Page 34 of Conquering Conner

Sixteen

Henley

He’s not going to recognize me.

That’s the thought that stops me, mid-charge.

My designer clothes. My face. My hair. Even my freckles. It’s all gone. Different.

My own father is going to look at me and see a complete stranger.

“Conner.”

It sounds like little more than a croak to my own ears, but he freezes in his tracks like I shouted his name. He turns and looks at me, his jaw tight, eye narrowed. He’s expecting me to argue. Fight him. Whatever he sees on my face softens his instantly.

“I should’ve—” I’m shaking my head, panic crowding my lungs. Clawing at my throat. “I don’t think I can do this.”

He turns around completely, taking me by my arm to pull me away from the open door and into the shadow of the building.

“We don’t have to.” He sounds relieved. Like taking me to see my father is the last thing he wants to do. “We can leave. We can—”

“I left him.” I stare up at him, my throat working against the push of tears that crowd it. “I left them.”

I left you.

Like he can read my mind he takes a step back, his expression suddenly guarded. Wary. “You were a kid.” He sounds just like his father. What he said to me yesterday when I apologized. Excusing me. Pretending what I did to him doesn’t matter. Didn’t hurt him. Not then and not now. “You didn’t have a—”

“A choice?” I laugh up at him, shaking my head. “Didn’t I? I was seventeen. I could’ve told her no. I could’ve… stayed.”

Why didn’t you?

That’s what he wants to say. What he wants to know. But he won’t. He won’t let it matter. Not after the way I’ve treated him.

“Conn—”

“Are we doing this or not?” he says, slipping his hands into the front pockets of his jeans. “Because I have about a dozen other things I could be doing besides standing in a parking lot that smells like hot garbage.”

I should say yes. Get it over with. See my father with my own two eyes so I can know he’s okay. And if not okay, that at least he’s still alive. So I can say what I have to say. So it can be over. So I can move on.

I should but I don’t.

Because I’m a complete coward.

I always have been.

Because I run.

That’s what I do.

I shake my head because I can’t do anything else, my eyes so hot they feel like two pieces of coal burning in my skull.

“Okay.” Conner sighs, his expression caught somewhere between disappointment and relief. Without saying a word, he takes me by my arm again and pulls me away from the building.

At his car, he unlocks my door and opens it, feeding me into my seat before shutting it behind me. Within minutes we’re moving and pointed in the direction of my apartment. He doesn’t say anything. Doesn’t even look at me. It’s like I’m not even here.

“Me either.”

I say it because I need him to look at me. Acknowledge that I’m sitting here.

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