Page 37 of Our Hearts Knew Better

I waited for him to tell me the outside world could be dangerous. Because the outside took Mom. So he was afraid to lose me like he lost her.

I waited for him to say he was just protective. He worried for me. He was scared. He couldn’t bear a life without me too.

None of that would fill the hollow place he’d put in my heart, but it would besomething.

Instead he said nothing. All I heard was the tapping of his fingernail on the side table, steady at first, then speeding up until it was the loudest sound in the room.

Then it stopped, a sharp cut off before he pushed out of his chair.

“This is what I can’t handle,” he said as he turned from me, something ragged in his breathing.

My jaw bobbed around too many racing thoughts before I found the main one. “Me having a life?”

Dad spun on me, halting me where I’d begun to follow him. “Yes.”

The word was heavy. The look behind it was heavy, deeper and stabbing. He might as well have just said he didn’t want me to be born. And that spun memories of how hands off he was when Mom was here to do the lifting.

“If Mollie’s mom hadn’t…”

…he’d throw me and mylifeonto her.

Daddy. . .

Go back to Mommy.

My grandmother knew. She knew my dad, better and longer than I did, probably better than I ever would. She got away from him when she had the chance.

I was now on the road to mine.

“You want me out of your hair,” my dad started, the statement matching his settled face. “I’m out.”

My voice could barely protest, but I tried. “That’s not what I want—”

“I should’ve just stayed that way after your mom died,” he cut in through a sigh, the words coming in and out through the pounding in my ears, through the hand he ran over his face, more exhausted with me than I could ever possibly be with him.

“Did youeverwant anything to do with me?” I pressed at his back after he turned from me again, my world another blur. “You never did,” I answered to his silence. “Did you?” A whisper. “Not really.” I shrugged through a shaky breath I had to pull in hard to get any air, my brain nudging at more memories of our distance, even when Mom was alive, that were suddenly making more sense. “You never wanted me. That’s why it’s so easy for you to ignore me when Ishowyou what you don’t want. What is so wrong with whatIwant?” I pressed more through his continued silence and his turned back.

“I wanna know me,” I continued. “I only know theyouversion of me. You’ve never let me be a kid before I had to grow up. You’re not letting me grow up!” It was a desperate and hopeless cry from the lost pieces of myself I was never allowed to find. “God forbid I make mistakes like everyone else. Or I learn how to take care of myself. You’re gonna be gone one day, just like Mom, and then what?”

I was dumping, but this was the garbagehegave me, and I couldn’t stop now.

And he still wasn’t talking, but he wasn’t moving, either, and that gave me a hope that he was at least listening.

I imagined tapping him on the shoulder and him meeting me where I am, where he put me, with a genuine look, truly being all ears and telling me,let’s fix this.

“I could never figure out…you, why you are this way.” I spoke to the hair at his neck, pretending I had his eyes, a post-tension in my head from the years trying to map out his words and behaviors and decode. “But you know what I did learn? It’s not my job to figureyouout. It’s not my job to figure anybody out,” I breathed like a fresh realization. “Just myself.”

I fisted the hem of my shirt to have something to hold to as I released the rest. “I’m not doing anything wrong—or, I’m notwantingto do anything wrong, but you make me feel like I am. I’m just trying to be normal. To be my age. I need friends—” My voice strained and I blinked at more blur. “Maybe even a boyfriend,” I added, then quickly tacked on, “And that’s notwrong. And you raised me. I’m not a stupid girl,” I said to how he would think I’d be, how he would think I was. “You raised me, Dad,” I repeated, moving right up at his back with the push for his understanding. “And that still matters. That still means something to me.”

The good and the bad. Whether something is right or wrong. I got it all.

“I’m stillyourdaughter. If you give me room…” My head dipped at the request before I lifted it back up. “I wouldn’t disappoint you. You would see…you would see that.”And I wouldn’t have to anymore.“I just need some room.”

Dad shifted, the slightest bit, giving me some of his profile, the downturned corner of his mouth, but still not his eyes. “Take it,” he rasped out. Permission, but not really. There was a price. Take my room, break the leash…without him.

He moved then, walked toward the stairs, and my next breath was so sharp, it shook my entire body, and I clung to one of the last threads I could.

Don’t be afraid, Summer.

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