Page 33 of Our Hearts Knew Better

My lips curled into a smile and I muffled a laugh into my pillow, my emotions such a whirl, I couldn’t tell if they were just relief or madness.

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My thoughts had spun into a spiral for the rest of the night, and after barely any sleep, I woke up to texts from Adam.

He was checking on me, and after letting him know I was still in the clear, while gathering clothes, he sent me a picture of his suitcase, half opened, with his hand pointedly holding the zipper.

That put a good clench in my stomach—Iwouldmiss him—before the sickly one settled in.

This morning felt like the first. Like I was living in Deja vu days.

Eggshells.

The noisy neighbor who wasn’t.

The sweat.

The locking of my knees.

I didn’t want to think my dad knew, so I couldn’t let myself.

I showered and dressed and brushed my teeth to the chant ofno fucks. Old MacDonald was Summer. And there were no fucks here, no fucks there. . .

With all my power, I wasn’t stepping on eggshells and fighting the walk. They say fortune comes to those who are brave. Something to that effect.Theytalked too much but sometimes their words were useful. Brave was now part of who I was. And I was pedaling for my fortune.

My bones were still rigid beneath my fluid smile, but that one stretch was all I needed to get through those steps to join Dad at the table.

“Are you opening your window?”

Especially after he askedthat.

“No,” I lied, quick through the strain in my throat so he couldn’t catch it. “Why?” This one through a bite of sausage.

“There were a few of those flies in there,” he said after a moment, his stare searing on my face as I stuffed my mouth and avoided his eyes, realizing after a stuffed swallow, I was making myself appear suspicious. So I slowed down and looked at him as he assured me, with his empty cup dangling loose from his fingers, “I got them.”

The crane flies.

They flew in with the summer heat in swarms. They flew through my window every night I sneaked out. I would kill them the next day, but I was never on a time limit, because my dad never went into my room.

He’d gone into my room this morning, while I was in the shower.

“There must be a crack in it somewhere,” I said, my hand tight around my fork. “The window,” I clarified low, looking back down at my plate as I scraped up some eggs.

His chair scraped back as he got up from the table…to pour himself another cup of coffee.

Maybe it was work stress, these changes.

Or maybeDadwas changing too. Maybe he knew and hewaswaiting for me to own up myself, upping his mind games.

I had to be insistent he didn’t know to fight succumbing to the coward I’d been most of my life. It wouldn’t bemewho took from me, who stole, who kept, not now or ever.

“I can install a screen if you want some air up there.” His tone sounded like he just laid the best plans. He might as well have said he’d install some bars over my cell.

When my mom was still alive, when the three of us lived in the home I should’ve grown up in, I heard some stray cats meowing on our porch one night I couldn’t sleep, and my little head thought it’d be better to use the window instead of the door. I managed to get it open, but I couldn’t push out the screen, so my little head also thought to cut a hole to toss them some food.

Dad had installed the screens then and they were fixed screens. So I knew if he installed one in my room, it would be fixed too. And I wouldn’t be getting out my window again.

“I don’t go into your room,” I lied again, my mom’s figurines popping into my head, “so can you not go into mine?” That new tempo was in my voice. Thirteen bites to steal my appetite. “Please?” I added through a bubbling nausea, at Dad’s pause back in his chair, his long look I could feel on my face again.

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