Page 116 of Love is a Game

I graduated, knowing he wouldn’t be in the crowd. My first big fashion job—and he would never know what that achievement meant. One day, if I have a child, they’ll never know their grandfather. The absence stretches wider, deeper.

Maybe that’s why I act out, why I chase attention in all the wrong ways. Being noticed for something—anything—feels better than fading into nothing.

For years, anger filled the space he left. I pushed people away before they could leave me. I filled the void with work, distraction, and men who never stood a chance. Anything to quiet the ache, even for a little while.

Because he was supposed to be there. He was supposed to love me.

People don’t get it.“It wasn’t you—that’s just your father. He had his own demons,”my grandmother said. As if that erases the pain.

It always comes down to the same thing. If he’s my father, then why did he just let me go?

I don’t expect an answer. There’s never been one. Just silence, thick and suffocating, pressing in from every direction.

Now my body aches from being curled in on itself for too long, stiff and hollow.

I slowly peel myself from the bed, shuffle to the kitchen, and stand there, staring blankly into the fridge.

Shutting the door, I turn to the freezer, pawing through its contents, choosing a frozen meal. Meals left by those well-meaning women at my mother’s funeral. Someone who probably made it in a kitchen filled with warmth, conversation, and a family who actually stuck around.

The containers are stuck together. I grip a knife, working it between them, but my hands are clumsy, numb.

The blade slips.

A sharp sting. Then, a bright drop of blood lands against the countertop.

Shit. I let the knife clatter into the sink and clutch my arm, the cut already welling with more crimson. I move to the faucet, watching the diluted red swirl down the drain as I rinse it under cold water.

So stupid.

The sight of my blood shouldn’t rattle me. But it does. Not because it hurts—if anything, I’m relieved it’s not worse. It’s the silence that follows. No one rushing in with concern. No one there to see. To help. To remind me I’m someone worth keeping.

I press a wad of paper towel to the wound, and it briefly snags on my bracelet. And I guess the cord must’ve taken the hit with the knife, too. Because all of a sudden, it gives. Just like that.

The band unravels and slips into the sink. My so-called protective shield, undone. Its frayed ends splayed like a warning—or a sign.

My pulse pounds, sharp and insistent.

Maybe it’s time.

Time to stop hiding behind old beliefs, bad habits, and tired excuses. To stop avoiding the one question that’s haunted me all my life.

Time to see him. And find out why I was never enough.

* * *

An erratic night’s sleep. But I wake surprisingly determined.

By mid-morning, I’m on the road, thinking that a drive to unpack the wreckage of your past shouldn’t be this picturesque.

But here I am, coasting down winding roads lined with towering pines, past open fields dotted with wildflowers, their colors too bright, too cheerful.

Mountains rise in the distance, rugged and unmoved by the weight pressing on my chest. The occasional glimmer of water winks at me through the trees, sunlight dancing over the surface as if the world is indifferent to the unease churning inside me.

I pass signs for charming old B&Bs and historic hotels, places where honeymooners and families stay for a taste of rustic beauty. Tourists meander along scenic trails, stopping to snap photos while I’m poised to walk into my broken history. Something I never got to fix.

Ellensbrook appears as a neat little town tucked into the folds of the landscape, its storefronts pristine, its sidewalks tidy. The kind of place that pretends it has no ghosts.

But I know better.

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