I tightened my arm and pulled her closer so that our legs and shoulders touched.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
CHAPTER SEVEN
I dropped Finley off at her apartment in Kalispell and headed home around three in the morning. My jeans were soaked but I didn’t care because Finley had saved my life. My house was dark, save for the small porch light. That light, in fact, was the only one for fifteen miles all around us, further solidifying just how isolated Montana, I, really was.
The house lights were off as well so I was surprised to hear my dad speak from the sofa when I opened the front door. The television sitting on the old metal TV tray against the half wall that separated the tiny kitchen and the living area was playing a rerun of Leave it to Beaver, a reminder of how innocent life could be if you so chose it.
“Hey, kid.”
“Hey, Dad, what are you doing up so late?” I asked, startled to see him.
“Waitin’ for you.”
“Seriously? Shit, Dad, I’m sorry. Don’t you have to be up in two hours?”
“First, watch your mouth.”
“Sorry.”
“And yeah, I have to up in two hours, but I’ve been trying to talk to you for days now. You come home when I’m asleep and wake up after I leave, Ethan.”
I fell onto our twenty-year-old gold plaid sofa and squirmed a little because my knees were practically in my chest.
“I never sit on this thing. Too tall,” I offered, grasping for any semblance of normality between us.
Normal was something my dad and I never did. Not since my mom died. She was our normal.
“Maybe I should get a new one.”
“What for? I doubt I’ll be living here for much longer,” I told him.
He didn’t reply but his chest stilled. I’d surprised him.
He looked at me. “Where’re you going then?” he asked before taking a swig from his Mason jar iced tea.
“Not sure,” I told him truthfully. “I just figured you’d want me out of here soon, seeing as how I’m getting older.”
He took another sip from his tea and set the glass on the ground near his foot. When he did this, he leaned forward a little bit and groaned when he sat back. A little piece of me died when I saw him do this. He was getting older as well and I hated that. Dads were supposed to live forever. So were moms, for that matter. Realizing in that moment that he was indeed mortal, that he was utterly human, made my chest ache in unimaginable ways.
“You always have a home here, son,” he finally said, making that ache in my chest throb just a little more stiffly, painfully.
“Thanks, Dad.”
He nodded.“Sober, I see.”
I laughed bitterly. “So?”
“I’m relieved.”
“Yeah, well, you can thank Finley Dyer for that.”
He sat up, not so perceptibly that anyone who didn’t know him would take notice, but I was keen to my father’s everything. He was so subtle in his movements, his words, that if you weren’t paying close attention to him, you could miss an entire feeling. I knew from that barely there action that he was interested in this new revelation. For whatever reason.
“Finley Dyer?” he asked. “She that russet-headed girl?”
“Yeah, that’s her.”
He nodded his head, but I also caught the faintest hint of a grin.
“She’s my friend,” I offered in explanation.
He could only nod his head again.
I stood because there wasn’t anything I could offer him that could explain what Fin’s friendship meant to me. He knew what I was struggling with getting over Cricket. He should have known that Finley could be nothing more to me than an earthly salvation. I didn’t know why Finley found me when she did but I wasn’t going to question it. So I stood because I was done talking.
“‘Night, Dad.”
“‘Night, son.”
The next morning, I woke surprisingly early for some reason and decided to cut and clear up the dead tree that had fallen over earlier in the summer in our front field. After watching my father the night before, I couldn’t live with myself if I let him do it on his own. If I was being honest with myself, it was probably also a little out of guilt for all the late nights and late mornings.
I secured my hair as well as bound a worn bandana across my forehead to catch the sweat. I threw on a pair of jeans and boots but didn’t bother with a shirt and headed out to the old storage shed at the back of the house to grab the chainsaw and the canister of gasoline.
The tree fell about a quarter mile off and to the left of the house. The grass reached my knees and I felt it slap against my legs as I trudged through the field, the chainsaw balanced across my left shoulder.
When I reached the tree, I discovered that it had only partly fallen over making it sort of dangerous for one person to cut down by himself. I walked around it, deciding to start at the top of the tree and work my way down.
I’d just pulled the chain when I saw Finley’s little Bug kicking up dirt and gravel as she turned into my drive. She was about half a mile away from me and I was afraid she’d go all the way down the mile-long drive to our house before discovering I wasn’t there. I killed the chainsaw and set it against the trunk of the tree and for some reason I couldn’t explain, I started running toward her, raising my arms above my head in that usual way people did when they wanted to get someone’s attention.