Chapter 28 Gwen
GWEN
Damn, it felt good waking up in my old bed.
Granted, it was a lumpy old twin beneath posters of the Jonas Brothers and other Nickelodeon stars, but it still gave me a feeling of peace that I hadn’t even realized I craved after a very rough few weeks.
Heading home to Minneapolis had been exactly what I needed, and after seeing my dad’s beaming face at the airport the night before, I knew I wasn’t the only one who knew I was in exactly the right place.
My bedroom door cracked open a few inches. “Oh good, you’re awake!”
I rubbed my eyes, smiling at how eager my dad was. “What time is it?”
“Almost eleven,” he exclaimed. “I was starting to get worried about you.”
“Eleven?” I sat up abruptly. “No way.”
“Yes way. But it’s good, your body probably needed the rest. You’re still recovering from the accident. Healing takes time.”
“Yeah, but we were supposed to go to breakfast at Donny’s early, to beat the rush,” I whined, reverting to a tone right in line with my childhood bedroom. “I was so excited for those muffins. Now they’re probably sold out.”
I was full-on pouting, and we both knew it.
“You don’t give your old man enough credit.” He smiled mischievously. “Get up and meet me in the kitchen—I think you’ll be happy.”
Happy. Yeah right. I should’ve been, given my dream of opening my own agency was finally happening.
The lease was signed, my website and logo were nearly finished, and I was getting ready to conclude my search for an assistant after reviewing the hundreds of résumés sent my way.
It was everything I’d wanted, yet it all felt so hollow.
It didn’t matter how many different ways I kept trying to convince myself I was better off without Harrison. I still missed him, which made me angry at myself, which kept me in a perpetual state of unease. Maybe the time away at home would reset me?
Home. I smiled as I pulled on leggings and a hoodie and tucked my hair in a ponytail.
In the years since my dad had gotten clean, he’d taken to fixing up the place.
From simple cosmetic fixes like swapping out the old vanity in the bathroom I’d shared with Sarah to completely gutting the kitchen and rebuilding it until it was so gorgeous that the amateur baker in me was jealous.
He was in a good place, finally, and it made me so happy to see it reflected all around me.
I walked into the kitchen and flopped onto the new window seat bench.
“If we leave now, we can still make it to the last few minutes of breakfast service at Donny’s,” my dad said. “Or, we can stay right here in our comfy clothes and eat the stack of Donny’s blueberry muffins I raced out to buy at seven this morning.”
I slammed my hands on the table in front of me. “Dad, you didn’t! That was so smart.”
“I just want to pamper you while you’re home.
We never get to spend time together these days,” he said sheepishly.
He walked over and took a white bakery box out of the cabinet.
“I got some other stuff too. Donuts, a couple of cinnamon rolls. And I have stuff to make healthy smoothies, or I can scramble up some eggs if this is too much sugar for you.”
I pulled a face at him. “No such thing. Now gimme.” I reached out my hands, clawing the air as he walked the box over.
He chuckled, and it struck me again how good it was to see him like this. The dad I knew back when I was still at home was withdrawn, gaunt, with hollows beneath his eyes. A prisoner to his addiction.
I didn’t really remember Dad as a famous baseball player.
Oh, I knew the stats. Knew that he’d been one of the best in the world for a while.
But the career-ending injury happened when I was just three years old.
And the Dad I grew up with…he was a very different man.
He got hooked on the opioids he was prescribed after his injury, and it took a long, long time for him to get clean.
Time when he couldn’t hold down a job—and made a pretty embarrassing spectacle of himself when he was high on camera during a sportscasting gig.
Time when Mom—a model/actress who’d married Dad at the height of his fame and who’d pictured a very different life for them—had to go and start a new career as a car salesperson because their savings had run out and her salary had to keep our heads above water.
Time when their marriage crumbled, piece by piece until they finally divorced when I was ten.
Time when he went through a string of relapses in a heartbreaking cycle so that weekends with Dad were more about Sarah and me taking care of him than him taking care of us.
That long stretch of time had been hard and painful, but it was over now.
Now, he was sober, financially stable, healthy, happy, and just a couple muffins away from pleasantly pudgy, with round red cheeks and his trademark dark mullet threaded through with silver.
