Chapter 88 #2
“But then I saw you two. How you danced with her in that hallway.”
I looked up at Lara, who was watching Streusel in the distance. Smiling.
Heat shot into my forehead.
Was there anyone who had not been watching us in that damn hallway?
I had been so focused on Quill that I hadn’t noticed either her or Troy.
“The way you held her hand at the Richters’ a few days ago. The fact that she’s your priority.”
Her smile faded, and she fixed her gaze on the floor.
“That she’s more important than me.”
“Lara…”
“No, Dad.”
She stopped, turned to me, and the feeling that I had failed as a father was more present than ever.
“It’s okay. That’s the thing.” Her smile returned, her eyes glistening in the light of the faint winter sun. “All the things you’ve kept from me. All the things you’ve given up just for me. They would all have been okay.”
The despair in her eyes made my mind go into overdrive.
Okay… Okay. Nothing I had done was okay.
Lara spun back around, kept walking, and began gesturing with her hands in front of her.
“Yes, it’s crazy and takes some getting used to. She’s my best friend. She’s my age and…”
“I didn’t know how old she was when I first met her…”
“I know, Dad. She’s an adult, and I know you’re responsible, that you tried to suppress it. And I can’t keep watching you restrict yourself for my sake.”
This time, I stopped.
Lara did the same.
“I’m sick of you always making me your priority. Dad, I’m an adult.”
I opened my mouth to tell her she would always be my little girl, but she was quicker.
“Quill is your top priority? Prove it to me by stopping living for me.”
Speechless, I stared after her as she continued walking.
Quill is my top priority.
“You have every right to be mad at me,” I said, clearing my throat and catching up to her. “I kept it a secret from you.”
Something inside me seemed to be begging for her punishment, wanting morality to finally catch up with me and give me what I deserved, so that at least, as far as my daughter was concerned, I could sleep peacefully again.
She spun around to face me and raised both hands, causing me to stop in my tracks, startled.
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“Stop. Stop thinking about me with every decision you make and not once about yourself.”
I opened my mouth, ready to explain to her what it meant to have a child, but she was quicker.
“Do you know what it does to me? Do you know that ever since I can remember, I’ve felt guilty for everything that’s happened to you?”
Tears welled up in her eyes.
“Guilty for Mom leaving you. For the fact that despite that, you were never able to write. For you giving up your inner peace for me. For you wasting your precious life on trivialities that never fulfilled you.”
She gasped for air, trying not to cry.
My heart clenched tighter and tighter.
“You know, I feel so awful for ruining your life that, even if I could, I wouldn’t be allowed to be mad at you for getting close to Quill, because I have to make sure you never lose even one thing in your life because of me again.”
Her voice broke, and with it, the dam holding back her tears, now streaming down her cheeks.
She frantically wiped them away.
There were words I wanted to reach for, but none seemed appropriate enough.
I had failed. My daughter was a wreck. Because of me.
“And lately… Lately…”
Her voice broke off completely, and I stepped in front of her, taking a deep breath, so that she was forced to stop.
She avoided my gaze, but I took her face in both hands.
As hard as it was for me to say the next words, one thing had to be made absolutely clear.
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“Lara Mouse… You are the reason I didn’t pull the trigger back then.” My vision blurred with every word. “The reason I’ve been here seventeen years longer than planned. Without Quill.”
“Dad…” More tears filled her eyes. Something I had never been able to bear for long when it came to my daughter. “Tell me… Tell me that’s not true.”
I remained silent, let go of her face, tried to be a good father, and resisted the urge to turn around and disappear all the way home to throw random objects against my study wall as if I had the right to.
I didn’t deserve the luxury of my daughter forgiving me or not seeming to hold a grudge against Quill.
When I didn’t answer, she pressed her hands to her mouth, and uncontrolled tears escaped her eyes before she rushed up to me and pulled me into a tight embrace.
The jolt went right to my bone marrow, and her embrace cut off my breath, just as it had done all those years whenever I had returned from long business trips to D.C.
“Promise me it’s over. Promise me. Promise me you’ll never even think about doing something like that again. That you’ll talk to me…”
Her voice trailed off, and her embrace tightened even more. As if I might vanish into thin air right here and now if she didn’t hold me tight enough.
If I had pulled the trigger, I would have broken her heart.
“Dad?”
She pulled away from me, looked at me pleadingly, and clutched my arms tightly.
Hopefully, she would never understand why some developed a veritable addiction to the abyss. She wasn’t the kind of person whose occasional thoughts of non-existence drove her from one extreme to the next.
Maybe I hadn’t failed completely after all.
“I have Quill now.”
Even though I needed that confirmation more than ever right now.
“And ever since she’s come into my life, I no longer feel that need.”
Lara had to understand why I had chosen Quill. Why I would do it over and over again.
“That’s why I’d planned to tell you.”
I hesitated, torn between deciding how much Lara should know and how much would push her back into a lack of understanding.