I drop down on the couch in my apartment, and listen to every word of her tirade. I let every single syllable hit me hard. In the heart. In the chest. In the head. Knowing I don’t have the right to recuse myself from her anger.
“We are through,” she says, and hangs up.
I’m not surprised at all. I’m not surprised in the least. Still, my body is empty. But it’s nothing—this hollow feeling—compared to picturing what Kennedy is going through. I can only imagine the kind of fresh hell Jewel Stanza must be raining down on her, fire and brimstone laced with arsenic.
I could call Jonathan and give him the news. I could call Tremaine and try to lock him up. I do none of those things. I call Kennedy. Over and over. It rings and rings. She never answers.
Frustration and worry eats away at me, but I know better than to just show up at her house. Neither one of her parents want to see me. Hell, I hardly know if she does either.
I grab my phone, hunt through photos, and finally find one that seems fitting. An image of a lightning strike across the sky, forming a jagged, neon heart. I’m about to hit Send when I see the photographer left an inscription on the image. “Love is like a lightning strike to the heart. It can kill you or make you burn more brightly.”
The inscription makes me stop. I don’t want this to end. I don’t want to suggest endings. I only want beginnings with her. Over and over. I can’t let her be the one that got away.
I find something sweeter. A cherry with a stem that curves into the top of a heart.
I send, hoping I can do this small thing to make her life less bitter right now.
But in the back of my mind, and far into the dark corners of my own heart, I have this sinking feeling that this is the end.
Chapter Thirty-One
Kennedy
We order Chinese food at my dad’s house. The choice is deliberate; pizza would feel too much like déjà vu, even though there is something very been-there-done-that about tonight. Though this showdown with my mom also hurts in a fresh new way.
She’s dug a new hole inside me, cratered me in another place.
But my dad hasn’t. He’s here. He stood by me.
The eggplant tofu arrives and I dive into it with the chopsticks. My dad tackles the chicken with broccoli. We both fold ourselves onto the cushy couch, and in between bites I say thank you for the thousandth time. My phone is off. I can’t bear to talk to anyone right now.
“Thank you for not telling her,” I say, and it means everything to me that my dad didn’t tell her. It says everything I have always believed about him.
He holds up his hands. “Well, my not telling her didn’t do much good. I suppose in the end, the truth seems to want to get out.”
“I guess I have to agree with that.”
“And since we’re talking about the truth now, I need to tell you the truth and it’s a truth I didn’t realize until tonight,” he begins, his expression as serious as his tone. “And it’s that I let you down. I had no idea how deeply affected you were by your mother, and that was stupid of me. I should have looked harder, talked to you more. But more than that, I shouldn’t have been so focused on self-preservation when I split up with her. I should have been more focused on you. I should have told her then, three years ago, that I knew what she’d done. But I was hurt, and I was selfish, and I only protected myself. I didn’t protect you from her.”
“It’s not your fault.”
He holds up a hand. “There are things that are my fault. I should have been honest with her three years ago. Then you might not have had to carry the burden of her choices. I am so sorry I left you alone to deal with all that. Your mother and I made a mess of our marriage. It was not for you to clean up, and I am sorry you had to.”
His voice breaks, and he reaches for me now and hugs me, and this is all I ever wanted from either of them. An honest admission.
“It’s okay, Dad,” I say, and then I pull away first.
He forages into his chicken, then looks at me, clearing his throat. “But, Kennedy, just because I wasn’t going to tell your mother doesn’t mean I approve of your relationship with Noah.”
My stomach nosedives.
“I don’t want you going out with him. I don’t think it’s right.” His voice is soft, but clear.
I put my carton down. I’m not hungry anymore. But I’m also not afraid. The truth is out. There are no more lies between father and daughter, or mother and daughter. I started my relationship with Noah from a shroud of secrecy, I built it on a bed of the clandestine, but now everything is unveiled.
I shake my head. “Dad, I already broke up with him once for you.”
He narrows his eyes. “You broke up with him once to protect a secret,” he says, nailing me with the truth.
“Fine. But it’s not a secret anymore, and I’m not going to break up with him for you. Even if I never told you I was with him, the fact remains, I broke up with him for you. So I wouldn’t hurt you. I’m not going to end it simply because you don’t want me to date an older man,” I say, feeling strong, and perhaps that’s because I stood up to my mom. Perhaps that gave me the courage to stand by this choice.
He heaves a defeated sigh, but tries again. “I would like you to make the right choice here, Kennedy.”
“I know. But the choices I make have to be for me. And I want you to love me even if you disagree with me.”
In a second, he reaches for me, wraps his arms around me, and hugs me. “I will always love you.”