Chapter 21
At first, I don’t process it. I’m just staring back at my phone, unable to understand what exactly I’m looking at. The exhaustion has seeped deep into my bones, clouding my brain and my judgement.
I don’t move. I don’t breathe. All I’m able to do is stare.
A hand lands on my shoulder. Logan. I look at him, still feeling dazed and frozen in time. “Go ahead,” he says, his voice so soft I can hardly hear. “I’m going to give you space, okay?” He looks at me expectantly, his eyes mellow and loving.
My hands shaking, I nod and look at the phone again. Suddenly, it hits me like a tidal wave, and I’m scared shitless. My entire body is on the edge of a crescendo, waiting for release. I don’t know what kind of release it will be.
My finger hovers above the green icon. Logan smiles and exits the car. “I’ll stay close,” he whispers before shutting the door. And just like that, he’s gone, leaving me alone in this car, in the dark, to face the truth.
I pick up and place the phone against my ear. I open my mouth but can’t bring myself to speak.
No words come from the other end, either. But I can hear stilted breathing. I’m not breathing. I’m holding it in, waiting for I don’t even know what. My heart is beating a thousand miles a minute, so much so that my vision is getting blurry.
I finally allow myself to speak: “Dad?” The word comes out strangled. It’s not my voice. It’s someone else’s body; I’m floating two feet above it, lost in a surreal mist of emotions threatening to tear me apart.
“Avery.” It’s him. It’s his voice. I’d recognize that voice anywhere. It’s on the phone, and it’s more high-pitched than usual, on the verge of breaking, like mine—but it’s him.
Two tidal waves collapse against each other within me; I don’t know what I feel, but I feel it all. The dams break. I didn’t know I still had any tears remaining in my body, but here they come, and I’m bawling like I’ve never bawled before.
I’m a child again; I’ve just clipped myself with a fishing lure, and it hurts, and he’s there with me, hugging me tight, telling me I’m going to be okay. I’m five years old and crying against the airport window, happy tears warming my cheeks as I’m waving to Dad, who’s getting out of the plane and coming home, he’s coming home, he’s …
HOME.
He’s here.
He is here.
I can hear him on the other line. His short, heavy breaths, the sniffling, the sighs … and I know he’s crying too. And for a moment, that’s all we do. There are no words to be said. We simply sit here and listen to each other cry.
I didn’t know it was possible to feel so many things at once. This makes panic attacks look like a cakewalk. I’m angry, relieved, melancholic, overjoyed, confused … Everything in my body burns. I yearn to scream at him and hug him through the phone and tell him I love him and tell him I hate him.
When I finally manage to speak, only two words make sense for me to say. “Why now?”
On the other end of the line, I can hear him taking a deep breath and trying to get a hold of himself. “Your mom called Andrea. Said to tell me that if I didn’t call my daughter right this moment and make things right, she was buying a plane ticket to Colombia to kick my ass.”
I laugh through the tears. Yet what he’s just told me makes me feel even worse. “Why?” I repeat. And this time, I’m not asking why he’s called me just now. He knows exactly what I’m asking.
He takes a deep sigh, and I hear him swallow back a sob. “Sorry doesn’t even begin to cover it, Avery. I just … I don’t know. I can’t … I went off the deep end. I can’t even begin to explain. Nothing would make this okay. I …” While he pauses, I close my eyes, letting more tears flutter down. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I fucked up, and I’m fucked up, and I don’t know what happened, I just … fuck …”
“I needed you,” I manage to say through my tears. “You don’t know how much. You weren’t there.”
“I know,” he replies. I can hear all the pain in his voice. I don’t know if it makes me feel better or worse because I’m feeling it all at once. “I know that, and I’m going to regret that for the rest of my life. Please believe me when I say that.”
There’s more silence as we each sit here on our own side of the planet, processing the last few minutes. So few words have been exchanged so far, but to me, it feels like everything. It feels like a ton of bricks, and it feels like salvation at the same time.
“All I know is, I haven’t been well, and no matter how many times I willed myself to call back, to even send you a single text, or to even read anything you sent to me or Andrea, I … I couldn’t. The last thing I ever wanted was to hurt you—the very last thing.”
“But you did,” I whisper. I can’t get any anger to come out, though. I’m just deeply, deeply sad.
“I know. Oh, how I know, honey. And I never wanted you to see me like this. I never wanted you to have to see me brought down to this level. This is all me, Avery. It has nothing to do with you … I didn’t want this for you … it’s all me.”
Now, I’m able to muster some anger. “But why?” I’m reminded of every time Dad was ever sick or unwell. Whenever it happened, I could barely catch a glimpse of him. He would hide out in his room, away from our prying eyes. And the one time I tried to make him chicken soup from scratch to help him feel better, he got upset. Said he didn’t want me to have to care for him.
So I know that’s how he is. I’ve known for a long time. And it hits me that this may be why he left us.
But it doesn’t mean I accept it. “Why won’t you let me in? Why won’t you let me help?”
“It’s not your responsibility,” he says in a tired voice. “It never was. I’m your father. I never wanted you to have to endure me at my worst … or worse, have to take care of me. That should be my job, not yours.”
“Dad,” I say, swallowing back tears. “I’d rather endure you at your worst than not see you at all.”
