“Maybe I’m trying something new.” A pause, the sound of him settling into his recliner—she could picture it perfectly, the worn armrest, the side table with his coffee. “Your mother’s worried about you.”
“Mom’s always worried about me.”
“This is different. She says you sound distracted when you talk to her. Like you’re somewhere else.” Another pause. “I told her that’s just what happens when you’re young and busy. But she wanted me to check.”
June stirred the pasta sauce she’d started out of something to do with her hands, phone wedged between her ear and shoulder. “I’m fine, Dad. Really. The job is going well. Lila’s great. Everything’s—”
“Is the senator still treating you right?”
The question landed differently than it had a month ago. Back then she’d bristled at her father’s suspicion. Now she felt the weight of everything she wasn’t saying pressing against her chest.
“She’s treating me fine.”
“That’s what you said last time. And the time before.” Gary was quiet for a moment. “You sound like you did when you were with Ember. Like you’re waiting for something to go wrong.”
June’s hand stilled on the wooden spoon.
“I’m not—” She stopped. Started again. “It’s not like that.”
“I’m not saying it is. I’m just saying that’s how you sound.” His voice was careful, the way it got when he was trying not to push too hard. “You know you can tell us if something’s going on. If you need to come home, your room’s still there.”
“I don’t need to come home. I’m happy.”
“I didn’t say you weren’t happy. I said you sound like you’re waiting for something to go wrong.” A pause. “Those aren’t the same thing, June-bug.”
She didn’t have an answer for that.
“Your mother wants you to come to dinner next Sunday,” he said, letting her off the hook in that quiet way he had. “I’m making ribs.”
“I’ll try.”
“Try hard. She’s planning three kinds of pie.”
June laughed despite the tightness in her chest. “Tell her I’ll be there.”
After she hung up, she stood at the stove for a long moment watching the sauce bubble. He wasn’t wrong. That was the frustrating thing—he was never entirely wrong, her father, even when he didn’t have the full picture. She did sound like she was waiting for something to go wrong. She was waiting for something to go wrong. She’d been waiting since the first kiss, maybe since before that, braced for the moment when this turned into something she recognized from before. Something that cost her more than she could afford.
You sound like you did when you were with Ember.
The difference was that Ember had never made her feel like she mattered. Melissa made her feel like she mattered so much it was terrifying.
She didn’t know if that was better or worse.
Melissa called again that night, after Lila was asleep. June was curled up on the couch, half-watching something on her phone, when her screen lit up with Melissa’s name. She answered on the first ring.
“Hey.”
“Hey.” Melissa’s voice was exhausted, scraped raw. “Is Lila asleep?”
“About an hour ago. We read about giant otters. Did you know they can be six feet long?”
“I did not know that.” A pause. “I just needed to hear your voice. Is that okay?”
“It’s okay,” June said, and meant it more than the words covered.
“The vote got postponed. Thornfield filed a complaint about procedural irregularities. It’s nonsense, but it worked—we’re stuck until the ethics committee reviews it.”
“I saw the news. I’m sorry.”