Every version of my dad loved me. I never had reason to doubt that for a minute.
But this version looked like he finally loved himself and was comfortable in his skin. And that was a beautiful thing.
“Coffee?”
“The biggest you’ve got,” I answered.
He poured me a cup and walked it over to me, still beaming with happiness. It had really been too long since we’d spent time together.
He set the cup on the table and gently tilted my head to the side to examine the remains of the accident. “Oof, honey. Now that I see your face in the light, I can tell how painful that must’ve been. You’re still all black and blue under here. And the cuts!”
He pointed to my left cheekbone.
“Yeah, I’ve become pretty good at hiding it under makeup. A little orange color corrector, and you’d never know I got T-boned.”
My dad sat down, locked onto me. “Is that what’s been bothering you? The accident? Because you seem…not yourself. Quieter.”
I shrugged a shoulder. “Just been a busy time for me, you know? I’m trying not to spiral about my to-do list.”
He stared at me for a beat. “Yeah, but it’s more than that, I think. I know you, sweetheart. It’s that Jetliner Jackass guy, right?”
My stomach dropped. “Dad, how do you even know about that nickname?”
“I told you, I know my girl!” He reached over to give my shoulder a squeeze. “The entertainment reporter on Good Morning America did an overview of what happened between him and Scarlet and played a clip of the two of you at her concert. I have to say, it didn’t look like all business to me.”
He patted my shoulder. “And when you used to talk about him during our calls? You were so giggly. You always managed to mention his name a dozen times. It was ‘Harrison said this’ and ‘Harrison did that.’ I know as much about his life as yours right now.”
I peeled back the paper on a muffin and took a huge bite. “We worked together, Dad,” I said with my mouth full, spitting crumbs. “He was enmeshed in my life for a while, and now he’s not. It’s fine.”
My dad scrolled through his phone, mumbling to himself and squinting at the screen. He finally turned it to me triumphantly to show a still of me and Harrison from the video he’d mentioned.
“Do you really think this is how colleagues look at each other?”
I frowned at him as I took the phone. I’d checked out the coverage from Scarlet’s concert, but we were so busy grading the public response to the apology tour that I never had a chance to really examine how the two of us looked together.
I tried to keep my eyes from bugging out of my head as I stared at the blurry photo.
From what I could tell, it was when Ben had come over and accosted me, so Harrison was in protector mode and holding me close.
My arm was wrapped around his waist, and I was staring up at him with a close-mouthed grin, visibly enjoying watching him dunking on Ben.
But you couldn’t see Ben in the shot. Just Harrison and me, with him wrapped around me and me staring up at him like he’d hung the moon.
The whole vibe was intimate, sexy, and not at all professional.
“Fine,” I sighed. “You guessed correctly, we were more than colleagues, but the relationship was always doomed to end. The guy is a mess, Dad. I’m better off.”
My eyes welled up and made me look like a liar.
“Oh, sweetheart,” he murmured. “I’m sorry to hear it.”
He reached over to squeeze my hand.
“Yeah, and what’s worse is I let him hurt me twice.”
I did a speed run through the Aspen disaster story, making sure to leave out any hints of us basically moving in together for the week.
“I knew he wasn’t a guy I could count on. So I guess I’m the idiot for assuming that he could change, right? He showed me who he was, loud and clear.”
“Now hold on,” my dad said gently. “People can change. You’re looking at someone who did. I’ll always regret that I wasn’t the father you needed me to be when you were little. I was such a mess.”
“You were sick,” I insisted. “And you worked really hard to get better.”
“Yes, that’s it exactly. I had to work to get clean.
To become the man I wanted to be. It took years of therapy and lots of different treatment options before I found the one that worked for me, and I made a lot of mistakes before I got it right.
And it wasn’t easy for anyone, especially you girls.
I let you down so many times. Your mother reached a point where she’d had enough, and I really don’t blame her.
I’m still thankful every day that you and Sarah were willing to give me a second chance. ”
“But you put in the work. You didn’t just say, ‘I can’t do this’ and walk away. That’s what really hurts about Harrison. If I thought he was willing to try, that he wanted to do better…But the second things got hard, he just gave up.”
