AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Marcus sighs heavily, and he says that he knows. The tone of his voice makes me wary.
“You know?” I frown. “How could you know?”
He starts pacing the floor, and suddenly I’m anxious. I haven’t seen my father look like this before. He runs his hand through his hair, and a thin sheen of sweat appears on his forehead. “Listen, honey; I haven’t been entirely honest with you, either.”
I’m not even sure what to expect, mainly because my dad has never kept a secret from me before. I mean, I’m sure there’s stuff he keeps to himself, but if it’s something important to both of our lives, he’s always been open. Of course, so have I before I got involved with Holy.
“The hospital staff wanted to call the police. I think on me more than anything because the nurse saw me throw the first punch,” he says with a wince. “But I was urging them to do it for a different reason. I wanted to see him handcuffed and thrown in the back of a police car. I was angry, Dani, so, so angry. Then my phone rang.”
He pauses, and the silence is eerie. I can hear the tick-tock of the analog clock on the wall. I can hear my own breathing. I can hear my heartbeat making small little beeping sounds from the machine I’m hooked up to.
“Rose called,” Marcus adds after a few moments. “She wanted to make sure that you were okay. That,” he pauses, pursing his lips together, “she wanted to make sure thatIwas okay.”
Maybe it’s the anesthesia I was under, but I’m not picking up what he’s putting down. “Rose called you,” I repeat, and he nods his head yes. “To make sureIwas okay.” Again, he nods. “To make sureyouwere okay?” Marcus takes a deep breath and then nods again. Even though I repeat what he said, “I don’t understand.”
He walks up to the end of the bed and places his hands on the hard plastic surface. I watch as his knuckles lose all color when he squeezes the footboard. “Rose told me everything about you and Howard. She told me about when you got together and how much you care about one another. She made it abundantly clear that nothing illegalactuallytook place. But I was startled and upset, so upset that I hung up on her.”
I can’t understand why Rose would tell my father anything. I knew she had his number and vice versa. My dad has had Cameron, Esther, and Rosemary’s numbers for years. In the event that he couldn’t get ahold of me, he had their numbers so he could track me down through them.
Marcus goes on. “I was ready to have Howard thrown behind bars for what he did. But then Rose called back and told me that I was being a hypocrite.” His grip on the edge of the bed loosens just a tad. “Because I’ve been dating Rose since Thanksgiving.”
Suddenly I understand why my father hauled off and clocked Holy. I kind of feel like rising from the bed and doing the same to him. And my best friend. “You’ve beenwhat?”
“So you see,” he dodges my question, “I couldn’t call the cops on Howard because I might as well call them on myself. Rose isn’t pregnant,” Marcus eyes my stomach, “but we have, well, we’ve been intimate,” he says with a blush.
All these months of worrying about what my father would say about Holy and I being together and for what? For him to tell me that he’s just as guilty as Holy? For him to throw in the towel on being an ass because he and Holy have a penchant for high school girls?
“Rose didn’t turn eighteen until December,” I point out.
He throws his hands in the air and takes a step back. “I didn’t touch her until she turned eighteen. Before that, we were only talking. I swear.”
I can’t believe my best friend didn’t tell me she was dating my father. I thought we were closer than that. “Did you go out with her in September?” I remember when Holy and I went on our first date, he was on a date that night, too. And he wouldn’t tell me who he was with.
“No,” Marcus replies solemnly. “I went out with your dance teacher, Miss Rae. But we didn’t have much in common, and it ended there.”
Oh, my God. That woman doesn’t quit. First, she flirts with Holy, and then she goes after my father?
But I get it. They’re both attractive men. Holy makes me feel like if the apocalypse came, he would save me from being eaten by a zombie. And my father is a very stable man who is comfortable in his place in life. They’re good men, and they deserve good women, which brings me back to my best friend, who is one of the greatest women that I know.
Rose and I have been best friends since we were twelve. We’ve told each other our deepest, darkest secrets, or at least, I thought we did. I may have told her about Holy, but she hid her love for my father from me. I can’t be upset about that, though. She also saved my father from making a terrible mistake. She saved him from firing the man I love and getting him arrested.
“I want to talk to Rose,” I decide.
“Not Howard?” He asks.
I almost forgot about my boyfriend. There’s so much that I need to address with everyone in my life that I don’t know where to start. “Holy first,” I say after a moment. “But then I want to talk to Rose.”
My father goes to make the arrangements. I’m surrounded by the whir of medical machines and my thoughts. I’m angry that my best friend and my father would hide something like this from me. But I’m also glad that their forbidden relationship saved mine. I have mixed feelings, and I’m not quite sure what to do. I sit with them and wait for the love of my life to be brought to me, wondering if, perhaps, he might have the answers.
When Holy arrives, he has an arm slung around my father’s neck. Now that I know the two of them fought, I can make out my father’s swollen nose. But Holy’s injuries could be from the car crash or the fight; I’m not sure which.
A tear slides down Holy’s face as he walks over to my side of the bed, leaning down to press his lips to my forehead. “Baby,” he whispers, “you’re okay.”
I feel dead inside. Between the surgery, the accident, and the truths that came out because of both, I am ready to sleep for a week. But I press my forehead to Holy’s and revel in our closeness. I wish I could wrap my arms around him, but it hurts to move. “I’m okay, and so is our baby. The doctor said if we can make it another five weeks, we’ll be in good shape.” I’ll be thirty-two weeks along then. Our baby’s chances of survival will skyrocket if he stays in the womb for a few weeks longer.
Holy reaches out with his casted hand to touch the swell of my stomach. “Five weeks, huh? You just gotta make it to graduation,” he jokes.
We’ve said those words before, but back then, we were talking about keeping this secret from my father. Now Marcus knows everything, but graduation is still the finish line. “It’s going to be okay,” I tell him.
