I knew Cole was still working at the hospital, so I figured I’d just slip out and leave them some privacy. It wasn’t a big deal to me. I was happy Adam was getting some romance in his life. Or so I thought… I always had a feeling he was gay but he’s never come out to me or anyone in our family. I always just put that night behind me since so many other things were going on.
When I pulled up to the house, the lights were on and through the bay window that overlooked the living room, I saw him. My dad.
And someone else.
It couldn’t be, but as I squinted, my heart dropped. It was.
A woman, straddling my father.
But not just any woman, not the one I’d seen before. No. This was a woman who wasn’t my mother.
I blink back tears, but they burn in my eyes, threatening to spill. I don’t know what to do, where to go, or what to say. So I do the first thing that comes to my mind, storm in and make him feel it, make him feel what he’s done.
I throw open the door with such force that it slams against the wall, and my father jumps, startled. His eyes meet mine, wide with shock, but I don’t care.
The woman who had been sitting on his lap quickly hides her face in her hands, like she’s ashamed, but I don’t feel sorry for her.
She just broke this family.
And I could feel it, the weight of everything shifting in that instant. My world, myfamily, fractured in front of me.
I stopped caring what she looked like once I saw all the powdered snow scattered across the coffee table.
My dad looks coked out and he still hasn’t said another word. So I scan the room, my eyes wild, desperate to find something, anything, that will make him feel the weight of this. The hardestthing I can grab. My gaze lands on it: the Golden Globe sitting proudly on the mantle.
Without thinking, I grab it and throw it at him with every ounce of fury I’ve got. The globe shatters the glass coffee table into a million jagged pieces.
I move to grab the next thing on the mantle, but he’s faster this time. He lunges for me, grabs my wrist too hard and tries to yank the next award from my hand.
“Stop!” he barks, his voice low and hoarse. But in the struggle, the sharp edge of the shattered table slices across my skin.
I don’t feel it right away, not until I look down and see the blood.
It’s a clean cut, but deep. It’ll leave a scar.
He stares at it for a second like he can’t believe what just happened. Neither can I.
But that’s not enough. I don’t stop.
The girl jumps up, scrambling to run, but it’s in that moment, when her face turns toward me, that my stomach turns. I feel like I’m about to be sick.
It’s Molly.
My best friend. Or, at least that’s who I thought she was.
My very underage, ex-best friend.
The rage rises in me like a storm, I start flinging every damn award off the mantle: Oscar, Golden Globe, Oscar, Tony, Oscar; hurling them at her face like they’ll somehow make her feel the destruction she’s caused.
That was the moment the forest fire began. My dad was the spark. Cocaine was the fuel. And the rest of my family? We were the trees in that forest, caught in the blaze, burned beyond recognition.
After my dad, I stopped believing love was safe.
After Aspen, I’m starting to wonder if love is even real.
Maybe I’m not meant for love that lasts.
Maybe I’m only good at surviving the endings.
