Our Hearts Knew Better (Our Hearts #1)

Breathe. Slow Down.

I was extra conscious of the shadows tonight, like my subconscious had been preparing me.

Each one loomed as a warning, shaped my dad in the distance as I paced my driveway to my window, Levi beside me. I kept bumping against him, stepping closer to his warmth as we took our steps over the gravel, my pulse pounding.

This had to happen.

It was written in the stars above us.

I just didn’t know it would happen like this, that I would be tipped as far as I was over an edge I’d only traced before now.

The trellis was gone.

Nowhere in sight as our pairs of feet halted together, my fingers a vise around Levi’s wrist.

My window was closed.

Levi’s arm shifted from my grip, then his hand was in mine. He squeezed and my eyes stung and my heart softened.

A light came on at my left, and my head shot toward the front window, where I saw my dad, sitting in his recliner in the glow of the lamp on the side table.

“Need me to stay?” Levi asked, low, his offered strength, but I had my own. I needed my own.

I needed to go in alone.

“No,” I told him, releasing the scratch in my voice before I really had to use it.

I squeezed him back before I let him go then walked inside.

I stayed at the door and waited for my dad to unleash his thoughts. I held his stare, a fight to not drop mine to the floor.

He didn’t look mad. He didn’t even look upset. Which made the fight less so. He looked almost…settled. Knowing I’d stretched his leash, and I wouldn’t stop until it broke.

It felt like lightyears before he finally spoke.

“Who was with you?”

“Levi,” I answered, with a protective edge. My dad wasn’t taking any of this—him—from me. “He’s a friend,” I added. A boy.

“And who’s your other friend?”

My throat was dry as I swallowed. “Adam.” Two boys.

Right. He did know.

“These the ones with the boat?”

My next answer stalled on my tongue as I studied him. My nerves were firing more over how neutral he was being. I couldn’t tell how he felt, and I’d rather he be mad. I’d rather he be shaking and worked up. I wasn’t sure how to deal with him like this.

Then I thought that was maybe what he wanted.

And that thought shook me, tiny spreading tremors, and I stumbled over myself.

“Levi has the boat. His dad, it’s—it’s his dad’s boat. The Gilligan, it’s—” Breathe. Slow down.

“What have you been doing with them?”

“Nothing,” I blurted to the slight accusation in his tone, the smallest suspicion that I had been misbehaving , by his standards and definitions. “I’m just trying to have friends.” I flushed beneath my dad’s unwavering scrutiny, weak. So weak. But I pulled from all the strength I’d been building to unclench my teeth. “I can’t…I can’t do anything. You…keep me locked up.”

“Is that what you think this is?”

The color ran from my face as I almost gaped. “It is what it is. What else—” No. My mind wouldn’t be twisted. “So why?” I pressed, hoping this time he’d actually give me answers.

“Why what?”

My chest ached, barely expanding with my next breath, as every question he threw back at me tightened my lungs. “What’s wrong with you?” I asked now, a plea through my increasing and strained pitch. “Why are you—? Why aren’t you acting…”

“How do you want me to act?”

“ Why? ” I repeated with pounding steps forward, feeling like smoke was blowing from my ears at the same time my heart was sinking. “Why is this a conversation we’re even having? Why am I standing here right now in the middle of the night? Why do I have to sneak around you to live my life? Why can’t you want to know me? Why can’t I want to know me?”

My voice grew with each why , then cracked off at the last one, my eyes two filled wells making my entire world blurry until I had no choice but to blink.

Dad tracked the tears as I waited for his answer, for any excuse, any reason.

I waited for him to tell me the outside world could be dangerous. Because the outside took Mom. So he was afraid to lose me like he lost her.

I waited for him to say he was just protective. He worried for me. He was scared. He couldn’t bear a life without me too.

None of that would fill the hollow place he’d put in my heart, but it would be something .

Instead he said nothing. All I heard was the tapping of his fingernail on the side table, steady at first, then speeding up until it was the loudest sound in the room.

Then it stopped, a sharp cut off before he pushed out of his chair.

“This is what I can’t handle,” he said as he turned from me, something ragged in his breathing.

My jaw bobbed around too many racing thoughts before I found the main one. “Me having a life?”

Dad spun on me, halting me where I’d begun to follow him. “Yes.”

The word was heavy. The look behind it was heavy, deeper and stabbing. He might as well have just said he didn’t want me to be born. And that spun memories of how hands off he was when Mom was here to do the lifting.

“If Mollie’s mom hadn’t…”

…he’d throw me and my life onto her.

Daddy. . .

Go back to Mommy.

My grandmother knew. She knew my dad, better and longer than I did, probably better than I ever would. She got away from him when she had the chance.

I was now on the road to mine.

“You want me out of your hair,” my dad started, the statement matching his settled face. “I’m out.”

