13. Roman
ROMAN
I glare down at my phone.
It’s been sitting in front of me for the past thirty minutes, next to the scrawled number my mom has had memorized for years and left at my apartment. But I haven’t had the courage to make the call I need to make.
Talking to my father isn’t as easy as just dialing a number and having a “catch-up” moment.
For me, at least.
I have no clue what it will be like for him, but I imagine it’s akin to speaking to a ghost. For all intents and purposes, nobody knows I still exist, and I’m under no illusion that I’m anything more to him than a bad memory he’d rather forget.
My issues with him are so deeply rooted, it makes picking up the phone almost impossible.
But then I think about Brooklynn. How she has a mysterious condition that can shift in an instant without warning, and how we have no health insurance.
How even though I covered what she needs, a ninety-day supply of her seizure medication is almost a thousand dollars.
A thousand fucking dollars.
As much as I hate to admit it, my mom is right. Brooklynn isn’t his daughter, but he might be the only one who can help her.
My throat tightens, and I shake my head to try and get it together.
Reaching out, I grab my phone, punch in the number from the piece of paper, and press send before I can talk myself out of it.
My leg bounces in time with my elevated heart rate, and it feels as if I’m running a marathon.
One ring.
Two.
I’m going to puke.
Three.
Four.
He’s not going to answer.
Right before I hang up the phone, it stops ringing with an audible click.
“Ryder?”
My body reels in shock. I’m surprised he knew my phone number and more surprised at him answering.
His voice is warmer than I expected, but maybe I’m just misremembering it from the last time. We haven’t talked since I was nineteen and standing on his doorstep after his wife Eleanor’s funeral.
Looking back, I can almost see how my mom sending me then was a knife to the gut, but…still. I’m his kid .
“Roman, what are you doing here?”
His face is ghostly white, all of the color drained as he stares at me on his front doorstep.
“Isn’t it obvious?”
Ma told me to come, so I did. I figured he’d be glad to see me, and I had hoped that maybe if I waited long enough to show up, he’d finally pull me into the fold.
That he’d look at me as the man I became and decide I was worth claiming.
Especially now that the woman who forced him to stay away is buried six feet deep.
My dad glances behind him like he’s expecting someone, then steps forward, carefully pulling the front door halfway closed. He opens his mouth like he’s about to speak when a voice cuts in.
“Marcus?”
A man appears in the doorway. He’s older with a starched suit, pasty white skin, and narrowed eyes.
Marcus stiffens. “Go back inside, Freddy.”
The man doesn’t move, his eyes settling on me like a sniper. Then he pales. “Is that who I think it is?”
My chest clenches, realizing everyone really does assume I’m dead around here.
My father looks like he’s about to kill the guy. “Frederick, go inside. Now.”
He listens this time and then my dad is closing the front door entirely and rushing toward me.
He grips my arm tightly, and I stiffen my jaw, nostrils flaring at the aggressive hold.
“Let me go.” My voice is flat.
He drops my arm like I burned him and runs a hand through his hair, glancing around again. “You can’t be here, Roman. You need to leave.”
My brows draw in. This isn’t going at all like Ma said it would.
“Isn’t that…” I swallow around the sudden nerves. “I mean, that’s what Ma said. That we just had to stay away until Eleanor was gone and then you’d ? —”
Love me.
I cut myself off, not willing to say it out loud. Not wanting to admit that after all the years he spent not showing up, he still holds power over me.
His shoulders slump.
“Rom—Ryder, I…” He runs a hand over his face, pausing on his mouth as he looks at me with pity. “Go home. Grow up some more, get an education. Be everything I know you can be.”
“I thought you’d want me here.” My teeth clench.
It’s pathetic how I almost choke on the words, and I shove the emotion down. The last thing I need is for him to see me as weak.
I can be a Montgomery again; he just has to give me the chance.
He blows out a heavy breath. “It’s not the right time, son.”
Anger burns in my veins, and my fists clench. “Then when is the right time, Dad ?”
“I just lost my wife!” he explodes. “Put her still-warm body in the fucking ground, and your mother sent you here? Now?”
He lets out a hollow laugh.
“Go home and stay out of sight. Do not call me unless it’s life or death, do you understand? And don’t let anybody see you.”
His rejection is a harsh punch into my chest, branding my bleeding heart.
“Yeah, Marcus. I understand.”
I left him that day with more questions than answers, and I went to the county park with a backpack full of spray paint and a chip the size of Texas on my shoulder.
That’s when I met Juliette for the first time.
