Rome doesn't speak. He isn't going to. Not tonight. Maybe not for a while.
I turn and walk away without saying goodbye. I sit in my car with the engine off.
She loves me. She told me she loves me and I stood there like an idiot and let her walk away. I should have said it back. I should have grabbed her and held her and said every word I've been swallowing since the day we met.
But I'm going to fix it. I'm going with her. The thought settles like something that was always supposed to be there.
* Fire on Fire. Sam Smith.
39
CAL
The house is dark when I pull in.
My headlights sweep across the front porch and catch nothing but empty chairs and the ghost of movement through the curtains. Dad was at the ceremony earlier, back row as usual, but he'd slipped out right after the vows.
He doesn't do well with crowds these days. Too many people asking how he's doing, too many well-meaning neighbors with that particular tilt to their voices.
The workshop is dark. No warm glow bleeding through the windows, no faint sound of the radio drifting across the yard. That means he's not spending his night out there with his tools and his sawdust and whatever conversation he's having with Mom that I try very hard not to think about too closely.
Then the light flickers on in the living room, and I see his silhouette move past the window. He's up. I take a breaththat doesn't quite make it all the way into my lungs and get out of the car.
The walk to the front door takes approximately ten thousand years. Every step is a negotiation with my own self, which has decided to compress itself into something the size of a fist and twice as useless.
I keep thinking about the way Lily watched me before she left me on that dance floor. The way her hand felt when it slipped out of mine. The way she saidI love youlike it was both a promise and a goodbye, and I couldn't tell which one was louder.
The living room smells like coffee and wood polish, the same way it's smelled my entire life. Dad is in his chair, the TV casting blue light across his face, and when he sees me his expression lights up.
"You're home early, my handsome son," he says, and there's a question underneath the words that he's too kind to ask outright.
I want to answer, but nothing comes out. I try again, and what emerges is a sound I don't recognize. The casual warmth drops from his face and what's left is pure worry, the kind that makes him look ten years older in the space of a heartbeat.
"Cal?" He's already reaching for the remote, clicking off the TV, pushing himself up from the chair with a speed I haven't seen from him in years.
I can't speak. I'm standing in my childhood living room with my keys still in my hand and I am falling apart in a way I haven't allowed myself to fall apart since the day we buried my mother.
Dad crosses the living room in three steps. His armscome up and I fold into him, and it doesn't matter that I'm taller and broader and stronger than he is now because he's my dad and I am breaking and he is the only person in the world who can hold me together.
So I cry. My face is pressed into his shoulder, my hands fisting in the back of his shirt like I'm five years old and terrified of the dark.
I haven't cried like this since Mom died. I haven't let myself. I've been so busy being strong and dependable, so busy being the son he needed me to be, that I forgot what it felt like to just let go.
Dad holds on. Both arms tight around me, one hand on the back of my head, his voice steady in my ear.
"I've got you. I'm here. I've got you."
I cry until the sounds turn to breathing and the breathing turns to something close to normal. He doesn't let go for a single second.
The tears are freeing in a way I didn't expect. It's not just about Lily. It's everything. My mother. The thought of leaving this house. The thought of leaving him. Being torn between my father and the woman I love, knowing that no matter what I choose, I'm going to lose. Knowing that my happiness might break his heart, no matter what he says.
"You were right." I clear my throat, pulling myself together.
I pull back enough to see his face, and his eyes are wet, his expression full of a love and understanding that I realize with a start contains no surprise at all. He knew. He's known this whole time.
"I love her, Dad." The words feel like they're being pulled out of somewhere deep, somewhere I've beenkeeping them locked away. "I love her so much and I can't let her go."
He cups the back of my neck and squeezes. His hand is rough from decades of wood and sandpaper and tools, and it's the safest thing in the world.
