Chapter 29
twenty-nine
“You spelled flavor wrong,” Katie said. I glanced up, thinking she was talking to me, but then I realized she was looking at Cole’s sign. The three of us were spread out on the floor of the coffee shop, each with our own chalkboard in front of us.
I had come over to help Cole and Katie rewrite the drink special signs. They had live music playing again tonight, and they needed to update the drinks to be the list of Christmas specials.
“No I didn’t,” Cole said, leaning back on his heels from where he was kneeling and tilting his head at the sign, frowning like he wasn’t sure whether his cousin was right or not.
“You totally did,” she said. “There’s no ‘u’.”
“That’s the American way to spell it,” Cole argued. “We’re in Canada. I’m not spelling it like that.”
Katie huffed. “There’s no way that’s only the American way. I’m positive that’s how you spell it.”
“Get a dictionary,” he snapped back. “I’ll prove it.”
Katie rolled her eyes, tapping her fingers against the chalkboard like a drum solo. “Fine. But if someone comes in and laughs at us for spelling ‘flavour’ wrong, you’re taking the blame.”
“You’re impossible,” he muttered, finally conceding with a dramatic sigh. He grabbed a wash rag and started rubbing away the U. “Fine. You win, Katie. ‘Flavor’ it is.”
“Victory,” Katie said, holding her arms up triumphantly.
I chuckled, shaking my head. “You both are ridiculous. Let’s just finish before someone actually comes in and sees this mess.”
Then my phone buzzed. A text from Dad.
Dad
We need to talk. Can you come over?
My hand froze, chalk slipping slightly against the board. Cole noticed immediately.
“What’s wrong?”
I forced a small smile, trying to keep my voice light. “Oh, uh… I’m fine. Just—uh, nothing.”
Katie gave me a suspicious look, but she thankfully didn’t press. She got to her feet, picking up the bucket of water we’d been using to wash the chalk off the boards.
“Hey, I think we should refresh the water,” she said, giving us a knowing look that led me to believe we didn’t actually need to refresh the water. “I’ll be back in a few minutes, okay?” And then she was gone. Cole was immediately scooting closer to me.
“What is it?” Cole asked. I tilted the phone screen toward him so he could see the text. His face darkened.
“Well, I guess better late than never,” he said, although the words didn’t match his tone. He sounded angry, and I couldn’t blame him. He saw what a wreck I was last night, how hollow I felt when Dad didn’t even bother to show up for my birthday.
“What if he had a good reason?” I asked. Even to myself, my voice sounded naively optimistic. Every time he didn’t show, I invented excuses. And every time, I forgave him. Every single time. And every time it tore a little more of me away.
I thought of my argument with Lavender the other night and the utter hatred in her voice as she’d talked about Dad.
The way she seemed so certain that he was in the wrong, even when I’d tried to show her the other side.
At the time, I hadn’t wanted to hear her words, but they were worming their way back into my heart as I stared down at the message on my phone screen.
“I need to know,” I said, voice steadier than I expected. “I need to know if there is a good reason. I mean, what if there was an accident or—”
“He would have told you,” Cole interrupted. “You know, if it was a real emergency, he would have told you.”
I swallowed hard, my throat tight. I knew Cole was right, logically.
Part of me knew that there was no good reason, not one that mattered.
And yet… a small, stubborn spark of hope refused to die.
Maybe this time it was different. Maybe this time he actually had a reason I could understand. Maybe… maybe he had remembered.
I twisted the phone in my hands, trying to make the screen blur the words, trying to make them feel less sharp, less full of accusation. The chalkboard beneath me felt rough against my legs, but I didn’t move. I couldn’t.
“Maybe he… he just forgot?” I said quietly, but even I knew how weak that sounded. I felt a blush rise to my cheeks, like admitting it out loud made me guilty. “I mean… what if he was on his way, and something came up? Something he couldn’t control?”
Cole knelt beside me, angling his body toward me so that he could rest his hand lightly on my shoulder. “Then he’d have called. Or texted sooner. You know him. This? This isn’t forgetfulness. This is a choice.”
Choice. The word hit me harder than I expected. Not accident. Not mistake. Choice. Every time I let him hurt me, every time I forgave him without really processing the hurt, I was giving him permission to make that choice again. And I had done it for years.
I chewed my lip, staring down at the chalkboards.
Cole and Katie’s squabbles over letters and spelling seemed absurdly small and safe compared to this.
