I snatch my phone and hit the contact I’ve avoided for most of my adult life.
Dad.
It rings once.
Twice.
Click.
His voice is groggy and annoyed. “Cove? Do you know what time it is?”
I don’t let him warm up. I don’t even say hello. The words come out like a dam broke in my throat.
“Did you have a sister? Named…named Miranda?”
Silence.
A long,longpause.
Then his voice goes cold. Flat. “She’s dead.”
“No,” I whisper, eyes closing as tears flood them again. “She’s not. I just met her.” My voice breaks. “I just… I’ve been dating her son.”
A beat of silence. Then an explosion.
“Are you fucking kidding me, Cove? What the hell—what the actual hell is wrong with you?”
His voice booms through the speaker and I flinch like he slapped me.
“I didn’t know!” I scream back. “I didn’t know she wasyour sister. You told me she was dead!”
“She might as well be,” he snarls. “You don’t know that woman. You don’t know the things she did to this family. I cut her off for a reason. And her kid? Her son, you say? You let him crawl into your life?”
“I didn’tknow!” I sob. “We didn’t know, Dad. We didn’t grow up together. We don’t even know each other?—”
“Youdonow,” he growls. “And you’d better stay the hell away. I won’t be dragged back into their bullshit. That entire family is toxic. You’re better off without them.”
My legs give out. I slide to the floor, curled up against the cabinet. “Why didn’t you tell me? Why would you hide this?”
“I didn’t think it mattered,” he says, colder now. Resigned. “They’re dead to me. That meant they were dead to you too.”
“They’re not!” I cry. “Everest isn’t?—”
But he’s already talking over me.
“You’re not the one who made this mess. I am. Miranda is. But if you think I’m going to come crawling back to that family,think again. Don’t drag me into it, Cove. I want no part of that circus.”
And then he hangs up.
Just like that.
My whole body sags, the air punched out of me by a ghost of a man who’s been lying to me my entire life. I stare at my phone screen, unblinking, until it goes dark.
Then I see it again.
Everest: I’m here. Whenever you’re ready.
The message from Everest sits like a bomb in my hand. It doesn’t tick. It doesn’t count down. It just… waits. And I can’t touch it.
