Brooke
I sit back against the bed, Matthew’s T-shirt hanging loose on my frame. A smear of cheese clings to my thumb from the slice we just shared, and I swipe it away with my tongue.
“Hey,” Matthew says, catching my wrist before I can finish. “I’m trying to be nice here. Please.”
The plea in his voice is so earnest, so pained, that I can’t help but smile.
He lifts my hand toward me with a theatrical sigh. “Go on then. Lick away. If my suffering is what it takes to make you smile again…”
That earns him a bigger one, and I shake my head. “I don’t even know why I’m so upset over this,” I admit quietly. “It’s not like I didn’t see it coming. Or throw money at the show.”
“It’s your father,” Matthew says softly. “He might’ve been a dirtbag, but I’m sure he was good once.”
I nod. “No matter how hard I try to forget, I can’t. The memories, thegoodones, they’re still there.”
Matthew shifts, stretching out horizontally across the bed after dropping the empty pizza box to the floor. I lean back against the headboard, my eyes roaming his tiny apartment. It’s cozy, lived-in without being messy, warm in a way that feels like home.
“It’s nice,” I say. “Your place. Cozy.”
He arches a brow.
“You should see the room I rent,” I add with a dry laugh. “The mice have fleas.”
Matthew just purses his lips, but the corners of his mouth twitch like he’s fighting a smile.
I tilt my head back against the wall and let out a frustrated sound. “Hewasa dad.” The words rip out of me before I can stop them. “For the first ten years of my life, hewasa dad to me. Agoodone. He taught me how to punch strangers offering me chocolate, in the junk, obviously.” I huff out a shaky laugh. “He punished me when I threw a bowl at Stella. He ate the pancakes I made on Father’s Day even though they had egg shells in them.”
My voice cracks on the last word.
I stare down at my hands, twisting the hem of Matthew’s shirt between my fingers. “And then one day, he wasn’t that man anymore. One day he was just… gone. Replaced by someone I didn’t recognize.”
I bite my lip and glance out the window, the city lights blurring into streaks of yellow and white. “It started small. He didn’t want to go to the park anymore. Then he didn’t want to be around me anymore. Then hedidwant to take me to Disneyland, but if I asked about it, he’d get angry.”
A shaky laugh escapes me. “Mom kicked him out so many times, but he always came back. And once I was old enough, I realized he was using us, Stella and me, to do it. I convinced my mom to… to stop. To not let him come back anymore. To not forgive him.”
I press my lips together, swallowing hard. “She listened.”
I already told him all this years ago, but he quietly listens like it’s the first time. “And what did he do?” My breath hitches. “He broke in to steal from us. And Mom… she knew it was coming.She’d already moved us to New Jersey. It was her last night at the old apartment before she was supposed to hand over the keys and join us. Everything was packed. The only things she had left were her phone and twenty bucks.”
My hands curl into fists. “He took that when he killed her. Twenty dollars. He took her life because he realized we were leaving and he had lost. He took her from us.”
The words tremble in the air between us. “And then he turned himself in. Like that made it okay. Like his regret somehow brought Mom back.”
I look at Matthew then, blinking through tears. “I went to see him, you know. Before you and I reconnected. I took a few days off and went to the prison he’s in. I wanted to look him in the eye and tell him to leave us alone, to leave Stella alone.”
I wipe at my face, my fingers shaking. “Instead, he said he was sorry. He said he was dying and heneededme to hear it. And my response…” My voice cracks again, thin and hollow. “My response was to tell himgood riddance.”
Matthew’s hand slides over and brushes my ankle. The touch is gentle, grounding. I manage a small, broken smile.
“I found out when I came back from Paris,” I whisper. “I turned my phone on and there it was, the voicemail. He was gone.”
I let out a breath that’s half a laugh, half a sob. “I didn’t have any leave left, and it’s not like I cared, so I tried to ignore it. But…”
“You couldn’t,” Matthew says quietly.
I shake my head. “I can’t. Ican’t. I can’t sleep without seeing us, as a family, before he fell off the wagon, before the drugs. Back when we werehappy.” My chest tightens. “And now I wake up, and I’m scared to close my eyes again because…”
I take a shuddering breath. “Because I’m an orphan.”
