3. David #3
That’s a fair assumption. After tonight, I’d be friends with anyone else. So, I have to be honest with her here. I’m a good guy. Now. I am a grown man, and I know what’s going on in my head and heart. And I can’t have this woman thinking I’m a dick.
“Delaney and Tucker, my mom and dad, are actually my aunt and uncle,” I tell her. “I mean…they were. They’re my mom and dad now. Just not, biologically.” Though they’ve been my parents longer than the people who gave birth to me were.
“I knew that you and your brothers were adopted,” she says. “I mean, I’ve heard about that.”
“Yeah. My mom was Delaney’s sister. She, uh…” I clear my throat. Jesus, it’s been twenty-nine years, but this is still hard to talk about. “My mom was killed in a shooting at a convenience store when I was eight.”
I sense that Mia goes completely still.
“Then my dad died a couple of months later. Of, um…” I clear my throat again. “Brain cancer. That one was more expected, of course. But I lost one parent really suddenly and one very slowly and…well, that all really sucked.”
“Oh my God, David,” she says quietly. “I didn’t know the details. I’m so sorry.”
I shake my head. “Thanks. We had Delaney, though. Through all of that. She was there. And she was the one who brought us here. We’d spent summers here because my dad was from here and he and Tucker were best friends.
We came here that summer after they died and…
never left. Delaney and Tucker fell in love and adopted us, and this has been home. ”
Mia’s quiet for several long moments.
These moments don’t feel as awkward as the others.
“I came here to stay with Scott and Peyton the first time when I was eight,” she says, her voice quiet and a little rough now. “They were my foster home at first.”
I frown. I knew she was adopted but I’d never asked about the details. I stay quiet. I know she’ll keep talking. And I want to hear this.
“My parents were alcoholics. Not abusive, exactly, but neglectful.” She stops and swallows.
“I was left alone a lot. I had to feed myself. Get myself to school. Things like that. One of my teachers finally connected the dots and called CPS. I was removed from the home, and my parents went to rehab. I stayed with Scott and Peyton. And…I loved it.” She stops.
“They were amazing. I was shy and quiet, and I didn’t want to get comfortable because I didn’t think it would last, but I couldn’t help it.
They made me feel loved and safe and…happy. ”
She stops and I feel every muscle in my body tense. I can feel something bad coming.
“After their rehab, I went back home. And it was so hard. I missed my parents, but I didn’t want to leave Scott and Peyton and Harlow and Austin.
I couldn’t stop crying for days. I felt so bad because I knew I should be happy to be home with my mom and dad.
But I kept hoping something would happen so I could go back to Scott and Peyton’s.
” She swallows. “I thought—and wished, honestly—that Scott would show up every single day. I remember how he looked the day they took me away from him. I’ve never seen anyone look that torn up. ”
Holy shit. I scrub a hand over my face.
She keeps going. “My parents relapsed about six months later, and one night, they were driving drunk with me in the car and got pulled over. I was taken back to Scott and Peyton’s.
I was…so relieved to be there. And I felt so guilty about that.
I remember Scott crying when they picked me up.
” She stops and takes a deep breath. “Every night after that, I wished that I could just stay with them. That they could convince my parents to let me stay. Or that my parents would just want to give me up.”
I hear her sniff and my chest tightens.
“And then, a week later, Scott and Peyton came into my room in the middle of the night, woke me up, and told me that my parents had been killed in a car accident. They’d been…
” Her voice cracks. “They’d been driving drunk.
Wrapped the car around a pole.” She takes another breath.
“And I felt…sad, of course. But also relieved again. Because that meant I didn’t have to leave Scott and Peyton again for sure. I have never gotten over that guilt.”
“Jesus, Mia,” I finally say. My voice is pretty scratchy too.
“I know. I mean, I’ve worked on it in therapy and mostly forgiven myself.
It was a normal reaction. I was a kid. It’s okay.
But I still feel bad about it.” She stops.
Then says quietly, “I’m not telling you this to make you like Scott more.
I’m telling you because no one’s perfect and life’s messy and… it’s okay.”
Mia Hansen and I have a lot in common.
I can’t get past that thought that keeps pinging around in my head.
