Page 138 of These Secret Years

If the past threatens to flood my senses, I get up, go to the bathroom, splash some water on my face and tell myself, this is water. This is cold. This is real. This is now. You are free.

If the sound of a pot clattering in the kitchen reminds me too much of the banging on the door, then I’ll switch songs on the bluetooth to a different, better Christmas song and sing along with it, thinking about what the words mean until the chills disappear from my arms.

I’m fine.

Mom makes a roast for Christmas Eve dinner alongside scalloped potatoes and fresh green beans. There’s a bread pudding for dessert which is so rich, it puts me into a coma and has me wanting to text Deandre and ask for forgiveness, but I don’t want to interrupt his brief time with his family.

I jolt awake sometime in the middle of the night covered in sweat with the sound of my wrist popping echoing in my ear—the smell of Quinn’s hot, vodka breath on my neck and in my face making me gag. I jump out of bed and walk to the window in my bedroom. After struggling to open it with one hand, I inhale the cold, fresh air. For a long, still moment, I watch the light snowfall beneath a perfect full moon. I never noticed the way snow sparkles, and I have a deep urge to go walking in it. Maybe to the lake house. Maybe into the lake.

No.

I don’t want that anymore.

I’m fine. I’m free. I get to see Knight later. It’s Christmas.

My dad doesn’t look good, but the trailer does. Even Davy looks decent. His teeth look almost normal. He’s over in the tiny, narrow kitchen cooking something that doesn’t smell half bad while my dad and I sit on parallel couches facing each other. “There’s a little stutter in my heart,” he tells me.

“Meaning what?”

“What’d they call it, ba—Davy?”

“Atrial fibrillation,” Davy says.

Immediately I google it. Apparently it’s a common thing, but it increases the chance of heart attack and stroke by a lot. “Are you seeing a doctor?”

“You bet.” He jabs his thumb in the roommate’s direction. “He’s uh…got me on his insurance, so I’m seeing the best cardiologist in town.”

That man has health insurance?

“And are they doing anything about it?”

Davy speaks up. “He’s taking a blood thinner, but I’m trying to convince him to do the damn surgery. Maybe you can talk some sense into him.”

“There’s a surgery?” Terror spikes at the thought.

“Yeah, it’s called a, uh…”

“Ablation, Jesus Christ, Mike. Do you even listen when we go?”

“Don’t seem to need to.” My dad gives me a sly grin and a wink. “Anyway, it’s under consideration. Not a big fan of the blood thinners. They make me bruise so easy. That’s why the hands. I’m always bumping into things in here.”

“Are you losing your balance?” I ask, one concern after another flicking through my brain like a PowerPoint.

“Nah. Hey, enough about me. Other than this mess of a hike you took, how’s the music coming? What are you working on?”

The first piece that comes to mind is the one I’ll never hear again, my work of brilliance meant to make Adrian feel like I was far, far too good for him. My hubris all summed up in a six minute nocturne. “I wrote a string quartet this past semester,” I say instead. “Want to hear it?”

My dad gives me a proud grin. “I’d love to hear it.”

Within the first thirty seconds, he makes his boyfriend stop what he’s doing and join him on the couch. He pats the other man’s thigh and nods toward me. “That’s my boy.”

I start to cry.

I cry off and on for the rest of the afternoon, and just when I think I’m okay, I think of the phone call I’ll get one day, maybe from Davy, that confirms yes, this was the last time I’ll ever see my father.

When Knight texts me just after the sun goes down and tells me to meet him at the lake house at eight, to just use the driveway and not attempt to walk through the woods, I make myself get my shit together. I take a shower, holding my cast outside the spray of water and doing my best with the rest of me.

Wanting to refocus on what’s in front of me instead of what’s behind me, I’m relieved to see that the bruises on my face aren’t quite so blatant anymore. The cut on my lip is all but healed. Just a dark pink line where a couple of days ago it was dark and scabby. The bruises on my arms are virtually invisible. A few wins. Merry Christmas to me.