Page 47 of Needing to Fall
“Running helped,” I said honestly.
His fingers intertwined with mine. “Good.” He lifted my hand to his lips and gave me a soft kiss.
***
“Your mother is a real shit.”
My mood was tarnished as Lynx spoke. We had been driving for a while, and I had been riding a high from the time we had together. Sure, most people wouldn’t categorize what we had done as fun, but they weren’t Lynx and me. He had taken us somewhere where there wasn’t a lot of people so both of our triggers would hopefully not come into play. We had laid together for hours, talking, and I had loved every second of it.
“Yeah,” I answered, not wanting to talk about this. I didn’t want to bring it all back up after I had stomped it into the pavement. “I prefer to call her an incubator.”
He laughed deeply. I liked that I could make him lose himself and bring him some type of joy.
“Okay, we’ll call her that. What’s going on in that head of yours?”
So many damn things I felt like I was in a rubber ball being bounced around all over the place.
“It’s on them, not me. I didn’t do anything but exist. The way they treated me is on them. I can’t feel like I wasn’t good enough anymore, because no matter what I could have done, I had a huge black X on me from the moment I was conceived.” I paused, not knowing if I should say the rest, but then went with it. “I wonder if I was better off in the foster homes than at home with them. He hated me so much. He would have made it a painful death, and no child should have to go through that.”Not even me,I thought yet didn’t say.
“You’re right. All that shitison them. They are sorry excuses for humans. I don’t do the ‘what if’ game, though. It’s a game you’ll never win, you’ll never see or know the response to. Therefore, it’s pointless.”
Damn if he didn’t make a shit-ton of sense.
“I saw the way you looked when she told you about your biological father. What’s your plan?”
I liked that he had saidmy plan.It was. It wasn’t Lynx’s or Andi’s. No, it was mine to learn and discover.
“I’m going to find out who he is.”
“Good girl. I’m proud of you.”
I felt like I had just scored the winning touchdown in a football game, and part of me wanted to do one of those stupid, little dances the players did when they scored. He was proud … of me.Iwas proud of me.
I was working on finding a way to hold on to the light and not drown in the dark. I still couldn’t say what the future held or even if someone like me would have a future, but I was learning to hold on to the moment.
“I don’t know how I’m going to do it, but—”
“That’s easy, babe. Go back and look at her employment history. There’s a paper trail somewhere. You find out where she worked then start digging into who her boss was.”
“You make it sound so simple,” I grumbled.
“Babe, it’s easier than you think.”
And I believed him. The panic didn’t come, surprising me. I had thought for sure searching for an unknown man and springing it on him that I was his kid would start it up, but it didn’t, and I liked that, too.
***
“We’re close to home.”
I wanted to be relieved, but I was scared as hell to face Andi. If she really felt that way about me, it was something that needed to be discussed. However, with everything I had learned today, I didn’t know if I could take more.
The day had been an emotional rollercoaster. First, Lynx had showed up then seeing my incubator and the shit she spewed, and finally, the park where Lynx and I had fun. I had to admit that going from low to high had taught me that with the bad, there was good out there. It had made everything balance out in a way I hadn’t experienced before. Everything had always been weighted down on my shoulders, pushing me farther down. Unfortunately, the weight was still there. It just didn’t seem as heavy for the first time, but I was afraid seeing Andi and talking about what needed to be discussed would tip that scale again.
“You wanna go and get something to eat, or you want me to take you to Andi’s?” Lynx asked.
I turned to look at him. “Dinner.”
It was selfish of me—I knew it—but it wasn’t because Andi was probably waiting for me. No, it was the mere fact that I didn’t want this night to end. I didn’t want to say good-bye to him.
