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I still love my daddy.
Of course I do.
Inside, I'm still his little girl who he taught to ride a bike, throw a ball and make mud pies in the backyard even when he knew it would make Mama mad. I'm still his little girl who'd fall asleep when he read me bedtime stories and cry for him when I had bad dreams. I'm still very much his daughter.
The hurt he caused me doesn't change that, even if this is the first time I've realized it.
Before, I think I found it so hard to mourn him because I thought I had to pick a side. It was either love or hate, and I could never work out which side of the fence I fell on. I realize now that that’s simply not how grief works.
He's my father and for that, I will always love him. I will always be grateful for the childhood I had and the moments of love he gave me until the day that everything changed.
I don't hate him.
I just hate what he did.
The realization brings with it a sort of epiphany, a divine restoration of all the broken parts of my soul. For so long, I've been clinging to the wrong things. Hatred, resentment and blame. When all along, I should have been reaching for forgiveness instead.
“I just want you to know that you were wrong,” I begin, my voice stronger now, my conviction reaffirmed. “What happened that day in Geoff Hammerstein's office was sexual assault. It wasn't me seducing him, or trying to trick him into touching me, or doing anything at all to invite his unwelcome attention. It was sexual assault.”
Tears burn in my eyes and I don't even try to stop them from falling. I just let them run down my face as I talk, drenching my cheeks and splashing into my mouth.
“It wasn't just me either, Daddy. There were dozens of women who came forward. He'd been doing this for years, tricking young girls into sending him explicit photographs so that he could use them as blackmail to abuse them. And you know what? It wasn't any of our faults that he did what he did to us, we didn't ask for it or make him think it was okay. He knew what he was doing. Because he was a sex offender. Twelve jurors found him guilty of it.”
I take a deep breath, my chest feeling lighter with every word. Around me, the summer breeze rustles through the greenery, sweeping the smell of fresh flowers that are laid out on graves into the air.
“I wish you'd been the father I needed you to be in that moment. I wish you'd listened and understood, wish you'd told me that everything was going to be okay. I wish that you'd continued to be the man I always held up on a pedestal. I wish you'd been able to stay up there until the day death came for you. But wishing doesn't get me anywhere.”
Sobbing now, I run my hands through my hair and tilt my head back to look into the sky, wondering what Dad would say if he was really listening. Would he wrap his arms around me and tell me how sorry he is? I'd like to think so. Because despite the things he said that day, I know that deep down he was a good man. He did something bad, but that doesn't have to mean that he was a bad person through and through. He was human, just as I am.
“The sad fact of life is that we all inevitably fuck up in some way, at some point. Because none of us are perfect and we all do shit to hurt the people we love sometimes, even when it's the very last thing we want to do. Truth is, I've fucked up too. I fucked up so bad that the man I love couldn't stand to be with me anymore for all the pain I was causing him. I let what happened with Geoff and then you tarnish the way I saw him. I treated him as if he'd already wronged me somehow and thought him capable of things he could never be. The fact of the matter is, I didn't trust him when I should have. And it meant that I lost the very best thing that's ever happened to me.”
My thoughts drift to Cole and how devastated he sounded during our last conversation together when he ended things between us. My heart aches with regret for being the person to cause him that pain. I still remember what it sounded like to hear him cry. It has haunted every moment of quietness I've had since the very day it happened.
“I guess what I'm trying to say, Dad, is that I forgive you.” The words feel like the first breath after being underwater for too long. They are air, they are peace, they are salvation. “I love you. I miss you. And I forgive you.”
Placing a kiss to the headstone, I stand on steady legs and dust the mulch off the back of my skirt. Then, I pick up the beer I brought with me, clink it against the stone and take a drink.
“Cheers, Daddy. I hope you've found some peace of your own wherever you are.”
With one last lingering look at his grave, I turn around.
And freeze.
There's someone standing a few meters away, watching me through dark eyes that glimmer golden in the sunlight. His hair is messy and longer than the last time I saw him, his stubble unkempt like he hasn't shaved in a week. With his hands shoved into the pockets of his shorts, he nods his head in greeting and takes one single step toward me.
“Cole.”
“Cole,”she breathes my name and the whispery sound of her surprise catches in the summer air. And fuck, it's better than any music I've listened to since the last time we spoke.
I'm stunned at the sight of her. Struck into silence by just being in her presence, my breathing coming undone. I thought I was prepared to see her again after Leighton left me a message telling me to get myself down to the cemetery. I thought I was ready to come face to face with the woman who owns my heart, even if she has broken it twice. But I guess nothing could prepare me for what it would actually feel like to see her again.
Her hair falls in perfect crimson curls past her shoulders, licking at the waistband of her flowy white skirt. Her legs are bare and cream-colored despite the strength of the sunrays and her eyes sparkle the same iridescent shade of green as the frondescence around us.
I take a step forward, compelled by some bigger force to be closer to her. I hear the hitch of her breath and rejoice in the sound of it, knowing she's as affected as I am.
Another step brings another hitched breath. Another brings another and so on, until I'm standing right in front of her.
The moment I'm in her space, the world around us dissolves into nothingness. It's just me and her. Cole and Thea. The small-town mechanic and the Hollywood actress. Fated from the start, yet doomed to fail. Or at least, that's what I'd thought until just now, when I heard her talking to her father's grave.