We both lost our parents about the same age. We both came to Sapphire Falls around the same age. We’re both adopted.
The silence is now much more comfortable. We both need the two minutes of saying nothing.
But finally I tell her, “I wanted to be a cop.”
“Because of what happened to your mom,” she guesses.
Correctly.
“Yes.” I feel the familiar mix of rage and anguish tighten my chest. “They never caught the guy. My mom and another guy were dead before the cops even got to the store.”
“I’m so sorry, David.”
“Thanks. But I’m telling you this because…this is why I don’t get along with your dad.”
She shifts on the couch. “Okay.”
“So, yes, I was trouble as a kid. A lot of trouble. I pushed boundaries, I acted out. I was testing Delaney and Tucker. I wanted to know that they were going to be there for me no matter what. I also had a little ‘who gives a fuck’ in me as I grew up and really understood how fucking unfair what happened to both of my parents was.”
“I get that.”
I nod. “And, I wanted someone, my parents, my teachers, your dad, to step in and say enough . You’ve stepped over the line. We care enough to stop you if you can’t stop yourself. All of that is true.”
“You wanted my dad to be harder on you?” she asks.
“Yeah. That’s what my therapist and I finally figured out.” I sigh. “I needed to know someone gave enough of a shit to lock me up to save me from myself.”
“And he never did.”
“No. Tucker and Delaney, and my brothers did. Essentially,” I tell her. “They sat me down and said if I didn’t get my shit together, they were done. Cutting me off.”
I sense her surprise. “They had an intervention.”
“Yep. And it worked. I said fine. I went to therapy. And then, several months and sessions later, I went to your dad’s office and told him that I wanted to be a cop.”
“Oh,” she says softly. “And?”
“He said he thought I’d be a terrible cop.”
“Oh shit,” she whispers.
“Yep. He said that I wanted to be a cop because I was angry at the system. I wanted to make up for what had happened to my mom, to make things right. Which he understood, but being angry wasn’t the right motivation. Angry cops are bad cops.”
“So what did you do?”
“I went to college and got a natural resources degree and a criminal justice degree, I applied to the police academy and became a cop.”
I can’t see her smile, but I sense it.
“And then?”
“I went to Colorado and worked for Colorado Parks and Wildlife for three years. Came back and worked for Nebraska Game and Parks out west for a couple of years. Then came back here.” I shift in my chair.
“This is where I wanted to live and work. But I knew your dad would never hire me. So I did what I could to make sure I was excellent at my job and would have fantastic references so I wouldn’t need his and so anything he might say to anyone hiring me wouldn’t matter.
He could talk about me being a problem kid but the people who know me now and who have worked with me in this job would have opinions that mattered more than his. ”
“So you gave up on the cop thing though?” she asks.
“I could still be a cop if I wanted to be,” I tell her. “But I do love Game and Parks. Turns out that being outside, working independently, working with the animals, all of that really suits me. So it worked out.”
“And you did it all in spite of my dad.”
“Yeah.”
“And you resent him for what he said. For keeping you from what you really wanted.”
“Yeah.”
“And for not giving a shit about you as a kid?”
This time she poses it as a question.
I take a breath and blow it out. “Yeah. I mean, I know that I wasn’t his only job or even his top priority.
And my family stepped up, as they should have.
But, I guess, I’ve been disappointed in him all this time.
Even back then before I really knew why, but certainly now as an adult and as someone who is in a position to be a role model and to influence kids like I was. I just…can’t respect him.”
She’s quiet for a very long time.
And something in my chest is aching.
Which is stupid.
This is perfect. No way could Mia ever be interested in someone who doesn’t respect her father. Her hero. The guy who saved her.
This will end any talk of a friendship between us.
Which will end any further chance of tempting me to make it more.
“I understand,” she finally says.
Just then the lights flicker back on. The various fans and appliances kick on and start whirring.
And I blink at the beautiful, surprising, interesting woman who I happen to have a hell of a lot in common with.
She gives me a soft smile.
“I’m really glad you came to my rescue tonight, David.”
And, oh…I am so very fucked.
Because I’m really glad I came to her rescue tonight, too.