Page 121 of I Knew You Were Trouble

This time I don’t answer.

Two days later, the door buzzer blasts again, this time when it’s dark outside.

I stumble to the intercom. ‘Hello?’

‘It’s Dunc,’ Duncan says. ‘Can you maybe come down here?’

I pull on a woolly jumper, taking the two flights of stairs down to the main entrance of the building, feeling shaky. I don’t know why he can’t just come up. When I open the door, my mouth falls open.

Duncan stands there, beside my father.

Patrick Hart wears an overcoat, a suitcase by his side.

A sudden windstorm of emotions sweeps me up, my face crumpling as the tears I’ve been holding back for almost five weeks all come spilling out of me at once.

‘Hi, Daddy,’ I manage in a strangled tone, as he steps forward and wraps his arms around me in a long sought-after embrace. And then I’m holding onto my father for dear life, my heart breaking inside of me, but which, once broken, allows the most intense, profound and much-needed sense of relief to wash over me.

Duncan leaves again. Closing my front door, my father puts down his suitcase and looks around. I wipe away tears. I’m embarrassed by the state of my own flat.

When he’d suggested visting while I was in New York, I’d rejected him completely. Yet here he is, dropping everything when he answered Duncan’s call, packing a bag and getting straight on a plane for an eleven-hour flight to London.

‘Would you like something to eat, Pumpkin?’ he says softly. ‘Will you let me make you some eggs?’

‘I don’t have any eggs,’ I sniff as I watch him remove his coat.

‘There anywhere I can go get some?’

‘There’s a shop closeby, round the corner,’ I manage.

A short while later, my father places a plate of scrambled eggs on toast in front of me. It’s the same comfort meal I remember him making me as a child. He’s removed his overcoat and rolled up his sleeves. He fetches me a knife and fork and takes a seat next to me at the table, where I eat and continue to sob uncontrollably at the same time.

‘You don’t have to tell me anything,’ he says softly. ‘Not if you don’t want to. But I’m here to help.’

Slowly, I nod and chew, my eyes still leaking tears, because I can’t seem to stem the flow.

‘I promise you, Lexi, the pain gets easier. Every day you will get stronger.’

And for the first time since I was eight years old, I’m happy to have him to lean on.

Chapter Thirty-Three

London, England

June, four months later

I’m eating toast for breakfast. Dad is back from getting milk at the local shop. He comes through the door to my flat holding a tote bag, in his other hand, a copy of a magazine.

He’s stayed with me, on and off, in my spare room, making a couple of trips back and forth to LA, and we’re rebuilding our relationship.

He sits down opposite me and holds my gaze as he slides the magazine across the table. I stiffen.

‘Saw two girls fawning over this at the store,’ he says. ‘Didn’t want you to get caught by surprise if you go out… so I thought I’d buy you a copy. It might mention the documentary.’

I leave it where it is, looking down at the cover of a well-known men’s magazine.

Dad swallows. ‘Are y’alright?’

The picture has him bathed in a neon blue tint, like the surface of a swimming pool. The text, in neon yellow, says the wordAIDANin bold lettering. Taken from the waist up, the image shows him shirtless, looking directly at the camera in a piercing stare, the light giving him a seductive blue glow that matches his eyes. Looking at a photograph of him turns my insides to liquid. He has two new arm tattoos I’ve not seen before. He must have got them in the aftermath of the tour, which came to an end in April.

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