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How the fuck could I stay away? How could I go back to being nothing to everyone when what she was offering felt so fucking good?
You put food in front of a starving man, he’s going to eat it. No matter if he thinks he deserves it or not. It was about survival.
And Shayla was keeping me alive.
I didn’t respond to her text, but I did read it again, then stowed my phone away just as a black car slowed down in front of the house. It pulled in the driveway behind my bike, parked, and cut the engine.
Breathing heavily, I stood up, watching Val get out of the car first.
She looked at me across the roof, offered a tight smile, appearing hesitant. Then she looked at the house as she opened the back passenger door.
I started regretting not doing anything to the outside yet. The landscape looked like shit. A few of the shingles on the roof had popped off. I could’ve power-washed the siding.
Why the fuck didn’t I do that?
Val bent down for a minute, then straightened up holding Fiona in her arms, and I quit thinking about siding or the fucking landscape as my youngest buried her face in her mother’s neck and hid from me.
Fiona was shy and made you work for her affection—but I worried she’d grown out of that, and it was me she was reacting to right now. She was hiding because she didn’t want to see me.
Sweat broke out at the base of my neck, and my breathing went from heavy to fucking panting.
“Look what you did to them!”
Val closed the door, and I watched Caroline peek out around the back of the car before Val ushered her forward. The three of them stood at the trunk.
Caroline was wearing nothing but pink.
Pink shirt, pink puffy skirt, pink tights going into pink shoes that sparkled. There was a pink clip in her hair on one side, a small pink book bag in her hand, and on her wrist were the bracelets that matched the ones she’d made for me. The threads she’d cut and tied herself, only hers were all pink and mine were different colors. She still wore them.
The only time I took mine off was when I was forced to. Had to get the knots out with my teeth so the motherfuckers holding me wouldn’t cut them off. And the second I got out, I put those bracelets right back on. That was the first thing I did.
It meant something to me seeing Caroline still wearing them. I wanted it to mean something to her. I wanted to take it as a good sign, but I couldn’t.
Caroline used to rush at me. Anytime she saw me after going some time without, she never walked, she ran. She couldn’t get to me fast enough. She was the opposite of Fiona. Caroline loved fast and easy.
She wasn’t giving it now, though. She was holding onto Val’s leg, looking right at me while she pulled at her lip, appearing cautious.
I told myself to move, to fucking move to them, but I couldn’t. I stood there frozen, watching Caroline look up at Val and say something to her I couldn’t hear. Maybe she was asking her to leave. Maybe she was saying she didn’t like it here. Maybe she was asking, Who is that? Maybe—
Val told her something back, then Caroline looked at me, got a grin on her face, dropped her book bag, and fucking rushed. She took off running across the grass, yelling, “Daddy!” her arms pumping.
My ears burned with a memory.
“Daddy! Daddy!”
Choking on a breath, I darted forward and dropped to my knees in front of Caroline. She hit my chest full force and squealed, yelling, “Daddy! Daddy, you’re back!” like she’d missed me so bad, it killed her. My arms wrapped around her little body. I dropped my head and closed my eyes, feeling her hair on my face, smelling it. Baby shampoo—the pink bottle. I remembered that smell. Wetness built on my lashes as I kissed her cheek, her nose, her eyes when she closed them. I held her so tight, I worried I was hurting her, but her little arms around my neck kept squeezing me. She didn’t try pulling away.
I told her I was sorry. I told her I loved her. I thanked her for rushing at me. I told her I missed her, over and over again. I kept kissing all over her face until she started laughing, then I went back to just holding her.
“Daddy?”
I leaned away, cupping her cheeks. “Yeah, baby?”
Her little brows pinched together in confusion. “How come we couldn’t go on vacation with you?”
“What are you talkin’ about?”
“The vacation you’ve been on for the past year and however many months,” Val said, stepping up behind Caroline with Fiona still in her arms. “That’s where you’ve been all this time.”
