Chapter 8
eight
Meeting up with my dad felt an awful lot like a drug deal.
I chewed on my lip and stared down at my phone as I stood on the sidewalk of the plaza, trying to look busy and not suspicious as I waited for him to show up.
I was also completely freezing, since I was too paranoid to wear my red coat, which always drew attention.
The last thing I needed was for one of my friends to spot me and ask me what I was doing here.
I eyed the Tim Horton’s at the far end of the plaza, wondering if I should go in and buy something to seem less weird while I waited, just as Dad’s silver sedan rolled into the lot.
My shoulders immediately loosened and a smile appeared on my face without me thinking about it. It was like that every time I met up with Dad—the fear of being caught clashing with the happiness of seeing him.
He parked a few spaces down, angled toward the curb this time, and got out almost immediately.
No hesitation, unlike me. Right from the first time we’d met up like this, he’d been completely at ease and unconcerned about us being caught.
I tried to convince myself it was just because he felt like we weren’t doing anything wrong by spending time together behind Mum’s back, and not because he was used to clandestine meetings.
It was everything I could do in my life to ignore the lingering signs of how long the affair had been going on.
“Hey kiddo,” he said as he stepped up, shoving his keys in his pocket. “You been waiting long?”
“Not really,” I lied.
“Good.” He nodded, satisfied, and glanced at my backpack. “How was school?”
“Fine.”
“Just fine?”
I shrugged. We’d already done this exact exchange on Saturday evening, sitting on a bench near the river, him buying me an iced coffee even though it was a cold November day and insisting I needed it “for studying.” He’d asked about my classes then too, had nodded in the same places, made the same sympathetic noises when I mentioned homework and exams.
He gestured toward the car. “You wanna sit for a minute? I’ve got something for you.”
Honestly, I’d been hoping he would want to go into one of the stores since I was freezing out here in just my uniform, but I guess the car would be a good enough second place.
“Okay,” I said.
The passenger door creaked when I opened it.
I slid in and pulled my backpack onto my lap, resting my hands on it like an anchor.
Like always, the car smelled of cigarettes and his aftershave, but there was also the softer citrus scent underneath it that I now knew to be Hilary’s perfume.
I hate that I recognized it immediately and I hated even more the idea of her sitting here, in Mum’s spot.
I watched Dad as he twisted in his seat and reached into the back, rummaging around for longer than I thought would be necessary.
He looked even more tired than when I’d seen him on Saturday—something I’d noticed every time I saw him.
It was like his energy was being slowly depleted over time.
I was convinced it was because Hilary was slowly draining him, but I didn’t know how to approach that with any form of sensitivity so I hadn’t mentioned it yet.
Clearly, my plan of getting him and Mum back together was not fully thought out.
“Okay,” he said finally. He straightened and set two boxes on the console between us, one big and one small. Both were white, immaculate, and sharp-edged.
My stomach dipped.
“For school,” he said immediately, the words tumbling over each other.
He was nervous in a way I’d never seen him before.
Then again, his presents had never needed to be a secret before now.
“I know you’re doing more digital stuff now.
Notes, assignments, all that. And your old tablet was ancient so… ”
“It was from freshman year,” I mumbled. I eyed the bigger of the two boxes, which must have held the tablet he was referencing.
He’d bought me my last one too, only two years ago now.
Ainsley had gotten one at the same time.
I wondered if he remembered. I wondered if it even occurred to him to buy her one too.
He waved that away. “Barely. And this’ll be way easier. You can write directly on it, highlight, organize. Your teachers will love it.”
I stared at the boxes. I didn’t touch them.
“It’s the latest one,” he added, like that explained everything. “And the Apple Pencil, obviously. You can’t really use it properly without the Pencil.”
I swallowed. “Mum would flip.”
He shrugged. “She doesn’t have to know about every little thing.”
He said it casually, like it was obvious, like we’d already established this rule together.
Which, in a way, we had, though we’d never said it out loud.
My heart pounded as I reached for the smaller box, turning it over in my hands.
