Page 197 of Smoke and Fire
Dad had never implied any burden to me, but I’d seen the wear that Inessa and I had on him over the years. Women he dated had disappeared, seemingly without explanation. One had been upfront enough to say she didn’t want kids with special needs.
No one wanted to sign up forus. Except him.
He’d always stayed when everyone else left. Nowhewas gone. Where he went, I could never go.
Bernice said something to Dad in a quiet tone. He didn’t respond. She held onto his left arm while his right hand patted his pants pocket. Searching for his keys, probably. Dad looked up right then and his gaze slammed into mine. I sucked in a sharp breath. Dahlia tightened her hold on me.
Dad blinked. For half a breath, I thought I saw something there. Then his unseeing gaze dropped to Dahlia. He regarded her curiously through the window, then smiled at her. The toothy grin gave him a comical expression before he muttered something and turned around. He tried to shuffle off on his own but stumbled, unable to stand in his own power. Bernice caught him, put an arm around his back, and turned him toward his room.
I watched him retreat until he was gone. An empty feeling riddled my chest. My soul, a restless chasm with a father-sized hole punched through it. My breath left all at once and I tilted like I'd been on a tilt-o-whirl. Dahlia tightened her hold on me.
“That,” I murmured darkly, “is usually as far as we get."
"This is hard, Bastian."
I turned away. "Come on. Let’s go do something less soul-sucking. I’m starving and food always make me happy. I know a great Armenian place.”
She said nothing to my quick retreat. This time, I didn't hang around to wait for an update from Bernice. I had to get out of there.
Two minutes later, I cranked the truck back to life. It roared awake, then purred. I blinked, attempting to banish the cobwebs of thought and focus on what came next.
What did I need to do?
What came next?
Try as I might, my thoughts wouldn’t shuttle back together. Instead, they hovered around Inessa and Dad and fires and control and Jess and money and maintaining everything for everyoneand the pressure it left on my chest tightened, tightened, tightened until . . .
A warm body slid next to mine.
Dahlia sat right next to me in the truck, her arm looped through mine. She rested her head on my shoulder.
"I'm here," she said. "You're not alone this time."
She’d shocked me right out of the anxiety dive. Her grip on my arm tightened in a friendly squeeze. Not sure of what to do—or where to touch—I lowered my hand to the most natural spot. It stopped on her thigh.
For a long time we sat there. She looked ahead. I stared at the steering wheel. Eventually, she broke the quiet.
“Now that you’ve let me meet your family, can I share something with you?”
I nodded, desperate to get out of the spotlight. A rush of gratitude followed. Let her take the metaphorical wheel and decide what needed to be said next, because I had no idea.
“That guy at the Frolicking Moose yesterday was Jakob, my ex-boyfriend.”
A hundred thoughts swirled through my mind like little tornadoes, eating up the anxiety centered around Nessa and Dad. Dahlia’s voice settled them down.
“Six months ago, we broke up," she continued. "Mutual, for the most part. He started talking about it, and I realized he was right. We really weren't doing much. Sort of roommates, living our lives together but not . . . not really in love anymore.”
Her voice had become unmistakably soft, filled with a gentle pain. The distant kind. The sort of pain that you look at from the power of perspective.
“When we broke up, I gave up everything. My job as store manager at his company—a hardware supply chain he inherited from his father—outside of LA. Our shared apartment, which was ten minutes away from my family. My friends, my life. Everything. I just . . . I'd lost myself somewhere in the routine. When our love sort of died, I felt awful. Betrayed, relieved, confused."
Her shoulders dropped with a long, long breath. She relaxed further against me, her cheek resting on the side of my arm. I didn’t hate anything about this scenario, except her tone of regret and pain.
"After I'd graduated with my associates degree in general studies at college—which is where Jakob and I met—I started to work for him. Everything in my life after college began and ended with him. Everything. So when we broke up, I didn't really know what I wanted to do. So I . . . did the only thing that felt good.”
“What was that?”
“I sold everything I owned except a suitcase full of clothes. I kept my truck, which wasbarelybig enough to tow an RV, cashed out my savings, and bought my own place. Then I traveled the US for four months visiting family. Sione came with me. In April, he went to Adventura. In May, I started to work at the Frolicking Moose. I've been trying to figure out what I want to do with my life next in the meantime. Then, Jakob showed up yesterday."
