Page 118 of Give My Everything
“You’re so full of shit. I don’t know what you’re playing here, but I’ll figure it out eventually. Don’t kid yourself thinking you can pretend to bail and I’ll just close my eyes.”
I shake my head and let out a sigh.
“It’s sad, don’t you think? That this is what matters to you most? That your entire life is about getting what you want and winning at all costs? I’m starting to realize…that’s just not enough for me.”
He doesn’t say anything else, so I decide to wrap it up. I have more important things to do today, anyway.
“Look, I gotta go. Ivy’s in the hospital, and that’s where my priority is. I’ll see you around.”
And then I hang up, grab the photo book off my shelf, and head back out the door, deciding not to give my father’s fucked-up games another thought.
CHAPTER21
REMMY
I don’t think I’ve ever seen Dominic sit so still before. His eyes are narrowed and focused entirely too surely on me, his hands frozen mid-motion—the left holding a flopped-over section of today’s newspaper, a habit he picked up when we were living on my grandfather’sfincain Colombia and didn’t have access to the internet; the right delicately looped around the handle of a coffee mug that was, only seconds ago, moving toward his mouth.
My oldest brother isn’t thinking about taking a sip of his coffee anymore, though. That black tar he drinks down by the barrel every day hovers in the air in front of him, almost forgotten as he watches me.
Maybe this was a mistake.
He clears his throat, the first sign that he isn’t a wax figurine in at least a solid minute. He reaches out and sets his cup back on the saucer then uses both hands to slowly and methodically fold his newspaper in half.
Drawing his attention away from his morning coffee and the news? Yes, this was definitely a mistake.
He clears his throat again, and then he reaches up to adjust his tie. It would almost seem like a nervous gesture to someone who didn’t know him.
But Idoknow him, and it isnota nervous gesture.
“Would you mind…repeating yourself?” he finally says, his eyes still focused on my face like floodlights.
Surely he’s searching for answers, some kind of indicator that he’s misunderstanding me.
But I know what I said, and I’m not taking it back.
He half-smiles, half-grimaces—the only way he knows how to put someone at ease, though I don’t think he’s ever understood how much more terrifying it is than just his blank stare.
“Because it sounds like you just said…” He trails off.
I run my hands into my hair at the base of my neck and pull the still damp heft of tendrils over one shoulder, focusing my attention on putting my thick and unruly mane into a braid and hoping to alleviate my nerves.
Spoiler alert: it isn’t working.
I continue the slow, methodical steps of braiding my hair, only daring to look up at Dominic once, giving him what I hope looks like a genuine smile, and then I repeat the words I said to him just a few moments ago.
“I’m going to move in with Ben.”
When I left his house earlier this morning, kissing him softly on the lips and murmuring goodbye before the sun had even risen, there was a pang inside of me that I wasn’t expecting. I realized as I sat in the back of the hired car I’d called to take me the short few blocks home that I didn’t want to leave Ben’s.
I want to take him up on the offer to move in with him—now. That way we can figure each other out a little more and move things forward.
Get ready for our life together. Get ready for the baby.
And when I got home and saw that Dominic was awake and sitting out on the front patio, sipping his coffee and reading the paper, I decided he would be the first person I’d tell.
A part of me that hasn’t lived at home in years felt like slinking into the house without attracting his attention.
But the other part of me that has experienced freedom and independence over the past same number of years saidfuck that shitand strolled boldly across the patio with my head high and shoulders back.
