Page 77 of You Know You Wanna

She let out another shaky breath and shrugged. “It’s okay because you can scream as much as you want and no one will hear you. Because it proves that even if you can’t control it, it’s still beautiful and it will still always just be here. No matter how old you get, it’ll still be here, doing the same thing it’s always done.”

“Does that mean you’re okay with not being in control now?” I asked, still not really getting it.

She shook her head. “No, I thought it might help, but it hasn’t. I think I might’ve missed the point she was trying to make.”

I chuckled, turning to press a soft kiss to her temple. “If it helps, I don’t really understand it either, but people need different things when they’re upset, and hey, at least this is a hell of a view to have while you’re crying.”

She sighed before she finally lifted her head to look at me. “I want to go to Juilliard.”

“Excuse me?”

“They have a youth program,” she explained, fidgeting with her hands in her lap. “My dance teacher says I’m good enough to at least audition. She thinks I have a shot at getting in. So does Birdie.”

A few fast blinks later, I stared into her eyes and reality dawned. “That’s why you don’t want to go to England.”

“Well, yes and no,” she said. “I just don’t want to go all the way to the other side of the world because this might not be our home but some boarding school there isn’t my home either.”

I pulled in a deep breath. “Yeah. No. You’re right. It’s not your home. So Juilliard, huh?”

“Hopefully.” Her teeth sank into her lower lip for a moment. “All my friends will still be going to Primrose Academy and I know Mom kept saying that school in London is so prestigious, but so is Primrose. Even if I don’t get into the youth program, it’s not like Primrose is a bad school.”

“It’s definitely not a bad school.” For the fees they charged, they had to be one of the best damn schools in the world. “What about Mom, though? If you stay, you won’t be seeing much of her and I can try to be home more often, but once we get back to the city, I might not be able to keep that promise.”

“I know, but I’m not going to see much of Mom in London either and New York is my home. My friends are there. You’re there. I know you have to work, but at least we’d be living in the same house. Unless you don’t want me anymore.”

My breath got caught in my lungs. “What? No. That’s not it at all, baby.”

I pulled her back to me, my heart breaking all over again. Have I really been such a bad father that my own kid thinks I don’t want her?

Holding her tighter and closer than I had since she’d been a baby I’d been afraid to drop, I kissed the top of her hair and shook my head. “None of this is because I don’t want you, Lulu. I love you more than anything in the world. More than work. More than myself.”

“But you’re sending me to boarding school,” she whispered tearfully, so sad and unhappy that it killed me. “Why did you agree to send me if you still want me?”

“I don’t want you to go, honey. I never have. Not to London and not to boarding school, but your mom insisted and I really didn’t think it would affect you so badly. I checked out the school and it looked great. I even thought you’d enjoy it. The experience. The accents. The different people.”

“For a vacation maybe,” she murmured. “Not to live there. I don’t want to live there, Daddy. I don’t want to leave you or New York, and I promise I won’t give you a hard time about working so much. You won’t even know I’m there. I’ll be good. I promise.”

Fuck. FUCK.

Pain unlike anything I’d ever felt tore through me, leaving me breathless and devastated in its wake. I pulled away from her, sliding my hands to her shoulders and dipping my head to look directly into her wet eyes.

“None of this has been your fault, Lulu. I’m not just saying that. It’s the complete truth. I didn’t agree for you to go with your mom because you’ve been bad. You don’t have to promise me that I won’t even know you’re there. I want you there, baby. I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry for ever making you think differently. I’m going to talk to your mom, okay? We’ll work it out.”

“We will?” she asked, her voice small and not confident at all.

But that was okay because I was confident enough for the both of us. I’d failed her enough. I wouldn’t do it again.

“If you want to go to Juilliard, then I want you to go. I want you to live with me, to be with your friends, and to be happy. Though, I wouldn’t be opposed to you making more friends like Cassidy rather than those girls you’ve got now, but we’ll get there when we get there. For now, we just need to focus on keeping you in the States first.”

She threw her arms around me, hugging me for a long moment and even crawling into my lap. My heart raced in my chest as I stroked her hair, thanking God that she was alright and that I’d actually listened to her before it was too late.

A twig cracked behind us and I lifted my head to see Birdie coming up to us. She wore an apologetic smile as she inclined her head toward the mountain. “The sun is going to be disappearing behind it any minute now. We should get going before we get caught out here in the dark.”

“Birdie?” Laurene asked, realizing that she and I weren’t alone. As she looked over my shoulder and saw who was with us, she jumped out of my lap and ran over to her, embracing her in a big hug and starting to cry again.

Birdie held her, murmuring things I couldn’t hear, but she looked at me while she said it. Then she pulled away and took Laurene’s hand. “We can keep talking for as long as you want once we get back, but we really do need to get going.”

Lulu nodded and walked with her, but it didn’t take me long to realize she was exhausted. So was I, but I could do something about her exhaustion. I caught up to them and presented her with my back. “Come on, kiddo. Hop up. I’ll carry you home.”