“So… I left anyway. You were gone, right? I left, and I slept with that guy, and others, and we drank all night and partied, and had sex, and all the while I was thinking of you. How you called me fat and the guys still wanted me. How it was great to get drunk and know you could do fuck all about it… I didn’t find out about the crash until days later… when I got home, still drunk…” She sighed, watching his welled-up eyes. “Yeah… the guilt trip that followed… well… all I wanted was just to tell you when you got back. Even if it meant getting slapped around. I wanted to scream it in your face. But… then you died, and I sank deeper. Mad desperate not to be able to get my revenge. Or hold you one more time. Tell you I’m sorry for not being the daughter you had dreamt of…”
“Cassie…”
“Let me finish… And now you’re back, and I’m all grown. There’s nothing left to say or to throw at your face. I’m just happy to have you back. I can’t imagine what you’ve been through.” Her eyes smiled in her tears. “You changed so much…” She could not hold back anymore, throwing herself in his arms, letting him cradle her, just like during those rare moments when he’d been sober and let her sit in his lap when she had been a child. Her kind daddy, as she had called him. Smelling nice. Not like that bottle of golden liquid. When his eyes had shone with a wicked light, and he had said nasty things to her. She looked at him and wiped his tears off. “So, I’m staying a few days, is that fine?”
“Sure… at your mum’s?”
“No. Here with you.”
“Oh… great…”
“Where’s that man who was with you?”
“Uh… we had to split… but… I lost him. I mean, Harold lost him, somehow…”
“Cheeky Uncle Harold.” She smiled. “So, find him.”
“How? His phone number is gone.”
“He has a profile?”
“I don’t know.”
She took her phone out. “His name?”
“Gabriel Langston.” Damian almost had no voice, watching her type. She showed him the phone, wedged into his side. “This? No. This one?” Watching his lips part. That photo taken years ago, surely, but it was Gabe.
“Yes. That’s him.”
“Ok, let’s message him. You have a profile?”
“No… I mean I had…”
“Let’s make one. Give me your phone.” She was fast, snapping a photo of that mildly stunned face. “I’ll make you a messenger, no need for more. Let’s hope he activated it...”
Typing a message. Waiting. Not read. “We just have to wait. He is younger than you, he won’t hold.”
“How… how do you know?”
Cassie showed him some articles. Photos snapped of them leaving the plane, holding hands. “You were all over the press.” Her eyes went to him. “You are together?”
Damian’s heart plummeted in his chest. This was Cassie. Blowing a small breath because, in that moment, he trusted her more than anybody. “Yes. Yes, we are.”
Cassie put her hand on his arm. “You’re gay?”
Damian looked at her. Drawing some courage from those warm blue eyes. That confession to himself, like a cage opening on his chest. “Yes.”
Cassie’s face lit up. “This is great. Really.”
“Uh… ok… Harold doesn’t seem to think that way.”
“He’s an old-fashioned fart. Are you happy, Dad?”
“With you, now? More than happy.” His heart rushed.
“Ok… but with Gabriel?”
“Gabe… yes.” A mad urge in him to have Gabe back. “I need to find him.”
