Page 1 of Living on the Edge

Prologue

Ryleigh

One Year Ago

The blood pressureapparatus makes a whooshing sound as it takes my father’s readings.

87/59.

It’s low.

That means it’s almost time.

I know he’s going to die, but I’ve been holding out hope.

For what, I’m not sure.

The cancer came out of nowhere and spread quickly. One minute we met for dinner in L.A. to go to a few concerts, and a week later he was getting a biopsy.

It’s been three months, and now they’re making him comfortable.

Nothing we can do.

I’m so sorry.

This type of cancer can move quickly.

If only he’d come in sooner…

The platitudes make me want to hit something.

It’s not that I’m heartbroken because we’re so close—it’s because we’re not.

My parents divorced when I was a baby.

Dad would breeze in and out of town a few times a year with gifts and concert tickets and whatnot, and then he was gone.

He wasn’t a deadbeat, he sent money, but he was a lot stingier with his time.

My mother died when I was sixteen, and he had no choice but to move to Minneapolis to be with me until I graduated from high school. The minute he sent me off to college he was gone again. Hell, he was barely there when he was there. It’s hard to be angry because I always had everything I needed. Clothes, food, a roof over my head, even college tuition. Mom made sure of it.

But I never really had a father.

And now that I’m an adult and able to force the issue of father-daughter bonding, he’s going to die.

God, he pisses me off.

“You’re doing…that thing… with your eyebrows,” Dad whispers, his eyes clear and focused for the first time in days.

“What thing?” I ask, knitting my brows together.

“That.” He chuckles.

I shake my head. “Frowning? I mean, people frown.”

“Yes, but you do it a lot. It’s going to give you those big frown lines women hate.”

I want to point out how sexist that is, but he’s dying. What’s the point?

---