“I live with myself just fine,” Dex said. “I haven’t completely lost myself in entertaining the every whim of a child.”
His accusation hit hard. He meant it to. It was my worst fear, spoken aloud: I had accepted the role of Phoebe’s guardian without taking into account the work and wisdom it takes to raise a child, and in my failure, I’d overcompensated. I let her run wild. We were both flailing, searching for something solid to hang on to, because I had no idea what I was doing.
You didn’t even take time to consider the options, Shawn had said two days after the accident. But Phoebe and I were crushed and we needed each other—therewereno other options.
I felt Phoebe look at me, but I couldn’t bring myself to see her reaction to Dex’s words. My eyes stung and everything in my body grew heavy; I wanted to lie on the floor and cry. I’d done everything wrong. My own grief muddled the clarity of the situation and now, here we were. Drowning.
How am I supposed to take care of a kid when I can barely take care of myself?
The question had been haunting me for nine months and I still didn’t have a good enough answer.
As gutting as it was to hear Dex’s words out loud, something else emerged with that pain—relief. It had been so long since anyone spoke to me with unabashed honesty. Phoebe held so much in. Arden’s compulsive sugarcoating nearly gave me a cavity. Shawn was the last one to look me in the eyes and say what he felt, even though it hurt us both.
Dex saw my fragility, my failure, and refused to go easy on me. Part of me wanted him to keep talking. To hurt me more, until I felt like me again.
I placed my hand on Phoebe’s shoulder and murmured, “Let’s go.”
“No!” she cried. “That’s what he wants. He’s only insulting us so we’ll leave and he’ll be off the hook.”
“I’m not on a hook,” Dex said, a sharpness edging into his tone. “I can sympathize with your situation, but that’s the end of it. This is none of your business. You weren’t supposed to read that letter. I’ll get it to Cat one way or another, but I don’t owe you anything, especially something you took.”
Phoebe opened her mouth to argue, then snapped it shut. Another gut-punch truth out in the open. I admired Dex’s ruthless honesty. I’d been playing pretend for so long, I couldn’t tell genuine optimism from the façade anymore.
“Fine,” Phoebe said softly, hammering a crack into my heart. She bent down to grab her backpack. “Whatever. Let’s go.”
Thunder rumbled through the building, rattling the bookshelves as we left Dex’s office. I’d run here in a blind panic and now we’d be walking home in a thunderstorm. Great. Just another thing I screwed up.
Rain pounded the windows in the lobby. The woman behind the front desk, Mary, smiled when she saw us. Phoebe walked right over and said, “So, is he a serial killer or what?”
Mary guffawed. “You’re a hoot, Miss Phoebe,” she said. “But no, Mr. Dexter is a good man, if a bit rough around the edges.” She leaned in conspiratorially, adding, “Veryrough around the edges.”
Phoebe knocked her knuckles twice on the desk. “Tell him I hate him and he’s an asshole.”
Mary’s face blanched. “I’ll paraphrase.”
With that, we ventured into the storm.
Phoebe muttered something about not bringing an umbrella but left it at that, aware she’d scared me to death. I should’ve been lecturing her, grounding her. Instead, I walked alongside her in silence, wincing when the sky lit up overhead. I didn’t bother calling her out or apologizing, rather floating in this aimless purgatory we’d found ourselves in without Dad. Without each other.
For a split second, I wished I could go back in time. Five minutes. I’d do whatever it took to convince Dex to take that trip, fallout be damned. I’d sell my soul for Phoebe’s smile.
Then a pair of headlights cut through the blanket of rain. A sleek SUV pulled up beside us. Phoebe stopped short, as if she knew it was Dex before the window slid down.
“Get in,” he shouted over the rain. Phoebe crossed her arms. Mascara spilled down her cheeks, yet she held herself tall. I’d never had that confidence, even when I had everything else.
“Why?”
“I can’t afford your deaths on my conscience when you get struck by lightning.”
“Maybe wewantthat on your conscience.”
“I don’t doubt it.” He leaned over, pushing the passenger-side door open. “Come on.”
Phoebe dove for the back seat, probably under the impression I’d decline the ride. As if a bone-deep exhaustion hadn’t taken over the second Phoebe was safely in front of me. I had no fight left.
As I climbed into the front seat, Phoebe poked her head through the center console. “A Mercedes, huh?” she said and threw me a look.What kind of nonprofit pays enough for a luxury car?it seemed to say, and I would’ve thought the same thing if my brain hadn’t short-circuited somewhere on the sidewalk.
Dex’s long fingers drummed the wheel at an incessant, almost anxious rate. Rain pelted the car from every angle, wind whistling outside the closed windows; it reminded me of my dad’s old white noise machine, and I sank into the buttery leather seat, shutting my eyes, pretending I was there, back in the hallway of the house I grew up in, padding to his bedroom to wake him up when he overslept on weekends.
