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I wish it had been mediocre for me.
“I hate knowing you’re so heartbroken,” Elise says.
“Yeah, well, I hate being heartbroken. In fact, tell me something happy so I don’t think about my own problems for five minutes.”
“I passed my GRE and will officially be pursuing grad school.”
“What?! No way! I’m so proud of you!”
“Thanks. I was super nervous about it, and now I’m just glad that part’s over. I hate tests.”
“I know you do.” Elise has massive testing anxiety, and she’s had to fight hard to overcome it so she can pursue her dream of becoming a veterinarian.
“Any other news I should be aware of?” I ask her.
“Um…”
“What? What is it?”
“I’m looking for Dad.”
I swear my jaw drops to the floor. “What?”
She huffs out an exasperated sigh. I’m guessing she’s already talked to Mom or Lainey about this too and is expecting me to tell her that it has bad idea written all over it, like I’m sure they have. “I want to know, okay? I want to know what happened to him. Where he went. What he’s been doing for the past twenty-two years.”
No, she wants to know why he left us. And I can’t blame her. It’s the reason I reached out to him so long ago, and I can’t lie and say the thought hasn’t crossed my mind to try again now that I’m in therapy.
Lainey, Will, and I have all mostly moved on. Well, apart from our apparent abandonment issues. But we gave up on trying to find him or even bothering to think much about him at all after he contacted Will when he was drafted to the NFL. Will knows more about what he was doing with his life at that point, but Lainey and I didn’t want to know. The fact he came out of the rock he crawled under just to tie himself to Will’s fame disgusted us.
“What did Mom say when you talked to her about this?”
“That it was a bad idea and he wasn’t a good guy, which is kind of obvious. If he was a good guy, he wouldn’t have left his wife with four kids under seven years old. But I need to know.”
“I get it.”
“Don’t try to—wait, did you say you get it?”
“Yeah.”
She lets out a breath. “Wow, I thought you were going to try to talk me out of it like Mom and Lainey did.”
“Nope. Have you had any luck finding him?”
“Not yet. I just started my search. Do you want to know if I find him?”
I shouldn’t because I know in my gut that it’s likely nothing good will come from that conversation, but what if he can finally give me some of the answers I need to get closure?
“Yeah, I think I do.”
“Okay. I’ll keep you posted.”
We hang up shortly after, but instead of feeling settled and calm like I normally do after talking to my sister, my chest feels tight like it’s hard to breathe. I can’t tell which part of our conversation is bothering me more—the part where she’s trying to find our deadbeat dad, or the part where she told me I should talk to Trent. Everyone in my family thinks I should talk to Trent. Well, everyone except Will. I never told him what happened between us. He’s got his own shit to deal with. I didn’t want to put my crap on him too.
The problem is I’m a coward.
I always thought I was brave and fierce, but these past few months have shown me how not brave I really am. I’m too chicken to talk to Trent. I’m afraid he’ll tell me he still only wants to be friends. I’m afraid he’ll tell me he loves me. I’m afraid he’ll tell me he never wants to talk to me again.
I’m just…afraid of it all.
