34. Loren Hale
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
LOREN HALE
On the balcony, the music blasts from the pool below, but at least it’s more private than the bedroom. Everyone throws on nice clothes for the club tonight—our last outing in Cancun before we travel back to the real world with responsibilities and commitments.
I stare at the screen of my phone. Five missed calls from my therapist. I should call him back, but talking to Brian makes me feel like a failure.
He carries this hypersensitive tone like I’ve already fucked up, and I can’t listen to that.
I don’t want to hear him try to calm me down or to tell me that I should be tucked in my bed at home where alcohol doesn’t exist, where my vice isn’t staring me in the face.
Lily has made a better effort to stay in touch with her therapist. When I see her on the phone, Allison is usually on the other end.
I sit on the plastic chair and open a text message that my father recently sent.
Emily Moore
789 Huntington Drive
Caribou, Maine 04736
Whether he was feeling particularly generous, forthcoming, kind—he spontaneously gave me my birth mother’s address.
I asked him for it only once. When he denied my request, I wasn’t about to grovel for it.
Now that I know where she lives, I don’t know what to do.
Seeing her will open new gates that may crash me backwards.
I’m not sure I’m ready to handle that .
My hand trembles, and I glance over my shoulder. No one watches me, but if I dial a number, they’ll believe my therapist is on the other end. No one will disturb me. That’s my hope at least.
I punch in a familiar number, and when the line clicks, he speaks before I have a chance. “Long distance calls aren’t fucking cheap. How do you expect to pay for it?”
My father’s words drill into me, bringing up an insecurity with such ease. “That’s really not your concern.”
“Greg Calloway gives his daughters an allowance. Lily can’t afford to support your apathy forever.”
I clench my phone tightly in my hand, trying so hard to focus. I had a reason to call him after all. “Well, since I am paying per minute, can you stop talking about money and let me speak?”
“Make it quick, I have to get back to a meeting.”
He stepped out of his meeting to answer my call?
That’s all that processes. Greg would have never stopped a meeting for one of his daughters.
If Lily needed her father, he’d send an assistant and then find her after his work was finished.
My father—he dropped everything for me growing up.
If I called him at school, he was the one walking into the principal’s office.
But I only needed him when I was in trouble, and he’d yell at me for causing it.
“Have you found the guy?”
“These things take time, Loren,” he says curtly. “Answers don’t just fall down from the goddamn sky.”
I pinch the bridge of my nose and take a sharp breath. “Look, something else happened,” I say quickly. “He sent a package to the Calloway’s house.”
I hear rustling on his end like he’s looking for pen and paper. “Okay, give me the details.”
I explain the dildo and the note, trying to be specific, even though all I want to do is find this guy and make his life a living hell. He’s torturing her.
“He hasn’t asked for anything? Not a dime? ”
“No.”
“This sick fuck is making it clear he doesn’t care or want to be found, but I’ll try my best.” He pauses. “How is she?”
I laugh bitterly. “Since when do you care?” He wasn’t fond of Lily when we were teenagers.
He believed having a female as a friend was like girl repellent, and if she wasn’t putting out for me, then I should kick her to the curb.
But I knew once I started a fake relationship with Lily, he’d be pleased.
And he was. Only because she suddenly became of use to me.
I never saw her like that—an object that I could fuck or toss away. My father’s perception of women is demented.
“Please, she’s practically my daughter-in-law,” he says defensively. “And if Greg and Samantha Calloway ever find out she’s a sex addict, don’t think they won’t react accordingly.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“It means when you’re both fucking broke and homeless, I’ll be here to pick up the pieces. Just like I’ve always done with the two of you. Cleaning up your goddamn messes.”
I narrow my eyes at the ground. That’s his fucked up way of saying he’ll be there for me when everything goes to shit.
“Just find this guy,” I snap.
“Of course.” Voices puncture the other end and then he says, “I have to go. The partners are getting restless. Impatient, fucks. I’ll see you next week?”
I don’t know what for, but I just end up saying yeah. We hang up, and I feel as paranoid and anxious as I did before. Obviously, that did not help. No conversation with my father ever really does.