When I came back to California with my tail tucked between my legs, my mom immediately blamed Eleanor. Said she’d been poisoning his mind against me for years, and if it weren’t for her, this wouldn’t even be an issue.
And I believed her, because it’s easier to hate a villain than to accept the truth. Easier to imagine that someone twisted his love away from me than to admit that maybe he just didn’t want me in the first place.
But with age comes wisdom, I guess.
I push the thought of Eleanor away because I can’t stand that bitch, and that makes me a piece of shit, because who spends their energy despising someone who’s dead?
“Ryder, are you there?” my father repeats.
“Dad,” I force out. The word feels like grit on my tongue.
“Is something the matter?” He sounds genuinely concerned, and my guard goes up.
“Does something need to be the matter for me to call my father?” I spit the words like arrows, the deep resentment I normally keep locked up tight bleeding through every word. “Oh, that’s right. Life or death only, huh?”
“No.” He softens his tone. “You can call me, it’s not?—”
“I need a favor,” I say through clenched teeth, hating myself more with every second.
“Of course, son. Anything.”
The words raze over my skin like needles, and I will myself to get through this conversation.
How dare he call me son ? How dare he even answer my phone call after years of silence? What was all this for if it’s so easy for him to answer now?
“I, uh…” Leaning forward, I rest my elbows on my knees, my hand gripping the roots of my hair. I feel sick. “I need some money.”
Well, there it is. I said it, and it didn’t actually kill me.
My pride still stings like a bitch, though.
“You need money,” he repeats.
“Yeah.” I clear my throat. “Yes.”
I brace myself for his refusal.
“How much do you need?”
My spine straightens. I hadn’t expected him to agree so quickly.
I pull the phone away from my ear and look at it, making sure I’m talking to my actual father.
It can’t be this easy.
“How much is it worth to you to keep a dead man dead?” I squeeze my eyes shut, my heart thrumming loudly.
This time, there is a slight hesitation before he responds. “Are you sure everything’s all right?”
My tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth. No . Nothing is all right.
“Everything’s fine,” I say.
“So, tell me why you need the money.”
My heart jolts. “It’s Brooklynn.”
Now the line goes completely silent, no noise except for the pounding in my ears.
He clears his throat, and then asks, “Is she okay?”
No.
“She’s… I don’t know how to help her,” I say, letting a piece of the truth leak out. “She needs meds and doctors. Better doctors. And I can’t?—”
There’re a few seconds of silence.
“She’s sick,” he deduces.
A heavy sensation settles in my gut. Some part of me always hoped he’d been keeping tabs all these years. I don’t know if it makes me feel better or worse to realize he hasn’t.
And yet…there’s something in his voice. A flicker of care I didn’t expect. Because why would he care about a girl who isn’t even his when he can’t be bothered to care about the son who is?
“And your mother?” he prompts.
I swallow, my throat thick. “She’s…not in a place to help.”
“God damnit, Heather,” he mutters, more to himself than to me. “Did she put you up to this? You shouldn’t let her manipulate you, Ryder. It’s what she’s always done; it’s what she’s good at.”
Defensiveness thrums inside of me, even though the tang of betrayal from my mom sits on my tongue like sludge. She is manipulating me, and she has been for years. It doesn’t change the fact, though, that I need money to help Brooklynn.
The thought of telling him that makes me want to throw up.
“Listen, I didn’t call to play a catch-up game of twenty questions,” I say. “You either can or you can’t . I don’t want to waste time if you’re not going to help me.”
A slight chuckle pours through the line. “You sound just like me at your age. Stubborn as shit.”
His words hit me low, just beneath my heart.
I want to scream that I’m nothing like him. But I swallow it down, letting it scrape against my throat like knives instead.
“Then you let him know we’ll stop playing dead.” My mom’s words float through my memory.
“Listen, if you don’t help her, then I’ll be forced to come visit with all my secrets, ones I’m sure you’ve spent a lot of time ensuring stay buried.”
The words taste acidic as I spew them. But I guess the truth is always a hard pill to swallow.
“Are you threatening me?” His question skates across the air like ice.
I lean back against my couch cushions, staring up at the popcorn ceiling of my apartment. “Just stating the facts, Dad . Does it bother you that much to think of me there?”
He’s silent for another minute or so, and I’m about to ask if he’s even still on the line when he suddenly speaks.
“I’ll help. Of course I will. If you had told me sooner, I would have helped then. There’s really no need for dramatics.”
I jerk upright, my brows shooting up. What?
“But you’ll have to do something for me .”
And there it is. The strings attached. Just like I knew there would be.
“What’s that?” I ask.
“You need to come home. For good.”