Page 43 of Worth the Wait

He’d always been so indestructible. So tough. Nothing ever kept Jeremiah Whitman down, and here he was, unable to get around without a pair of crutches and clearly uncomfortable.

It sucked.

“I’m good, sweetheart. I’ll just be sitting here, in this stupid chair, with my stupid leg in a stupid cast if you need me.”

Grinning, I ran over to him and gave him an awkward hug. “Missed you so much, Dad.”

“Missed you too,” he said as I pulled away from his recliner and turned to go upstairs. “Hey,” he said, stopping me from leaving. “You okay after seeing Patrick?”

I swallowed hard and tried to formulate my thoughts. I never lied to my dad, and I wasn’t about to start now.

“I didn’t expect to see him so soon. I wasn’t prepared.”

“I told him to let you come to him,” he said.

That made me smile. I imagined the conversation they’d had, my dad trying to be the bigger person and Patrick most likely agreeing, thinking it would be the right thing to do to take his advice.

“Well, that didn’t work out very well, did it?”

“That boy doesn’t listen to anything but his heart when it comes to you.”

“I don’t really hate that,” I admitted.

“I don’t hate that for you either,” he said, and it warmed me to know that my dad still loved Patrick as much as I did. “Go show your sister her room. But I want to hear about New York and everything you’re doing,” he said, and I must have made some kind of face because he saw right through my facade. “You don’t like it there very much, do you?”

“Honestly? It kind of sucks,” I said, and he barked out a laugh that made me start laughing in response. “But the food is amazing.”

“Figured as much,” he said.

I put one hand on my hip and gave him a look. “Oh, yeah? And why’s that, Mr. Know-It-All?”

“’Cause you wouldn’t have stayed gone this long for no reason. Especially if you didn’t like the place,” he said, clearly knowing it all.

I simply shrugged.

He reached down for one of his crutches and shoved me with it. “Go unpack.”

“Hey!” I tried to get away from his new weapon, but he kept poking at me until I finally grabbed my ratty carry-on and headed upstairs, where Sarina already was.

Dropping my bag on top of my bed, I glanced at my walls and nightstand, where so many moments had been stopped in time. Everything revolved around Patrick and our families. I might have been embarrassed or felt immature a little, if my heart still didn’t belong to him. All of our framed mementos still felt sweet and relevant somehow.

Walking into my sister’s room, which she had located all on her own, I found her sitting on her bed, looking around.

“I kind of remember this room now that I’m in it.” She stood up and walked over to the white desk and opened the music box that was sitting on top of it. It was one of those old-fashioned ones with the ballerina inside that started spinning when the top was opened. “I remember this.”

“I forgot all about it,” I admitted.

Sarina’s room had eventually become off-limits. My dad usually kept her door closed, probably to stop me from asking to turn it into something else. As I got older and her room stayed the same age, I outgrew it somehow. It was frozen in a time that I’d somehow dissociated from and packed away. It’d stopped feeling real, like it had never belonged to someone I knew at all.

Apparently, I was good at doing that.

“He never changed it.” Sarina smiled and wiped at her eyes. “Think he’d let me redecorate while we’re here?”

I grinned so big. “Are you kidding? He’d love it.”

“Really?”

“That man downstairs adores you, Sarina. Our family dynamic is a little messed up—I’ll admit that—but does it feel weird, being here? Or being around him?” I asked because she’d asked me those exact questions when I first got to Manhattan and spent time with our mother. Although I instinctively knew that her answer was going to be the opposite of the one I’d given her.

---