My voice broke. "Daddy, I—I'm sorry I didn't listen."
"I know, Bree. I know." His eyes, too, were wet. "And I don't blame you. God help us, your mother and I fell for him too. That boy had a way about him."
There was a beat of silence. Then I whispered. "Is that why you didn't fight the charges? You blamed yourself?"
His eyes grew hard. "No. I didn't fight it because of what happened on the day they arrested me. Tim Hadfield pulled me aside. Said they had your finger prints and hair and had marked one of your friends. Molly—from the Pizzeria?"
I nod, my panic escalating.
Well, they’d taken her somehow, and that if I didn't cooperate with the defense, they'd have her killed and pin her murder on you. You would be tried as an adult."
My hands started to shake as Dad continued. "I was given the choice was between having my daughter do life in prison for murder, or for me to confess to fraud and do a fraction of the time. I chose the option that guaranteed your freedom."
"No." I shook my head, tears of rage and disbelief streaming down my face. "No, Dad, you should have said something. Jordan would have done something—"
"The same man who turned his back and let Tim Hadfield clean up his mess?" His voice broke. "He fooled us all, Bree. He's worse than his father."
Between that visit and the long drive home, I buried the last of my stupid, dangerous crush for Jordan Farrington. Just as I did his engagement ring. It remains deep in the earth in our backyard, never to be found.
I put myself through Nevada State and graduated with honors, then took up interning jobs in Reno and Las Vegas. Mom wanted me to stay in Henderson with her and Drew but I couldn't bear any reminder of that summer I still haven't forgiven myself for.
Dad returned home at the end of five years. He was smaller. Not physically—though his clothes hung off him—but inside.
Something happened to him in prison. Something he refused to talk about. He drank too much and never held down a job for more than a month. After a while, he just stopped trying, choosing instead to sit on the porch, staring into space.
Drew tried to snap him out of it.
I tried, too.
Mom tried harder than any of us.
But prison hadn’t just taken five years from him. It had takenhim.
One night, Mom found him on the porch, half-folded over, whiskey bottle shattered beside him.
We buried him in a cheap Henderson plot. The same neighbors who whispered behind curtains lined up at the funeral acting like they’d always believed in him.
Mom squeezed my hand as we stood over his gravesite, and I felt her trembling all the way to her bones.
“Your father was a good man,” she whispered. “Please believe that.”
"I know, Mom."
Her grip tightens on mine. "And it wasn't your fault."
That, I had no answer for. Because itwasmy fault. I brought Jordan Farrington into our lives—a transgression we paid too dear a price for.
I've since dated. Casually, mostly, because I'm no longer prepared to give anyone more than I can afford to lose. And that part of me that was stomped half to death by Jordan? It's never ever seeing the light of day again.
The men I choose are kind and attentive, and my relationships begin and end the same way. With no fireworks or explosions, thank you very much.
Although sometimes my body would betray me. I’d wake up trembling, my back bowed, my fists gripping sheets, my body, my very soul craving something earth shattering. Something it used to have.
But Bree in the daylight? She doesn’t dwell. She gets up, shows up and does her job. And ends her relationships before the men can ask for more.
Weeks after Dad's funeral, we were dealt another blow. Mom got sick. Cancer. Again. She tried to fight it, and she did, for two years.
She refused to let anyone in except Drew and me. Not her brother in New York, not her book club friends in. She claimed she didn't want another pity parade. Another reminder of how life can ruin a family in slow, merciless increments.