He stifles back a sob. “But this is what you do, my strong girl. You take in the worst of people onto yourself. And I can’t let you do that. Not for me. I don’t deserve it. I cannot watch you pour so much of yourself into helping me. I’ve watched you do it over and over again, and every time, you come back wounded. I can’t be the cause of that.”
“What do you mean?”
“You give too much of yourself to those who don’t deserve it. That man, Jasper … he never deserved everything you poured into him. You run yourself ragged trying to fix people, Avery. And I know you know this by now, but it only results in pain.”
I take a moment to feel this deep within myself. A thousand stab wounds are ripping me apart from the inside.
“I just wanted to be worthy of him,” I cry out. “Worthy of you.”
“Oh, my strong girl,” he says, sighing. “I’ve done you so wrong. You’ve always been more than worthy. You can’t believe how proud I am of you. How much I love you. You do your best in everything, and I am so incredibly proud to be your father.”
I need another break to let more tears out. I feel like the entire ocean is flooding out of me, like there will never be an end to this.
He takes this chance to continue: “You don’t need to fix everyone to be worthy, my strong girl. What I’ve been going through, what’s been happening to me … It’s my own doing. I’ve done things, I’ve pushed all of you away. Your mom, and now you … and I’ve got regrets, but I have to live with them. I have to process this. It’s my problem. It’s not yours to fix. The last thing I wanted was to bring you down with me. The last thing I wanted was to hurt you. There’s not enough time left on this Earth for me to apologize enough for hurting you.”
“I hear that,” I manage to say. “But still, Dad … I needed you. Right now, everything’s fucked, and everything hurts, and you weren’t there.”
“This is never going to happen again,” he starts. “No matter what I’m going through, I’m going to be there for you from now on, I promise?—”
“No.” My voice is loud and clear. Almost panicked. “Don’t you dare.” I remind myself that I’m allowed to be angry. I picture Sophie in my mind. What would she tell me to say? “Dad, I love you. You know I do. I’ve never not loved you. But I’m so sick of being let down. I’m tired of holding out for a promise, of hoping you’ll show up, and then having to deal with the disappointment when you don’t.” There’s a sour taste in my mouth as I remember my seventh-grade graduation party.
My throat feels so heavy it’s difficult to speak. These words hurt to say, but they’re necessary. “I don’t blame you. You’ve always provided for Mom and me. And I’m grateful for that … I really am. But whenever I needed you the most, you weren’t there. I didn’t just need a Dad with a good job, I needed a Dad who was there.”
My words hang in the silence. I can hear his breathing picking up right up until his sobs come back. They rip through me like a hot blade. “I’m sorry,” he repeats, over and over and over again. I don’t say anything; I only listen and let my tears fall silently, my eyes closed. We’re worlds apart, but in this moment, it feels like we’re in the same room. In the same car.
“Okay,” he finally manages to say. “You’re right, my strong girl. I won’t make any more promises. If that’s what you need from me, that’s what I’m going to do.”
“Good.” I wipe my face.
“And from now on, if you call or text, I’ll do my best to answer. I won’t promise I’ll answer every time … but I will get back to you. I’m not going to do this again.”
The storm is starting to subside. I take a deep breath, and I realize, in that moment, that I’m going to be okay.
It hurts, and my mind feels like it’s been hit by a truck and thrown into a woodchipper, but I’m going to be okay.
“I’ll be okay,” I repeat out loud. “I want you to know that, Dad. I’m going to be okay.”
“Of course you will,” he says, his voice still shaking. “You’re my strong girl. I never doubted you.”
“But I need to figure my shit out,” I continue. “Like you, I guess. And I don’t think that’s something anyone else can do for me.”
He’s silent, waiting for me to continue.
“I’m happy to know you’ll try your best to pick up if I call you. But … I don’t think I should be calling you for a while. I’m not …” I take another deep breath. “I’m not mad anymore. I don’t hold it against you. I just …” I try to find the right words. “I need to focus on fixing myself before I put any energy into fixing this. Fixing us.”
“You’re right,” he replies. His voice is heavy. “And that’s what I wanted for you in the first place. I want you to focus on yourself. Focus on being the best you that I know you can be, without having to worry about me.”
Part of me does want to worry about him. Whatever he’s going through all the way over there, he’s still going through it. And so I wish I could put in the energy to start talking to him again, to begin to mend whatever has broken during all these months of silence. But I know I can’t do that now. It may come later, but not now.
“I just don’t want to hurt anyone,” I say. I don’t say the rest of the sentence:
Like you did to me.
“That’s okay. You’ll be okay.” His voice is soft against my ear. “I love you, Avery. More than anything. More than I’ll ever be able to truly show you.”
“I love you too, Dad.” A final tear escapes my eyes. I don’t know how to end this conversation, especially since I don’t know when we’ll speak again. “Take care of yourself for me, okay?” It’s the best I can do.
“I’ll do my best,” he says. “And you do the same, my strong girl.”
“Okay.”
I take the phone away from my ear, shoot one last look at Dad’s name on the screen, and close my eyes as I press the red icon.
My heart has shattered into a million pieces. I don’t think I’ve ever been this exhausted. Despite all that, I see everything with crystal clarity. I feel calm and collected, like the sea after a devastating storm.
I know what I have to do now.
I’m going to have to break Logan’s heart.