* * *
I wake at the crack of dawn, and I mean thecrack. I guess Rich didn’t shut the curtains all the way, because one asshole beam of light slices right through the dark and onto my face. I sit up too fast. My body protests almost as hard as my pounding temples. Stumbling to the window, I yank the blinds all the way closed, but with the sun rising fast, it’s still not dark.
I’m drudging back to the couch when I see him and nearly fall flat on my face.
George Fox.
He’s sleeping in the club chair next to the sofa, his burgundy cashmere sweater wrinkled like he’s a bourgeois vagrant. I blink a few times, rubbing my eyes in disbelief. “Dad?”
He shifts. After a moment, he lifts his head, squinting at me. “Banana?”
“What are you doing here?” I sit on the edge of the couch, facing him. “Did Rich call you?”
“He was worried. And before you go off on him, just know he’sbeenworried for a long time and kept it all to himself. Until last night.” He sits up, grimacing. “I’m too damn rickety to be sleeping on a chair, Halston. Are you trying to send your old man to an early grave?”
I look at the ground, my throat thickening with unshed tears. He drove an hour in the middle of the night to see me. It’s becoming clear that I’ve gone out of my way to hurt all the people who love me. It’s been a two-way street, but I’ve grown a lot the last few months and I can’t help wondering if much of my struggle the last ten years was imposed by myself.
“How much did he tell you?”
“You’re shacking up with some middle-aged artist?”
I roll my eyes. “He’s not middle-aged. He’s in his thirties. And we live together.”
“You should’ve told me. What if something had happened? I wouldn’t’ve been able to find you.”
“Like what?” I ask. “What else could possibly happen?”
He furrows his eyebrows, then leans his elbows on his knees. “I know you’re hurting. I just don’t know why you won’t let us help you.”
“I have to do it on my own, Dad. I want to heal, not numb myself forever. I never properly dealt with my feelings surrounding . . . that.”
“Minnie’s death.”
I inhale back tears. He rarely uses her name. I know it hurts him to even say it. “It felt like when you put me on that stuff, you just wanted to shut me up. Make me move on.”
“I wanted to stop the pain for you,” he says. “If you were going through even half of what I was—”
“Of course I was. More, because it was my fault.”
“Oh, baby.” He rubs his face, his hands shaking. “It’s not your damn fault.”
My chest constricts. I don’t know if he realizes he’s never said that. “You made me think it was.”
He looks up. He’s crying. “I’m sorry. I didn’t take care of you. I couldn’t. Getting you treatment was the only way I could deal with the fact thatIwas falling apart. I was scared to bring you down with me, so I gave you to a professional.”
“Then why keep me there for ten years?”
He shakes his head. “I thought you were doing well. Weren’t you? You graduated college. Rich was good to you. You’ve been a productive, creative employee. She’d be so proud of you.”
I cover my face to hold in the tears. A blur of the provocative images Finn and I took flash through my mind. “No she wouldn’t.”
“Yes.” He reaches out and pulls one hand away by my wrist. “She is.”
After a few stuttering breaths, my sobs break through. Dad moves over to the couch and holds me while I cry. This is what I needed. All I ever needed. To be allowed to be sad, to have regrets, and for my parent to support me through it.
“I’ve screwed everything up,” I say into his chest. “All these years, I resented you when I should’ve embraced the fact that I still have you.”
He rests his cheek on top of my head. “We still have plenty of time, you and me. Time to make the changes we both need to.”
