The Relationship Clause

Chapter 28

My dad’salready at a table at our usual lunch place, and as soon as I walk in, he waves at me. “Junebug! Over here!”

We greet each other with a hug, and I’m immersed in his old, familiar scent, like worn leather from a classic car. I take a deep breath, letting it steady my nerves. Nothing to be worried about.

“I got you orange juice already,” Dad says, pointing to the full glass already on the table. “Lots of pulp, the way you like.”

I smile and take a sip of it. I actually switched to no pulp a few years ago because I got tired of how the little pieces get caught in my teeth, but I don’t say anything. It obviously didn’t help the last time I told him. “Thanks, Dad. How was your flight? I don’t even know where you flew in from.”

“Cairo,” he says after a long swig of his own drink. “And the flight was long. Very long. The excursion was fantastic though. Want to see some pictures?”

I nod, and he grabs his phone, flipping through photo after photo of pyramids, statues, artifacts, and desert sands. We sit close, heads bent together as he regales me with facts and stories. It’s nostalgic. This used to be one of my favorite parts of him coming home from his adventures.

Here and there, there is a rare image of him beside another person he traveled with, but for the most part, it’s all inanimate objects or nature shots, like usual. It’s never bothered me in the past, but for some reason, this time, it fills me with a foreign sense of sadness.

“Looks like you had a fun time,” I say when we’ve gotten through all the pictures. “Must have made for a great article.”

“It will. I’m still working on the article part. Want me to send it to you when I finish?”

“Of course.”

Our waitress arrives, and we order our usuals: Dad’s pastrami sandwich, cheddar soup, and salad, and my BLT with avocados and a side of chips.

“So, how’s your job going?” he says when she leaves. “You’re working as a secretary, aren’t you?”

“Mm-hmm, it’s good. I like the company and my boss.” This, of course, is a perfect segue into mentioning the fact that I happen to be dating my boss, but I don’t take it. Somehow, I don’t think that would go over too well. “What about you? Where are you headed to next?”

“Alaska again.”

“Nice. You must be excited about that.”

“You have no idea. I’ve been trying to get back to Alaska for months now, and I finally got the chance. I’m hoping to make it to a Nome. I’ve got a contact there who promised me some rides in his single-engine aircraft. We’ll probably…”

I sit back in my seat, sipping my drink slowly as I listen to him. It’s much easier to get my dad talking about himself than it is for me to talk. As a guy who’s been practically everywhere and done almost everything, he has no end of stories to tell, and he’s usually happy to share them with whoever will listen. With a couple more questions from me, he ends up talking until our food arrives.

“I’m so sorry, Juniper Tree,” he says once our waitress has gone again. “I’ve been monopolizing the conversation. I want to hear more about you. What’s been going on? And, wait a minute, why is it just the two of us? On the phone, I thought you mentioned I might be meeting a certain special someone of yours?”

My cheeks warm, and I make myself busy with opening my bag of chips and putting the perfect amount of mayonnaise on my sandwich. At least he remembered to ask about Owen.

“Yeah, about that... I was going to have you meet him, but he ended up having to go out of town for business for a few days.”

“Ah, too bad,” he says after a bite of his pastrami. “Well, tell me about him anyway. What’s his name? How’d you meet?”

I launch into a monologue about Owen and how we met, barely pausing to draw breath. I don’t realize it at first, but the more I talk, the happier I get. What was I so worried about? Dad wants to know about my life, and Owen is part of my life now. He’ll be happy for me.

When I finish talking, my mouth is dry, and I grab my glass of orange juice, guzzling it down as if I’m about to die of thirst. Dad doesn’t react right away. He leans against the table again, his gaze dropping to the remnants of his sandwich, which he finished a while ago. Meanwhile, my food has barely been touched, so I take a big bite of my BLT, hungry now that the Band-Aid has been ripped off.

“Oh, and he’d still like to meet you,” I say around my mouthful of food. “Maybe if you’re around when he gets back from his trip? But if not, then definitely the next time you’re back in town.”

I take another bite of my sandwich. Then another. And another. “Sooo are you going to say anything?” I ask finally.

Dad doesn’t quite meet my eyes. “Yeah, no, I’m sorry. I was, you know, processing, that’s all. You’ve never told me about any of your boyfriends before. At least, not like this.”

“Yeah, I know. But I’ve never been serious about any of them like this before either.”

He nods, and he seems to be considering his next words carefully. “And you’re…happy?”

Annoyance pricks at me. Wasn’t he listening? Can’t he see how happy I am? I try to brush it off. “Of course I am.”

Again, he’s silent.

“What, Dad?”

He shakes his head, doing that thing he does with his ear when he’s uncomfortable. “Nothing.”

“No, it’s not nothing. I can tell you want to say something, so say it.”

“Look,” he says, still not meeting my eyes, “I’m happy for you. Really, I am. This guy must be pretty special. I just… I don’t want to see you get hurt the way your mom hurt us.”

A queasy feeling settles in my stomach, and I put my sandwich down, unsure if I can finish it. “Dad, that was a long time ago.”

“I know, but how long have you known this guy? You said you started dating soon after you started your new job, so that’s, what, two or three months? That’s not a long time, sweetheart.”

Yeah…I definitely stretched that truth as thin as I possibly could.

“I know what I’m doing, Dad.” Even to my own ears, my voice sounds clipped, the annoyance I’m trying to ignore showing through.