My voice could barely protest, but I tried. “That’s not what I want—”

“I should’ve just stayed that way after your mom died,” he cut in through a sigh, the words coming in and out through the pounding in my ears, through the hand he ran over his face, more exhausted with me than I could ever possibly be with him.

“Did you ever want anything to do with me?” I pressed at his back after he turned from me again, my world another blur. “You never did,” I answered to his silence. “Did you?” A whisper. “Not really.” I shrugged through a shaky breath I had to pull in hard to get any air, my brain nudging at more memories of our distance, even when Mom was alive, that were suddenly making more sense. “You never wanted me. That’s why it’s so easy for you to ignore me when I show you what you don’t want. What is so wrong with what I want?” I pressed more through his continued silence and his turned back.

“I wanna know me,” I continued. “I only know the you version of me. You’ve never let me be a kid before I had to grow up. You’re not letting me grow up!” It was a desperate and hopeless cry from the lost pieces of myself I was never allowed to find. “God forbid I make mistakes like everyone else. Or I learn how to take care of myself. You’re gonna be gone one day, just like Mom, and then what?”

I was dumping, but this was the garbage he gave me, and I couldn’t stop now.

And he still wasn’t talking, but he wasn’t moving, either, and that gave me a hope that he was at least listening.

I imagined tapping him on the shoulder and him meeting me where I am, where he put me, with a genuine look, truly being all ears and telling me, let’s fix this .

“I could never figure out…you, why you are this way.” I spoke to the hair at his neck, pretending I had his eyes, a post-tension in my head from the years trying to map out his words and behaviors and decode. “But you know what I did learn? It’s not my job to figure you out. It’s not my job to figure anybody out,” I breathed like a fresh realization. “Just myself.”

I fisted the hem of my shirt to have something to hold to as I released the rest. “I’m not doing anything wrong—or, I’m not wanting to do anything wrong, but you make me feel like I am. I’m just trying to be normal. To be my age. I need friends—” My voice strained and I blinked at more blur. “Maybe even a boyfriend,” I added, then quickly tacked on, “And that’s not wrong . And you raised me. I’m not a stupid girl,” I said to how he would think I’d be, how he would think I was. “You raised me, Dad,” I repeated, moving right up at his back with the push for his understanding. “And that still matters. That still means something to me.”

The good and the bad. Whether something is right or wrong. I got it all.

“I’m still your daughter. If you give me room…” My head dipped at the request before I lifted it back up. “I wouldn’t disappoint you. You would see…you would see that.” And I wouldn’t have to anymore. “I just need some room.”

Dad shifted, the slightest bit, giving me some of his profile, the downturned corner of his mouth, but still not his eyes. “Take it,” he rasped out. Permission, but not really. There was a price. Take my room, break the leash…without him.

He moved then, walked toward the stairs, and my next breath was so sharp, it shook my entire body, and I clung to one of the last threads I could.

Don’t be afraid, Summer.

“Mom wouldn’t want this.”

Dad stopped at the bottom of the stairs. “You wouldn’t know what your mom would want. You were too young. And she’s gone.” His empty voice revealed a crack that widened the ones in me. “It doesn’t quite matter what she wants anymore.”

“Yeah, it does,” I said with a sprint forward, back on his back again. “Because she still lives on through us! And I still have some memories of Mom. I knew her, too, and we were close, and you and I should’ve been, too, especially after—”

“I’m your parent, Summer. I’m not supposed to be your friend.”

“You’re not either one,” I practically hollered, a call for some help, from somewhere, from anywhere. “What have you given me other than…to be like this?” I showcased myself as if he was actually taking the time to look. “I’m…anxious where I should feel safe. I’m lonely. All the time! Just like you,” I added through my teeth, another vain attempt to connect. “I can’t get close to anyone my own age. And I can’t even get close to you . The only one you make sure I have. But I don’t have you, Dad.” Tears rushed to and over my lids, too many for me to stop them. “My head’s messed up. This is messed up. We’re messed up, and why can’t we fix it?”

I expected too much.

I expected what a kid should expect from their parent.

And still, I got nothing from him.

“Really?” The word only came out as a whisper as my dad ignored me and started up the stairs.

And I stood alone, in the big open space, feeling smaller and smaller.

I needed him.

I needed my mom.

I needed my mom to come back and make everything better.

Dad’s stillness stirred me. His rejection gave allowance to a chaotic-like pain. My heart was pinching and racing in skips, a piercing pain that never completely overtook me until now.

The way he wasn’t making this into a big deal, when this was the time he should.

I wasn’t worth a fight.

My body was tight and sore with tension as a simmering, swirling anger blew in like an impending summer storm.

A Summer storm.

I managed to pace into the living room, only to pause when I spotted Levi watching through the window.

He was still here.

He was still here for me, after I told him he didn’t have to stay.

Are you okay? he mouthed, but his face showed the tension I still felt.

We knew I wasn’t okay. I was far from.

I was feeling too much.

Then I was running back out the door.