Page 93 of Play Your Part

“Dad, I need to talk to you,” I said after knocking on his open office door.

He sat behind his desk, typing away, but he paused and stood, a broad smile gracing his face as soon as he saw me. It faded when he processed the expression on mine. He didn’t walk to me as he usually would, instead gesturing to the chair in front of his desk. “What’s wrong, sweetheart?”

I want to come home.The words sat behind my lips, begging to come out.Solve my problems for me.

He would never turn me away. A blessing and a curse to have that security, always.

“So much is wrong,” I said, slumping into the seat.

He sat back in his, interwoven hands resting on his desk, patiently waiting for me to go on.

“And I… I don’t know if I can fix any of it. I don’t know if I’m capable of fixing any of it.”

“I highly doubt that. Since you were a girl, you’ve faced down everything with strength and conviction. Whatever—”

“Until she died, Dad.” The words ripped out of a place deep within me. “I’m not the same anymore.”

My father launched out of his seat to the chair beside me.

“I know you think it too,” I continued. “You preferred the old me, when I was in the world, accomplishing things rather than bumming around your house.”

He reached for my hands. “I’m happy you’re here, Kenny.” He sighed. “I’m relieved you’re okay.Shewould know what to do if our roles were reversed. You got left with the wrong parent.”

“No, Dad—”

“I’m working on it, though,” he cut me off. “With a pain-in-the-ass therapist.”

I lifted my head. “You’re in therapy?”

“I went back four months ago to do it for real this time. I wasn’t ready before, but I am now.”

I sucked in a breath, gathering the courage to say the next words, steeling myself against the tide of emotion headed my way. “I miss her so much.”

Pain flickered across my father’s face. His eyes glistened, and he made no effort to hide it.

“It’s unfair she’s gone,” I continued. “Sometimes, I wonder what the point of anything is. We make plans and life has other ideas for us. Why should I want anything when I can lose it at any time?”

“The point, Kenny, is the time you have when things are going right. I wouldn’t have traded a second of my time with your mother, even knowing how my heart would break in the end. I didn’t want to push you, but it hasn’t been easy watching you sleepwalk your way through life this past year. I want you to be happy, kid. Seeing you at Thanksgiving was the first time I thought maybe you were.”

His words made me cry harder, tears streaking down my face. I let them fall.

I’d anticipated hating every moment of her not being with us on Thanksgiving. And I missed having her there—baking pies the day before as she grilled me about my life, shopping online as we sipped hot chocolate, decorating for Christmas as soon as we closed the book on Thanksgiving. But I hadn’t wanted to crawl into bed and never come back out again like last year.

And I knew why.I’m thankful for you, Alexei.

I swallowed the lump in my throat and took deep breaths to calm down.

“Did something happen, Kennedy?” Dad asked.

Nothing unplanned.

I thought about lying to him—I wassupposedto keep lying. But if I had any chance at happiness, I had to stop hiding how I felt.

“I need to tell you something, and you’re not going to like it. Alexei and I weren’t dating for real. Alexei did it for damage control, and I… I was pissed at Justin, and wanted to make him jealous and realize what he was missing. And it worked. Too well. At a certain point, it stopped being pretend. But I screwed it up, Dad, and now we’re… nothing.”

I slumped back in my seat, spent from venting all these emotions. After an extended, silent moment, I asked, “Aren’t you going to say anything?”

“Kennedy,” my dad said, a smile spreading across his face. “You don’t need me to say anything.”

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