Page 57 of Every Time We Touch

“Please, answer my question.”

How can I tell him that we first kissed on the day Clancy broke up with him? That’s not a detail he needs. “I took lessons with her and things kind of spiraled from there.”

“Was she still with me when it started?”

“Kind of, I guess.” Even though a flat-out lie would be kinder, I do have to tell the truth.

“You guess?” My dad is not the angry kind. He’s the guy who stayed with my mom even though he knew she was gay. He did that for us—for me.

“I’m sorry, Dad,” I say again, as though that makes any difference.

“I don’t understand any of this. How did this happen?” He expels a sigh.

“I don’t understand it either,” I say. Some things can’t be understood.

“That you like her, I get.” The ice in his voice has been replaced with something rough and frayed around the edges. “I loved that you were trying to be friends with her. I told her that.” His voice breaks some more. “But that you would do this, Jen, I simply can’t wrap my head around.” He slumps into his chair, as though his body admits defeat. “And that Clancy would.” He scoffs again. “Maybe you two deserve each other if that’s how you treat other people.” He fixes his gaze on me. “People you love.”

I sit very still, the way you do when something is happening that you know you’ll replay for years. Maybe I should have chosen the other heartbreak—the one of never seeing Clancy again—because my heart shatters into a million pieces. I can’t say sorry again. I don’t know what to say. Because he’s right. This is no way to treat a parent. Someone who has loved you and cared for you from the minute you were born.

Part of me wants to take it back. To say I made it up, that I’m confused and I don’t know what I’m saying. The part of me that loves my father more than almost anything. But then there’s the other part. The part that knows what it feels like to be with Clancy. To be seen by her. Wanted by her. Loved by her. The part that knows I would walk through this door a hundred times if it meant I got to keep her.

“What did you think was going to happen when you told me this?” It’s the tremor in his voice that’s hardest to take. “That I would give you my blessing to be with my ex-girlfriend? Someone I still lov—care for?”

“No, of course not.” Tears prick behind my eyes, but I can’t be the one crying in this situation. “I just thought you should know.”

“Now I know.” He pinches the bridge of his nose. “Now what?”

“I don’t know.”

“At least you don’t have to introduce me to your new girlfriend. I already know her. Too well.”

“Dad, please. I need you to understand that I didn’t have a choice.”

“You’re forty-two years old, Jen. Not some lovestruck teenager with half a functioning brain. Of course, you have a choice.” He shuffles in his seat. “You chose her. You chose… this.” Abruptly, he gets up. “I’d like you to leave now.” He disappears into the hallway.

With wobbly legs, I walk to the door. Dad’s nowhere to be seen. What have I done? No one should be humiliated like this, least of all my own father. Least of all by his own daughter.

I have never felt less like the person he raised me to be.

Chapter 32

Clancy

“To see him like that.” Jen looks like a different person to the woman whose house I left this morning—before she told Eric. “And to be the cause of it.” The words barely make it past her throat.

Falling in love shouldn’t be like this. It shouldn’t be agony and hurting the people that you love. And I have to ask myself—again—whether it’s worth all this. I owe that to myself, but most of all to Jen. Because this may feel like something too good to give up on but, at the same time, it’s not making our lives any better.

“This is the worst thing I’ve ever done.” Jen collapses in her chair. She shakes her head. “As certain as I am about my feelings for you, I’m not sure I should have done this.”

I pull my chair closer to hers. “He’s shocked and hurt right now. So are you. It’s still raw, but it won’t always be like this.”

“You can’t know that.” There’s a touch of anger in Jen’s tone.

“You’re right.” I reach for her hands, but wait for her to reach back before taking them in mine. “I don’t know, but⁠—”

“No, you don’t know,” Jen cuts me off. “And I didn’t know either. Until now. Maybe how I feel right now is the very reason why we shouldn’t be doing this.”

“You have to stop punishing yourself like this, Jen,” I say. “Yes, we hurt your dad but what we feel is still valid. It’s still real.”