,” I said. His brows rose as he slammed the door behind us, making me jump.

“I’m not going to let you accuse someone I care about, someone who’s going through the exact same thing I am, of being a raging, horrible monster,” he snapped. He tugged at his shirt, trying to rid it of wrinkles, failing miserably as he realized none of the buttons were right.

“It’s not an accusation, it’s a fact.”

“It’s bullshit, is what it is. Just say you want to hurt me and be done with it,” he hissed, coming in a little too close, a little too angry. I backed up, watching as the realization of his misstep sunk into him, watching as his eyes widened and the confused, inebriated Cole kicked back in. “I’m sorry. I?—”

“No. Nope. Not doing it, Cole,” I said, stepping back toward the double doors that lead to freedom. Freedom from here, from this, from him. I was tired of the tears that were already streaking down my face, tired of the fight I knew I’d never win. “I’m done.”

————

I sat in the driver’s seat, baking in the low winter sun as I idled in my driveway. Beside me was a car I recognized too well, one I’d avoided but decided I wouldn’t lose my mind entirely over. I’d dealt with enough today. Couldn’t I just have one fucking moment of peace?

Deciding it was better to get it over with so I could try to relax and cry alone, I opened the creaking driver’s side door to the Camry and stepped up to my house. The snow was only just starting to fall as I pushed the front door open, doing my best to breathe calmly as my father sat on the floor next to my son.

I’d never been as angry at Dad as I was with Mom. He was guilty by association, yes, but he wasn’t the one that ruined my childhood. He was the highlight of it, other than my sister. But I didn’t understand why he was here.

“I’ll go if you want,” he said, his wrinkled hands raising as he took me in. I wasn’t used to seeing this older version of him yet. The gray in his hair was harsher, his goatee shorter, his mustache thinner. He’d lost weight since I’d last seen him, and that was the biggest hurdle to come to terms with.

“Why are you here?”

“The nanny called me. She had a family emergency and you weren’t answering,” he said.

I did have a few missed calls from her but she’d followed them up with a text message saying, “Sorted!” so I didn’t think anything of it. “How did she get your number?”

“Well, she called Veronica first, and she directed her to me,” he said sheepishly, pushing himself up from the carpet with a grunt. “I figured you wouldn’t want Drew at our house so I came here.”

I sighed and shut the door behind me, dropping my bag and keys on the little table beside it. “It’s fine. You can stay.”

“Are you?—”

“Don’t question me, Dad. I’ve had a hard day, and if I say you can stay, you can.” I plucked Drew from his mat on the floor and tucked him into my chest as I collapsed on the couch. He giggled and wrapped his arms around my neck, trying to kick his way up my abdomen to get closer to me.

“Do you… want to talk about it?” Dad offered. He stepped behind the kitchen island that divided it from the living room, opening cabinet after cabinet until finding a kettle and pulling it out.

“You know what?” I laughed, the chaos driving me, Drew’s little face cheering me up as he tried and failed to plant a kiss on my cheek. “Sure. You’re probably the only one that could actually understand.”

The candidness with which I spoke surprised even me. I told him everything as he sunk onto the couch beside me, two cups of peppermint tea in his hands. I told him about how Cole and I had started, how I’d met him at Lottie’s as her father was dying, how we’d had an incredible time until that horrible night, when I’d left in a fit of rage, promising myself I wouldn’t see him again. I told him about the turmoil I’d gone through when I’d found out I was pregnant, how I cried thinking about how the man who fathered him was a fucking dick, how I hadn’t put the pieces together. I told him about my job and how Cole had returned, that I’d given him a second chance purely because of Drew. The highs of it, the lows of it, and everything in between.

Dad listened, really listened, for the first time in years. He let me talk about all of it, holding Drew when I needed a moment to calm myself. He offered up his own anecdotes, his struggles in trying to get mom back to rehab, how he would kick himself every time she fucked up with us because he knew damn well we’d remember it. He talked to me about how difficult it was loving someone with alcoholism, how hard it was to watch them fall when he knew she didn’t want to.

“It’s not something that’s fixed once and for all when you go to rehab,” he explained, his hand on my shoulder, his brown-eyed gaze boring a hole in my soul. For once, I didn’t flinch. “It’s… sweetie, it’s a lifetime. It’s always there. Your mother, she’s been sober for six years, and although it gets easier, the fight is always going on. For both of us.”

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