“Bon?”
Reed’s voice makes me blink out of my stare. “Yeah?”
“We can chat with him,” Reed says. “Go shower. We’ll tell him good stories about the road—”
“No,” I cut him off. “No, I’ll… I’ll talk to him.” I grab someone’s hoodie from the couch and shove it over my head, then quickly twist my hair into a ponytail. My sunglasses are sitting on the table, and I push them on before trudging past Mads and out into the parking lot.
The sun nearly blinds me when I walk out. I hold my hand up and squint around the lot, looking for my dad, only to find him with his hands in his pockets the next row over, staring out at the water fountain between the lot and the busy road.
I shove my hands in my pockets as I cross the space toward him.
“Hey, Dad.”
He turns, and my heart drops at how tired he looks. His blond hair is so much more grey than it was the last time I saw him, his skin seeming to sag off of him from the amount of weight he’s lost due to the stress.
I wonder when he last went home.
I wonder when he last saw the ocean he loves so much.
“Hey, kid.” He holds his arms out. “Do you think you can spare your old man a hug?”
“I’m pretty disgusting,” I say, even if it kills me not to hug him. “We had our album release party last night. I haven’t had a chance to wash the sweat off.”
“Oh. Okay.” He drops his arms and stares at the ground, and as silence throbs between us, I feel a lump grow in my throat.
Why is he here?
“So… Is everything okay? How… how’s Mom?” I tentatively ask.
A muscle feathers in his jaw. “Bonnie, you know the answer to that,” he says tiredly. “She’s not good.”
“Yeah, you keep saying that. But how bad? I can’t drop everything. We just signed this deal. This is huge for the band.”
His eyes narrow. “Bonnie, she’s your mother.”
“I know.”
Shit, this hurts.
“Is she…”
I can’t even bring myself to ask anything else.
“She’s in a long-term facility. For now. They’re better equipped to help her with the chemo sickness. You should come see her while she’s there. She has good days.”
“Why hasn’t she called?” I ask, deflecting. “If she has good days, why can’t she call me?”
“Bonnie…”
“I’m her daughter,” I snap. “If she wants me to come home so bad, why can’t she call me herself? Why can’t she ask me? Why is it always you?”
“She is sick—”
“No, no. You just said she has good days. You said she has good days, so she… She can call me. You can tell her if she wants me to come home, she needs to call me herself,” I finally manage.
Why are you yelling?
Why can’t Istopyelling?
