Page 3 of Finding You

“Yeah. He is.”

Lucas turned on his side and curled into himself. “Pop hates me too.”

Dallas’s eyes widened. “I’m sorry, what? Did he say that?”

“No,” Lucas said, sounding defensive. He pushed up a little and raised his chin. “But why wouldn’t he? Dad left because of me. He blames me for how shitty our life is now. We’re broke now. We’re going to lose the house, and it’s all my fault.”

Dallas blinked in surprise. How the hell could Lucas say that? Bronx thought the sun rose and set on his kid. There was no way he’d let him shoulder the blame. “Why would you think that?”

“Because we fought right before Pop and I went to my stupid tournament. Pop was all pissed off that Dad didn’t want to go because he never goes to my school stuff. I mean, I didn’t even want him to. He always got so weird when he was at school with me.” Lucas went quiet a moment. His eyes opened a fraction, and Dallas saw he wasn’t wearing his prosthetics. There was just a faint strip of pinkish-white from his ocular implants. “And a few weeks before that, I heard them arguing about me. Dad kept saying they wouldn’t be angry at each other all the time if they just had a normal family. Well, obviously, I’m the only one not normal…”

“Lucas.”

His nephew closed his mouth but looked resolved to argue with anything Dallas said.

“Your dad is a shithead. He’s always cared about money and status more than he cared about anything else. I’m not going to blow smoke up your ass by saying you’re the most important thing to him and that he’ll come around. I don’t know if he will.”

Lucas was quiet a moment, then burst into laughter. “Are you serious?”

Dallas felt like shit. “Look, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean?—”

“No.” Lucas reached for him and curled his hand in the front of Dallas’s shirt the way he used to do when he was really small. The way his own daughter did now, unthinking, searching for comfort. Lucas let out a shuddering breath. “No, that was amazing. Pop’s being so careful with me, and no one wants to say the truth out loud. Dad sucks. He’s always sucked. I’ve known it for years. I’m not even really hurt that he left me. I’m pissed off at the way he hurt Pop. I’m pissed off he couldn’t be, like, a regular guy who gives a shit about his family.”

“Me too.”

Lucas smiled and shuffled closer, and Dallas put his arms around him. “He never hugged me, you know.”

“I’m gonna fucking deck him in the face if I ever see him again.”

Lucas laughed quietly. “Thanks.” He fell silent a long moment, then took a deep breath. “I still feel like it was my fault. I bet if I wasn’t blind and Pop didn’t think I needed this horrible school, Dad would have stayed.”

“He wouldn’t have. That’s just the kind of person he was. He wasn’t meant for this life, and we’ll probably never know why he stuck around for it.” Dallas hesitated, then asked, “Is your school really that bad?”

Lucas shrugged, letting go and rolling onto his back again. He rubbed at his eyelids before dropping his hands to the beanbag and rolling the soft fabric between his fingers. “I mean, it’s fine. It’s nice to have a school that caters to me, you know? Like, everything’s in braille, and people get bullied, sure, but not for using a cane or whatever. But…the world isn’t blind.”

“No, it’s not,” Dallas said, not sure where the kid was going with that.

“I’m going to go to college, and hardly anything will be in braille. And guess how many people I’m going to run into who have never met a blind guy before me?”

Ah. Yeah. Okay, Dallas got it. “Probably very few.”

“Exactly. I just want to feel like everyone else. I want some kid to make fun of me for not being able to see so I can finally use some of the sweet comebacks I’ve been working on. I want things to be hard before I get thrown out into the world on my own. I want to know what it’s like to navigate all the things I’ve never had the chance to experience before I have to deal with being a grown-up along with it.”

Dallas grinned. “That sounds like a really smart plan.”

Lucas smiled back at him, but it didn’t last. His face fell after a beat. “And—and I want to not think about Dad for a while. I want to hear Pop smiling again because he’s never happy anymore, and he used to be before Dad started letting us both know how miserable we made him. I want something new. Something different. But Dad seems so determined to stay here and make it work, even if it means getting three jobs and making me live at school full-time.”

Dallas debated about saying anything because he wasn’t certain how sure Bronx was about moving. But he knew his brother was right about the house and about the city. Even with alimony and child support, he couldn’t afford to stay.

And if Bronx moved, he’d have a built-in support system, which was something he very clearly didn’t have now. But he didn’t want to get Lucas’s hopes up.

“God, I’m sorry,” Lucas said after a beat of silence. “I’m being so selfish.”

Dallas frowned. “What are you talking about?”

“I mean, you’re divorced now. I heard Pop talking to Auntie Corinne about Audra and how shitty things have been for you, and here I am whining about my problems.”

Dallas groaned and pushed himself up to sit, waiting a moment as Lucas followed. They propped themselves up against the wall as the beanbag stuffing settled around them. “First of all, Auntie Corinne is a gossip.” She was their mom’s sister, closer to their age though, and the family busybody. He wasn’t surprised she was all up in Bronx’s business. “Second of all, I’m okay with the divorce. I caught Katie in bed with someone else, and we were divorced months before Audra was born. I was glad to see the back of her, to be honest.”

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