The plastic wrap was perfectly smooth, unbroken.
No receipt taped to it. No gift bag. Just…
dropped into my lap like it belonged there.
“You didn’t have to do this.”
“I wanted to,” he replied, easy. “I don’t get to help with much anymore. Let me help with this.”
Help. That was the word he always used. Helping with school. Helping with lunch money. Helping by meeting me “real quick” so he could see me before the week got away from him. He never framed it as anything else.
I glanced at him. “You already help.”
He smiled at that, pleased. “Yeah?”
“Yeah. You… you come. You listen.”
“Well,” he said, settling back into his seat, “that comes with the territory of being your dad.”
Something twisted in my chest at the way he said dad so easily. As if the title hadn’t been debated and dissected in our house for months. As if it hadn’t become something my siblings spat out like a curse word.
How was I going to explain to them where this came from?
I peeled at the edge of the plastic wrap on the Pencil box, pulling it off slowly. It was like I was trying to delay the inevitable of having to open the tablet box. Under any other circumstances, I’d be thrilled by the gift, but right now, a pool of guilt was building up inside me instead.
“I set up the iPad already,” Dad said. “Your school email, your calendar, the school portal. I figured it’d save you some time.”
Now opened, I set the Pencil in my lap and reached with shockingly shaking fingers for the other box.
He watched me open it, his attention fixed, almost eager.
The lid slid off smoothly, revealing the dark glass screen nestled inside.
I lifted it out carefully, like it might break if I breathed wrong and turned it over to see the rose gold finishing on the back.
It was exactly what I would have picked out for myself.
“I had to take a guess on the color, but Hilary thought you would like this one best.”
And just like that, I hated the color.
“You can use it for notes,” he continued, clearly not noticing how his mention of Hilary had soured my mood. “Or drawing. Didn’t you used to draw all the time? This’ll be good for that.”
I hadn’t drawn for years but I didn’t correct him on it.
Outside the car, some teens walked by, their voices muffled through the glass. I instinctively shifted lower in my seat even though I didn’t know them.
“Hey,” he said, noticing. “You okay?”
“Yeah. I just… I don’t want anyone to see.”
He followed my line of sight, then laughed quietly. “See what? Me giving my kid a tablet? Pretty sure that’s not illegal.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
He softened a little. “I know things are tense right now. But you don’t have to be embarrassed about me.”
I didn’t say anything. Because embarrassment wasn’t the right word. Because if I tried to explain, I wasn’t sure where I’d even start.
He checked his watch. “I should get going. Didn’t want to keep you too long.”
“Oh.” It was stupid for me to be disappointed when he’d just given me a bigger gift than I ever would have expected, but I guess I expected him to want to chat for a little longer.
I didn’t want his gifts, I wanted his time, but I guess that was what the weekends were for—the times he wasn’t sending me off with Hilary, that was. “Okay.”
“Text me later,” he said. “Let me know how you like it.”
“I will.” I paused before getting out. “Can I see you this weekend?”
For a terrifying moment, I was worried he was going to say no. So far, I’d never come to see him two weekends in a row, and I waited for him to say it was too frequent. But a smile broke out on his face.
“Sure,” he said. He pulled out his phone, opening the calendar app. “You have Friday off, right? Why don’t you stay over on Thursday night and spend the day with me?”
“Don’t you have to work?”
He waved off my concern. “I can take a day off to spend with my daughter.”
I brightened. “You mean that?”
I hated having to meet up with him in secret, but it was worth it if we could actually spend a whole day together.
“Of course. We’ll get breakfast at a pancake house like we used to when you were little and then maybe we can go to the zoo or something. Just us two.”
I leaned across the car to hug him. “Thank you! I can’t wait. Just text me where to meet you, okay?”
I slid out of the car with the boxes hugged to my chest. The cool air hit my face, grounding me.
He waited until I’d shut the door before starting the engine.
As he pulled away, he lifted a hand in a small wave.
I waved back. Only after he disappeared out of the lot did I realize my hands were still shaking.