And yet… part of me still wanted to forgive him.
Part of me still wanted to text back immediately, to say yes, I’ll come, like it had never mattered.
“Still… I need to know.”
“Okay,” Cole said softly. “You want me to drive you there?”
The words were on my tongue to say that Dad could just come pick me up, no problem, but then I hesitated, thinking of our last few meetings.
Waiting for him in deserted parking lots, like I’m some secret he has to hide.
Not even going home with him or out to a restaurant, but sitting in his car or in a half-abandoned park for our conversations.
Was that where I wanted to have this talk?
When I listened to my father tell me why, for the first time in my life, he’d missed my birthday?
“Yes,” I whispered, meeting his eyes. “Can you drive me?”
He brushed a thumb across my cheek. “Of course, Princess.”
I stood on the sidewalk for a long few minutes, just staring up at Dad’s building. It was cold enough that my breath was fogging up in the air and I was sure that Cole was watching me from the car, wondering what on earth I was doing just standing here, but I couldn’t go in. Not yet.
He would have called if something was really wrong.
I hated how much those words were digging into my mind, coloring my view of how this conversation would go.
I wanted to go in with an open mind, to believe that maybe there really was some logical reason why he had missed the one event I’d asked him to attend in the last five months.
Since he’d moved out, I’d asked for almost nothing—I nodded along when he explained why he couldn’t come to my track meets, agreed with him when he said we couldn’t spend any holidays together, told him I understood when he explained why I couldn’t come over as often as I wanted.
I’d bent over backwards again and again, and the one time I’d asked something of him, he couldn’t even bother to come.
I looked back at Cole, who was parked along the curb, watching me and ready to drive away at a moment’s notice if I changed my mind, then took a deep breath and walked up the steps.
Before I could text him that I was at the front door, it opened like he had been waiting just on the other side the whole time I was standing there.
“There you are,” Dad said, relief flooding his face. “Hey.”
“Hi,” I said, my voice a little flat.
He leaned in for a hug, hesitated like he wasn’t sure if that was allowed, then wrapped his arms around me anyway. It was brief. Careful. When he pulled back, he held me at arm’s length, scanning my face.
“You look tired,” he said.
“Late night.” I chose not to mention that it was because I’d been up celebrating my birthday. No need to rub salt in the wound before we were even inside.
I followed him up the steps to his apartment. The new furniture and smell of air freshener were less jarring this time than they had been last weekend, but they also didn’t put me in any better of a mood.
I noticed how Dad walked almost all the way into the flat before he kicked off his shoes, leaving them in the middle of the foyer. I toed off my boots by the door and lined them up automatically next to all of Hilary’s that were there. I left his where they were, stepping neatly over them.
Not my house, not my problem.
“Imogen,” Hilary said as I walked in. She was sitting on the couch with a blanket wrapped around her and didn’t bother getting up to greet me. I didn’t mind, exactly, but it was unusual enough that it gave me pause.
“Do you want some tea?” she asked. “Or hot chocolate? I made a pot earlier.”
“No, I’m okay.”
Dad cleared his throat. “Let’s sit, yeah?”
We sat in the living room. Me on the armchair, Dad on the couch, Hilary beside him. I noticed, distantly, how naturally they fit together there, knees angled toward each other. A knitted blanket was folded over the arm of my chair. I didn’t touch it. I didn’t want him to think I was comfortable.
Dad leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “Okay. So. I owe you an explanation.”
I nodded. I didn’t trust my voice. I was terrified that if I even just tried to ask him where he’d been yesterday, my voice would break and I didn’t want him to hear that.
He inhaled, then exhaled slowly, like he’d rehearsed this part. “Yesterday was a bit of a mess. Hilary wasn’t feeling well, and we went to the clinic, and everything’s fine now, but it was… a lot. I thought I texted you, but I must’ve—well, I meant to call. I really did.”
I stared at the coffee table, at a coaster with a chipped edge. “You missed my party because she… wasn’t feeling well?”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw them reach for each other’s hands. Dad squeezed hers, as if he was reassuring her. I had no idea what it was for, but watching him do it made me burn with anger all the same. He couldn’t show up for me, but he had all the time in the world to reassure her.
“Well, that’s the thing,” he said. “Hilary’s pregnant.”
Everything somehow clicked into place and shattered all at the same time.
“Oh,” I said again.
Dad smiled, relieved. “Yeah. Wow, right? Big news.”