As of now, Harrison had done nothing. Not even a texted health check-in, which, given how recent the accident was, felt unforgiveable all over again.
“You knew that you wanted to change, that you had to,” I insisted. “You wanted to move past your addiction to be there for us, and you took the right steps to make it happen.”
“Baby girl, I love that you see me as being that strong, but the truth is, I really struggled with that part—admitting that I had a problem and that I needed help. It was humiliating, because you have to remember who I’d been.
A sports hero who walked on water and got everything he wanted when he wanted it.
Do you remember my backsliding? I’d claim victory, then stumble, time after time. ”
“I do,” I admitted softly, staring at the remaining muffin half I no longer wanted.
“People fall apart when things get tough. That’s why you have a job, you know.
Cleaning up after folks when they make mistakes.
But when the dust settles and it’s time to take a hard look at yourself and what you’ve done, that’s when people find out who they truly are at their core, and what matters most to them. ” His voice got quieter.
“For some people, keeping up appearances really does come first. They’ll lie to themselves forever about whatever their problem is because they can’t bear to admit that they’re weak and fallible.
But the lucky ones have something that matters more to them than their self-image.
Someone who matters more, who inspires them to face their issues and work to get better.
For me, that was you and your sister. You never stopped believing in me, and that gave me the strength to keep trying. ”
“We knew you could do it.”
“And that’s one of the things I love about my girls. You especially.”
“Hold up, are you saying I’m your favorite daughter? Because I might need to get that on video,” I joked.
“Stop, I love you both equally,” he chuckled.
“But you show up for the people you care about in a big way, even when we stumble. You keep believing in us. And I never want you to stop believing. You can’t close off your heart to keep from getting hurt again, sweetheart.
Keep that tender, hopeful part of you alive. ”
I didn’t want to believe what he was suggesting. That Harrison really could change if I gave him a reason to. It was too much and not enough.
“Dad, I don’t think the man has it in him to admit he was wrong, and the way he behaved hurt me. Hell, he can’t even understand that I am hurt.”
His expression went stormy, and I saw him shift into protective dad mode.
“Well, if Harrison’s not willing to admit his mistakes and apologize, then keep away from him.
He doesn’t deserve your forgiveness. But if he’s willing to say he screwed up and put in the work to do better…
well, then he just might be worth another chance. ”
I shrugged, hugging my knees to my chest.
“Look at you.” My dad nodded toward me. “You’re not yourself at all, all quiet and withdrawn. The two of you clearly had something special if you’re this impacted by it. And I bet he felt the same.”
“Then why did he fuck it all up?” I immediately shouted back.
“Gwen, sweetheart, I would never want to excuse his poor behavior, but the fact is, some men are idiots.” He paused. “No, most men are idiots. We don’t know what we’ve got till it’s gone.”
“Hardly,” I snorted. “He clearly doesn’t care, because this thing has been silent.” I held up my phone. “He hasn’t checked in or anything.”
My dad frowned, and I knew I’d scored a point.
“He should be on his hands and knees, groveling to make it up to me,” I continued.
He leaned closer to cup my cheek. “You’re exactly right. He should. You deserve nothing less.”
“Well, then I guess I’m going to be miserable for a while, because that ain’t happening.”
“Enough of this.” My dad stood up. “I never get to see my girl, so there’s no way I’m letting you be miserable while you’re here. Got it? We’re going to stay so busy that you’ll forget you even have a phone.”
“A phone that’s not ringing,” I added.
“Stop,” he chastised me. “Get dressed. We’re off to do something fun.”
“Please, no batting practice,” I did prayer hands under my chin. Sarah and I had been dragged to the cages for years, and while it was an excellent stress reliever for him, it was an exercise in boredom for the two of us.
“Come on, give me some credit, kid! No, we’re going to that new axe-throwing place, Lizzie Borden’s Revenge.”
I laughed despite myself. “Oof, terrible name.”
“But a great way to work out some aggression. Get dressed—I have a feeling you’re going to be amazing at it.”
“Yeah, nothing like an angry woman with an axe,” I replied.