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His hands are bone-white on the wheel, clenching it tight, his head stooped.
“Oh, Christ! Don’t tell me you’re having second thoughts?Now?” Evie glares at him and whips her head from side to side. “Well? Will you fucking man up and get this done? You’re not helping her if you sit here and dillydally. We owe our daughter that much, don’t we? She’s all we’ve got left...”
Oh my God.
The way she’s written off Chris for dead sends bile up my throat. There’s not even a tremor of sadness in her voice. More like irritation.
Dad turns slowly and rakes her with an unsure look.
“Let’s not talk about that now,” he says with a sigh. “I just need a minute.”
Evie rakes her file over her nails so loudly I wince.
When I look up again, I see Dad’s eyes glued to mine in the mirror.
Um, are we having a moment?
I guess I get why he’s doing this, though.
He’s coping.
Coping with a marriage mistake on life support, with a stepson who may never come home, with a daughter he’d do anything to put back together again.
He just doesn’t know how.
And so, the witch next to him took the wheel.
I wonder if he’s beginning to understand Chris and me, our love shining through the dense, twisted wreckage of everything else.
Go ahead and check me in. I won’t blame you, Dad,I think to myself, trying to telepathically beam him the message.
I fiddle with my seat belt.
The sound must irritate Evie, who starts thumping her overdone fingernails on the door next to her, tapping harshly in time to the rain pelting the vehicle’s roof.
“Do you mind?” Dad growls. “This is stressful enough.”
“Oh?” She actually sounds surprised until that familiar, lemon-sucking smirk appears. “Poor baby. I’ll fix you a drink and put you down for a nap once we’re home. Let’s just get through this. You know it’s long overdue. If we’d just had her checked out before Chris went gallivanting off to his suicide, we wouldn’t even be here.”
I keep waiting.
Praying Dad boils over, if only for his own sake. I can’t stand watching him just sitting here and taking this crap.
But I also don’t have the energy to stay mad at this awful woman, and I’m holding up the show.
Isn’t it better to just get this over with?
Tearing off my seat belt, I pop the door open before anyone can speak, heading outside into the steady, chilling rain.
Dad turns off the car and runs after me, his footsteps splashing through the puddles.
“Cordelia, wait!” He takes me by the hand the second he’s caught up. “Hold up. I can’t let you do this. I thought it was the right choice—the only choice—but now...”
A rough sound chokes him off.
I freeze, feeling my face heat as Dad hugs me so tight.
The wetness splashing my forehead isn’t just the rain. There’s a drop of something hotter on my skin.
