“Mia?” he said, taking me in. “Mia! Mia, pack a bag. We need to go. We need to leave!” He grabbed my upper arm and started to pull me back towards the stairs.
“Ow!” I attempted to pull my arm away. “Dad, you’re hurting me. What’s going on?” It was strange to see him in such a panic. Why was he talking about leaving?
He let go of my arm and I rubbed the spot, which was sore from the way he’d sunk his fingers into my flesh. It wasn’t like Dad to be so rough. I’d been raised in a relatively gentle environment. Even now, I couldn’t remember a time he’d raised his voice at me. I’m not sure he could allow himself to when I was the spitting image of my mother.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “But please listen to me. We need to go.”
Again, he spoke about leaving. He said it with such desperation that my stomach knotted, and I felt the anxiety start to claw up my chest at the thought that we might have lost the house. In a life where we didn’t have much, Dad and I had done everything in our power to keep the house. If nothing else, we would have a roof over our heads.
“Why, Dad?” I asked him. “What happened?”
Turning away from me, he walked upstairs, and I trailed behind him trying to get an answer. “Dad, please!”
He spun around on me as we reached my bedroom door, and I thought he was about to answer my question. Instead, his face crumpled as a tear rolled down his cheek. My heart ached at the sight of him so upset and I pulled him into a hug. Keeping an eye on the floor, I carefully walked us into the room and sat us on the bed. I’d seen Dad cry, but it was usually only when we went to visit my mother. Silent moments at a graveside punctuated with mournful sobs.
“Dad,” I said gently, taking his hand in mine as his tears subsided. “You need to tell me what’s happened.”
“I’ve made such a mess of things.” His voice was thick from the tears and he sniffed.
“How? What’s happened?”
“I’m in debt, Mia.”
That’s what he was worried about? We’d never been the best with money. We’d lived paycheck to paycheck for as long as I could remember but we’d always managed to make it through.
“It’s fine,” I assured him with a smile. “We’ll figure out a way to pay it back. I’ll take on some more shifts.”
The feasibility of that was uncertain, considering just how many times my name appeared on the roster at work. They were looking for a cleaner to work during nights and if I could arrange it properly perhaps I’d be able to balance both. When I graduated from high school I’d walked straight into this job. College had been the goal but there was no way we would have been able to afford it, so I kissed that dream goodbye and started working instead.
There were times when I ached for a life that had more than this, but I quickly pushed down those feelings in fear they would spiral into resentment. If Dad needed my help, then I was as ready to step up as I had always been.
“No, Mia. You don’t understand. I owe thousands,” he whispered.
Thousands? I paled at the thought. I had assumed a few hundred dollars. How had he managed to accumulate that much debt? The room around me spun and I took in a deep breath to try and regain some composure. “How?” I asked him, dreading the answer.
“I… I have a gambling problem.”
He looked away from me, taking his hand from mine and leaving it cold. I could see the shame written all over his face, and a heavy weight settled in my chest and stomach. How had I not caught it? How had I not seen it? I had believed every extra job he took on was for a reason but now I was beginning to piece it all together. There were nights he would come home late and in a bad mood. There were times when I couldn’t figure out why we were still barely scraping together the rent when he had done extra hours. I had trusted my Dad unconditionally, because what reason had he ever given me not to?
“What can I do, Dad?” I asked him quietly. As hurt as I was by his actions, we were a team and I wouldn’t abandon him now. Whatever we needed to do, we’d do it together to get out of this situation. The lies and betrayal could be discussed afterwards.
“You don’t understand,” he said, looking back up at me. The smell of alcohol was stronger now that we were next to each other. “He’ll kill me. We need to leave.”
My heart stopped in my chest when I heard those words. “Who?”
“Lucas Foster.”
“Lucas Foster,” I repeated the name. He wasn’t a man that needed much introduction. “As in Lucas Foster who was in school with me?”
That wasn’t who. It was his younger brother that was in the same grade as me but I’d forgotten his name. I vaguely remembered Lucas waiting for him on his motorcycle when school let out. He always looked so angry, but it’d been years since I’d seen either of them.
“I’ll speak to him,” I told my Dad. There had to be a way to strike an agreement, a compromise. Maybe Dad had misunderstood.
“NO!” he shouted, and I jumped at how aggressive the word was. “No, Mia you can’t. You need to stay away from him.” He started to panic.
“Dad, I’ll just…”
He cut me off. “He wants you.”
