Page 32 of Haunted Hearts
Lydia snorts. “Yeah, he had me fooled.”
I swallow hard. I can’t help but think how I’m sitting here fooling her, too. The fast tracking of the library project, the family history of hurt that haunts me…
There’s another reason seeing that text from Lydia’s ex stuck with me. One I try not to think about, but that comes with me wherever I go, like a fucking rain cloud. I just can’t shake it. It’s why I’ve convinced myself that I’m the one who has to make suremy siblings stay on track. That they all have a roof over their heads, food in their stomachs, a shoulder to lean on.
I’ve never told anyone about it—not since Mom. Not since the damage was done.
But suddenly, as I’m sitting here with Lydia in my lap and her hair in my face, I want to tell her, get it off my chest. She told me aboutherparents, about losing her mom to cancer and her dad to drink. I think I could tell her about mine. I think she might actually understand.
Maybe.
“It’s not the first time I saw a message I wasn’t supposed to see,” I say suddenly.
Lydia doesn’t turn to look at me, but she strokes my arm and I know she’s listening. The fire crackles beside us.
“Actually,” I continue, “it was an email the first time. I don’t even know if people texted back then—like, twenty-some years ago. Anyway, it was an email from my dad. To someone else. Some chick at his office. He left his email up on his work computer, and I needed to print something for school. I was only thirteen, so I don’t think I really understood what I was reading. But I’d seen porn, and I wasn’t an idiot, and this shit was explicit. I don’t really think I believed at the time that my dad… that he could… well,dothat. To my mom.”
Lydia traces her fingers up and down my arm. “What did you do?”
“I told my mom. I forwarded the whole fucking email thread to her.”
“And what didshedo?”
“Well, she confronted my dad about it. It went about how you’d expect. Yelling. Door slamming. I don’t think I ever saw my mom cry so much. And then my dad packed up—and that was it.”
“Wait—what, like the next day?”
“The next day. He left his wife and four kids—and my youngest brother was three fucking months old. He just peaced on out.”
Lydia’s quiet for a moment, processing. “Well, fuck him.”
I can’t help but chuckle at the disgust in her voice. It’s how I’ve felt every time I’ve thought of my dad over the past almost twenty-three years.
“Yeah,” I say. “Fuck him. But also fuck me. Little old, goody-two-shoes thirteen-year-old Will, who can’t keep a fucking secret and wrecked his own family.”
Lydia’s fingers stop their tracing. She looks up at me, and her dark eyes are absolutely gorgeous in the firelight. “Hold up. You don’t actually think that, do you?”
I shrug. “I mean… yeah. If I’d just left that shit alone, my dad would’ve stuck around. My mom wouldn’t have had to work three jobs, my brother, Zeke, would’ve grown up with a dad, and I wouldn’t be so fucking angry all the time.”
“Will,” Lydia says. “Your dad was having an affair. He might’ve chosen to leave regardless—you can’t put that on yourself. And anyway, leaving aside that your mom would’ve wanted to know,youwould have known. You would have been carrying around the same burden either way.”
“Maybe. But I wouldn’t be carrying around the guilt.”
Lydia shakes her head, and I catch a whiff of vanilla. I want to bury my face in her hair.
“Thanks for telling me that,” she says. Her voice is quiet.
“Sure,” I say, because I can’t think of anything else. I’ve never toldanyoneabout that email—not even my siblings—but I have to admit it feels good. Nothing has changed, of course. The guilt and responsibility are still there. But there’s a little ray of light streaming in through my darkness that wasn’t there before.
We’re quiet a moment, listening to the waves lapping on the shore. The fire is dying, the fading embers smoldering in thedarkness. As we fold up the blanket, dust the sand off ourselves, and start our walk back into town, we keep our chatter to a minimum. I guess we’re each lost in our own thoughts. Trying to figure out what the hell just happened, probably—and where the fuck we go from here.
Lydia heads home, and I hop into the cab of my truck. Her scent is still on me, mingled with mine, and although I need to shower when I get home and wash off the sweat, I almost don’t want to. I want Lydia on my skin, in my arms, in my head. I want her wherever, whenever, and however I can get her. And that thought scares the absolute shit out of me.
Because, no matter how much I try to fight it, I’m still my father’s son. I’ve got his height, his build, his blue eyes and dirty blond hair. I’ve got his last name, and—the worst part—I got stuck with those fucking ghosts always nagging at the edges of my mind. Shit, I’m even keeping secrets like he did now.
The Holloway blood runs through my veins, whether I like it or not. And someone like Lydia deserves a hell of a lot better than someone like me.
eighteen
