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“I’m tired of sleeping.” Then he glances in my direction with a harsh expression. “Besides, you’re one to talk. You look like you could use some sleep yourself.”
“Ouch.”
“Why are you sitting around here taking care of me? We’ve hardly seen you all summer and now you won’t leave.”
“You just had surgery and you scared the shit out of me. Is it so bad that I want to make sure you’re okay and spend some time with you?”
“I’m fine,” he says with a roll of his eyes. “Stop hanging around here. Go to the beach or go hang out with Garrett.”
His name instantly makes me clam up.
“Oh, you two are fighting, aren’t you?” he asks, obviously noticing the way my mood sours at the mention of his name.
“Yeah,” I reply.
“What did he do this time?”
I don’t look at my dad as I chew on my lower lip. I can’t even scratch the surface of this conversation, without it getting very awkward and inappropriate. So I stay quiet.
“Laura told me what happened when I was in surgery.”
My head snaps up as I stare at him. “What happened?”
“She said you called him, which in itself is a surprise. But then she said you two hardly separated for hours while you waited.”
I have to force myself to swallow down the uncomfortable lump building in my throat. “We were just scared.”
“Yeah…” he replies, not sounding too convinced.
“Later that night, he came back to the hospital and told his mother everything. He told her it was serious. That he was nervous how everyone would react, but that he loved you.”
What? He said that?
“Dad—" It’s on the tip of my tongue to deny it or to apologize, but I don’t exactly know why.
He holds up his hand to stop me. “I don’t need details, but I also don’t want you to lie about it.”
“Are you mad?”
“A little…but you’re twenty-three. And I didn’t raise a girl who couldn’t stand up for herself. I know if he does ever hurt you, you’ll give him hell.”
My chest aches with the reminder that he did, in fact, hurt me. A self-fulfilled prophecy since Garrett did, in some sense, try to warn me.
“I don’t know what to say…”
“Tell me why you’re here and not with him,” he says with a furrowed brow.
“Because he fucked it up already—sorry,” I stammer, covering my mouth after cussing at my dad. He just laughs but immediately winces from the pain.
“Hmm…” he replies, and I wait for him to continue. “Is it something you can forgive him for? Something you can work out?”
“I don’t know. He humiliated me.”
My dad laughs again, but cuts it short when he realizes he can’t even chuckle without paying for it.
“Will you stop it?” I say, jumping up to tend to him. “If you pop a stitch, Laura is going to kill you.”
“Well, come on. That’s funny.”
