Chapter 37
Maya
Please let it be water. Please!
"What are you doing?" I ask again, trying to keep my voice under control. I fail because I can already tell by his posture what the answer is.
With his back turned to me, he slowly lowers the bottle in his hand. His shoulders slump forward, his chest rises and falls rapidly.
He feels caught.
Because he's doing something unbelievably wrong.
A fire ignites within me, a fire that shouldn't exist. "Answer me," the words leave my mouth emotionless. My hands instinctively clench into fists.
"I'm preparing for the concert," he says, sounding like a schoolboy who brought home a bad report card.
"What's in your hand?" I ask before the fire reaches the tips of my hair and burns everything inside me.
I burst into flames.
No, I'm burning fiercely.
Because over there in front of the glossy front of the closet, behind the column of fire that rises directly between us, is no longer Josh in my mind.
It's my father, slowly turning toward me. And I am once again a teenager, fiercely resisting to see the obvious.
"I'm okay. Go play, princess," he says with his deep, gentle voice, giving me a lopsided smile. The flames reflect in his glassy eyes, droplets of liquid hang in his beard.
A part of me wants to flee. A part doesn't want to admit that it's happening again. But my disappointment forbids me from going to him.
"You promised." I blink away the tears from the corners of my eyes and straighten up, trying to feel a little less fragile. He doesn't answer. Instead, he looks at me with his puppy eyes, furrowing his eyebrows as if my disappointment physically hurts him. "Why can't you just stop?" I whisper into the silence between us.
He staggers toward me and pulls me into his arms. "We all have our shadows."
I sink into his embrace. Because I can't do otherwise. This place is my home. "It has to stop," I murmur meekly.
With love, he strokes my hair. "Isn't it already too late for that?"
I long for nothing more than for him to stop drinking. For us to be a normal family, no longer the subject of gossip. For me to never again sit alone for hours on the cold sidewalk outside school because he forgot to pick me up. And for me not to have to defend him when my friends call him a drunkard.
"There's no such thing as too late because the right time is always now to change things for the better. You said that yourself," I remind him. Then I press myself even tighter against his warm chest.
"Right, Princess. Everything will be different starting tomorrow. I promise." He rocks me back and forth. "I love you so much."
A single tear finds its way down my cheek. Everything inside me becomes soft. "I love you too, Dad."
Back then, I was weak. Far too weak. But today, I am not. My trust, my hope, and the unwavering belief that people can change have died with that man forever.
Through the sea of flames in my field of vision, Josh approaches me in the present moment. The bottle in his hand is gone, and he doesn't stagger. But in his eyes, I recognize that supposedly repentant look that I've seen far too many times before.
In a moment, he will be with me. And he will try to embrace me. He will tell me that he has everything under control. Maybe he will even kiss me just to convince me of his lies.
But I will most certainly not allow that.