Cash just nods.
“Um,” I interrupt whatever weird ex vibes they're giving off. “What time do we want to leave in the morning?”
“Seven?” Ingrid suggests.
“Yeah, that works,” Cash agrees.
“I'll set my alarm then,” I say as I rub a hand over my face. I just want this day over with.
Ingrid changes in the bathroom while I strip off my shirt and jeans. Cash avoids eye contact as I slide into the second bed in my boxers. I don't have the energy to make small talk. He doesn't seem to want to.
The tension thickens until the bathroom door opens and Ingrid emerges in her favorite Smashing Trout tee and flannel shorts. I watch as she tosses her clothes onto her suitcase and then makes a beeline for our bed.
I don't want to be territorial, but something protective blares in my chest, and I find myself wrapping a possessive arm around her waist the second she’s beside me.
My phone vibrates on the bedside table, but I ignore it.
“It could be your sister,” Ingrid says quietly as she buries her face in my chest and sighs. “You should respond to her.”
For a split second, my eyes meet Cash's. There are too many secrets. Secrets that he knows and Ingrid doesn't. Secrets that could blow up in my face if I'm not careful.
“I'll text her back later,” I tell Ingrid as I look away from Cash's warning glare. “I'm sure she's just checking in to see if I'm going on the family summer vacation to Orange Beach.”
Ingrid yawns. “I'm so sleepy.”
My fingers slip under her chin, and she glances up at me.
“I love you,” I whisper low enough so Cash can't hear.
“I love you more.”
The corners of her eyes crinkle as I kiss her lips, swallowing the words.
Minutes later, Ingrid is drifting off to sleep as my cell phone sits on that bedside table, calling to me. I carefully reach behind me and grab it.
Two messages from Elowyn.
“You can't avoid her forever,” Cash says quietly from his bed.
I quickly glance down at Ingrid, but she's passed out.
“I'm not avoiding,” I clarify. “I'm...”
“Listen, man,” Cash says as he reaches for the lamp on his side table, “eventually, you're goingto have to deal with it. The longer you run from it, the faster it's going to catch up to you.”
With that, he turns off the light, covering us in darkness.
I'm not trying to avoid or run from Margot's cancer. I just... I feel guilty as fuck. Guilty that for so many years I wished something horrible would happen to my dad. Something that would upend his world the way he upended mine.
I didn't expect this, but I hoped for it.
I'm not a bad person. The kind of pain my dad left me with, though, it's so fucking big. I see it everywhere I look. I always have. Every time I leave the house, I see a dad tossing a ball in the front yard with his son. Or I see dads at restaurants with their families. There's no escaping the pain that mine didn't want a goddamn thing to do with me.
So, I hoped he'd feel the kind of pain I do.
The kind of pain losing someone who used to feel like your whole world.
I hold Ingrid tighter, my heart racing.