“I never said you don’t. But if this is your first serious relationship, I want you to be careful. People are fallible; even when you want to believe the best in them, they end up disappointing you. I mean, you said this guy’s on a business trip. How often does he go on those? Are you going to end up being one of those girls who hardly sees their boyfriend because they’re never around? Is he going to put you first ahead of everything else? Because if he’s not, if you think even for one second he might bail on you, I don’t want you left in his dust, blindsided and heartbroken.”

A ninety-year-old streaker could have danced a jig beside our table, and I wouldn’t be as shocked as I am right now. My body feels cold, almost numb, and for a second, I actually question my own sanity, wondering if I hallucinated my dad saying all those things to me.

But I didn’t. And the longer I sit here, reliving his words, the more that shock morphs into something ugly.

“You’re one to talk.” The words pop out of my mouth before I have a chance to stop them.

Dad’s eyebrows lift halfway up his forehead. “Excuse me?”

“I said, you’re one to talk. You never put me first. After Mom left, the only person you put first was yourself.”

His face crumples with anger. The lines beside and between his eyes that used to be fine, barely noticeable, cut deep into his skin. “I put you first all the time.”

“By moving us around every year? By never letting me stay anywhere long enough to make friends or feel any sense of stability?”

“I taught you to look after yourself.”

“No, you taught me not to trust people. All those times we moved, you weren’t thinking of me. You were thinking of yourself, because you could never get over what Mom did to us.”

Dad doesn’t respond. Instead, he looks like he’s been slapped. His jaw hangs slack, and all trace of anger is gone.

“After years of running from relationships, I’m ready to stop running. I’m still scared, but guess what? I’m not running away anymore. I was trying to tell you something good, Dad. Something happy. I wanted you to be happy for me. I needed you to be happy for me.” My lip quivers, and my entire body shakes. I’m once again in the middle of a restaurant, garnering unwanted attention, only, unlike last time, there’s no Owen around to whisk me away and help me calm down the way I did for him.

It’s just me.

Alone.

“Are you going to end up being one of those girls who hardly sees their significant other because they’re never around?”

Dad’s words drop into my stomach, souring like bad milk and leaving me sick. I hate that he said those things to me. I hate even more that they’re already getting to me. Weaseling their way into my brain and sending out creeping, strangling vines of doubt.

I gather my purse, the rubber feet of my chair moving loudly against the wooden floor. “I need to go,” I say, not looking him in the eye. “I need to get back to work.”

“Junebug.”

“Goodbye, Dad.”

“Junie, wait—”

But I’m already gone.

Back at the office, I can hardly concentrate. My phone buzzes again and again, the name “Dad” appearing on the screen. Each time, I ignore it until I become so fed up that I silence my phone completely.

I huff and stand from my desk, needing to move, needing somewhere for this nervous energy and pent-up aggression to go. There’s got to be something I can restock.

Inside the supply closet, I gloss over boxes of pens and staples, reams of paper, and other various odds and ends. None of it computes. My concentration is shattered. Pinpricks of tears threaten to appear behind my eyes. I can’t cry. I cannot cry at work. But the tears are persistent, so I lean against the door, focusing on deep breathing. A box of tissues on the shelf to my left taunts me, so I grab it and rip it open.

The handle of the closet jiggles. “Junie? Is that you in there?” comes Kiera’s muffled voice.

I suck in a breath. “Yes.”

“Can I come in?”

“Um, I’d kind of like to be alone.”

There’s a short pause. “Lunch with your dad didn’t go well?”

And now I can’t possibly hold the tears back any longer. They fall down my cheeks right onto my shirt, which soaks the little wet spots up in a super obvious way. Great. As if my splotchy face and red eyes weren’t enough. I grab a tissue to stop the flow.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Kiera asks.

And here’s the thing: I know talking about it is a good idea. Logically, I understand it’s a lot to process. But the side of my brain that’s in control right now is not the logical side. It’s the side that throws up the white flag and retreats at the first sign of trouble. It’s the one that practically forces me to pull my head and all my extremities inside a big, hard, turtle shell in order to keep myself safe. Lately, I’ve been good at keeping this side of my brain in check and not letting it get the best of me. But today, I’m too tired and too scared to fight it.

“No, I’ll be okay,” I call back, forcing the wobble out of my voice as best I can. “I need a couple of minutes.”

There’s another pause, this time longer. I’m half wondering if she’s gone, but then Kiera says, “Okay,” and something slides through the space under the door.

I pick up the folded piece of paper and open it.

I’m a phone call or a text away. PLEASE let me know if you need anything. Don’t run away. If you don’t feel like you can talk to me, maybe you can talk to Owen?

Love you like a sister,

Kiera

More tears. More stupid, ugly, pitiful tears. It’s almost enough to get me to jump out of the closet. But I don’t. I slide to the floor, crumpling her note in my hand. Eventually, I do leave the little room, but it takes almost half the box of tissues and a lot of checking my reflection in the sides of the shiny, metal shelves before I’m ready.

When I get back to my desk, there are a couple of new calls from my dad, but I swipe those notifications away and select my texting app. It takes a few more deep breaths and internal pep talks, but eventually, I type out a message to Owen, only deleting and rewriting three times before finally sending it.

Junie:Hey, I know you’re busy, but could you give me a call when you get a chance?

There. I did it. I did it, and it feels good. Kind of. It also kind of feels like I’m holding a scalpel over my exposed chest, ready to cut my own heart out.

But at least I’m not running away. I’m running away from my dad, but I’m not running from Owen. Not yet.