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The hurt returned to his eyes. “I wish you’d told me. I would have helped you.”
“I know.” Her eyes lowered to where their fingers were interlocked. “I always knew if worst came to worst I could turn to you.” She couldn’t remember feeling that certainty with anyone since, but she remembered feeling it at the time.
Her life might have been easier if she had turned to Dylan in her hour of need, but it also would have been a lie. She would have been pretending to be part of a happy family that wasn’t real, because as soon as you needed them they were nowhere to be found. At least this way she knew the truth of who they were.
Dylan’s thumb stroked over her knuckles. “So I guess you told your parents, and they didn’t take it well?”
“I told my mom and she told my dad. He basically never spoke to me again. It was like—it was like I didn’t even exist to him anymore. I was so tainted in his eyes, he wouldn’t even look at me.”
To say her mother was upset and disappointed would be an understatement. She hadn’t yelled, because her mother never yelled, although she’d cried a lot. But she’d gone along with it. Brooke had to give her that much credit.
When it became clear Brooke wasn’t going to change her mind, that she’d go through with it on her own if she had to, her mother had driven her to the appointment and sat stoically in the clinic waiting room while the doctor scraped the wayward cells out of Brooke’s uterus. Then her mother had driven her home and told Brooke’s father what they’d done that night when he got home from work. And things had never been the same between them.
Brooke remembered lying in bed and hearing the sound of her parents fighting through the walls. Her father’s voice raised in anger, and her mother’s a soft, apologetic murmur. It had gone on for hours, and she’d fallen asleep to the sound of her mother crying.
The next morning when she ventured out of her room, Brooke braced herself for the lecture of her life. But her father didn’t say a word—or even look at her. From that day forward, he barely acknowledged her existence unless he had to. He never even yelled at her or told her he was disappointed. Never spoke of what she’d done at all. He simply treated her like someone beneath his notice. Instead of a scarlet letter, she’d been given an invisibility cloak.
Brooke’s mother had followed her father’s lead, giving her the cold shoulder too—but only at home when Brooke’s father was around. When it was just the two of them, or when they were around other people, her mother acted like everything was fine. That was when Brooke realized what an actress her mother was. How she could flip personalities on a dime for the sake of maintaining appearances.
But even when she deigned to talk to Brooke, it was only ever about inconsequential things. Dinner, groceries, the weather. She refused to talk about what Brooke had done, or about Brooke’s father, or about anything that mattered. Whenever Brooke tried, her mother would shut the conversation down and walk away. So Brooke stopped trying.
Her mother had made it clear where her loyalties really lay, and it wasn’t with her.
Brooke had essentially lost both her parents in one fell swoop. Because of one stupid mistake.
“I’m so sorry you went through that,” Dylan said, his voice low and emphatic. “I’m even sorrier you did it alone.”
Brooke shrugged like it didn’t matter. “Anyway.” She straightened her spine. “That’s why I don’t go home anymore. And why my parents didn’t see fit to tell me my dad has cancer, I guess.”
A fresh surge of anger wound through her insides. She’d thought she was over being hurt by her parents’ disapproval, but apparently they still had the power to make her feel bad about herself.
She got to her feet and brushed her hair off her shoulder. “There’s nothing to be done about any of it tonight, so I’m going to go to bed. I’ll deal with this tomorrow.”
Dylan stood up too. “Are you sure?” He hovered uncertainly, looking like he wanted to hug her again.
Brooke stepped backward, putting distance between them. As much as she’d like to lose herself in his arms, she knew if she did she’d break down completely. And that was the last thing she wanted. “It’s fine,” she said stiffly. “Don’t worry about it.”
It wasn’t fine.
Her dad had cancer.
Underneath the anger, somewhere deep inside, Brooke was terrified. Because despite everything that had happened between her and her parents—all the resentment and recriminations and cold, unfeeling distance that had built up over the years—regardless of everything else she felt, part of her was still a little girl who loved her dad and was terrified he was going to die.
Chapter Eight
Brooke stared at her phone. She’d been staring at it for five minutes, and she still hadn’t worked up the courage to call her mom.
It was one o’clock in the afternoon. She’d been on campus since seven thirty that morning. The paper she was submitting tomorrow was as good as done, although she wanted to let it sit before doing one last read-through and final polish.
She’d left Dylan at home this morning with plans to do some sightseeing on his own. She felt a bit guilty about how much of a hurry she’d been in to get away from him, but she hadn’t wanted to rehash any of their conversation last night. One secret-baring heart-to-heart per day was her max, and she knew she’d have to make this call to her mom today.
Brooke had thrown herself into her paper this morning to avoid thinking about it. And then once she’d finished all her revisions, she’d spent a half hour reading about prostate cancer on the internet. Which hadn’t really done much to improve her peace of mind.
She stared at her phone some more. Her phone stared back.
Her choices were to get this call out of the way, or work on her grading and let it hang over her head some more.
She dialed her mother’s number.
