“She couldn’t stand to see me giving anyone else attention, including your father.”
Her brow furrows. “My dad?”
“I was his apprentice. You and I understand what kind of an honor that is. An opportunity to be mentored by Clyde Everhart demands hours of practice and focus. Your dad was patient and thorough with every lesson he taught, making sure I grasped and perfected every skill. He donated one of his most valuable assets—not only his knowledge, but histime. The least I could do is repay him with mine.”
He didn’t just teach me how to tattoo, he taught me how to be an artist.
“You were special to him. He loved you.” She says it so casually, smiling into her wine before taking a drink, but it seizes the words in my throat. Clyde always made me feel like I mattered and what I created was significant. There was no better mentor than him.
“And Piper hated that.”
“You were building your career.”
I nod. “The week after I completed my apprenticeship and started out on my own, her dog became sick and she had to put him down. I canceled everything that week to be there for her. That week, things settled down and I saw bits of the Piper I fell in love with. But as soon as I went back to work . . .”
She hums in understanding.
I sigh. “The more controlling she became, the less I wanted to be around her. She blamed your dad.” He was in her way.
Kelly purses her lips, cocking her head to the side as she listens.
“One day, I was taking trash out to the dumpster at work and found her tampering with your dad’s old Buick. We got into a huge fight, and it was during that fight I started questioning some of the weird coincidences, like how quickly she got over her dog. She never admitted it, but I believe she had her dog put down so she could keep me home.”
“Oh my God.” Her back straightens and she presses the pads of her fingers to her parted lips. “What was she doing with the car?”
Piper lacked empathy but faked it very well. She saw people as possessions. In her eyes, she owned my time the same way she owned me. It was always about attention for her. It was her life source.
“Trying to cut his brakes. Everything in her life was something to leverage, including life apparently.” I lift my shoulders. “I lost it. I reached out to her family, told them I was done, and they had her admitted.”
“Jesus.”
Piper was a different breed of chaos; she was disturbed.
“I was so ashamed of how bad I had let everything get, like a frog in boiling water. I should have seen it sooner, stopped it sooner. Instead, I had to get a restraining order and face your dad with the truth. That was the hardest part, explaining that I’d jeopardized his safety because my judgment couldn’t be trusted.” It makes me sick to think I could have been the reason to make Kelly lose her father even earlier than she did.
Kelly sits there stunned. “I never knew any of this . . . What did my dad say?”
“Nothing!” I chuckle. “He just hugged me. That was it.” Clyde knew I was hurting. He never once gave me the told-you-so speech.
“Sounds about right. You were his golden boy. So, what happened to her?”
“It took a while for her to accept the breakup, but eventually, she stopped calling and texting, and I figured it was because we had the restraining order in place. Months later, I looked her up online but found her obituary instead. That was why she stopped calling.” She took her own life.
I scrub a hand down my face, adjusting my posture. Up until a year ago, this was a story I couldn’t speak out loud, but now I’m able to talk about those times and not feel the sting of shame and loss. Learning about her death threw me into a deep depression. It was abrupt, there was no closure.
“I blamed myself; I was too ashamed to even reach out to her family and apologize.”
“Oh, Logan.” Kelly reaches across the table to squeeze my hand. “Her parents knew you loved her.”
But did I?I’ve asked myself that question a thousand times. I cared for her deeply, and I told Piper I loved her—believing it to be the truth. However, it wasn’t until I began developing feelings for Kelly that I realized the magnitude of love and how vastly divergent the experience could be. It was the difference between a puddle and an ocean trench.
Piper didn’t love me. She didn’t possess the capacity to love anyone other than herself. She was tortured by it. That said, I’m not confident I loved her either.
Real love doesn’t hesitate—it exists without question. But not loving someone is much harder to determine. That’s when you have to ask, when you have to seek out signs that aren’t there and beg for feelings that don’t exist.
I don’t ask with Kelly.
My fingers draw circles in the tablecloth. “Do you remember when you said you were feeling more serious about your relationships?”
