AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“This kid went so far as to forge a rejection letter from NIA to get her to stay with him in Detroit. He’s obsessed!”
“Can you confirm all this, Ms. Shane?” the cop asks as he looks up from his notepad, his eyebrows raised at me.
I feel a cold sensation shoot down my throat to the pit of my stomach as my mouth falls open.
“It’s Isaak,” my dad puffs out, still continuing to speak for me, and carrying on with his pacing.
“Her license says Shane,” the officer points out.
Just as dad tilts his head up with his brow pinched at the officer, I intervene before he can say anymore.
“Officer? Could you give us a couple of moments, please?” I ask, my eyes pleading. I know he has to finish getting my statement, but I need just a moment for dad to hear this from me.
The cop stares at me a moment before hesitantly nodding. “Okay, but not too long,” he concedes, shifting his weight backward before turning and ambling out the door and my dad turns his face to mine, his expression unreadable.
“Dad…” I start, while a hummingbird furiously beats his wings in my ribcage. There’s no easy way to say this, and it’s torture on my already battered spirit to draw it out, so I just say it. “I married Kaleb.”
He stares hard at me for a moment, and it makes me flash back briefly to the few times I got in trouble as a kid. I feel scrutinized under that stare as he searches my face for signs of what, I don’t know. “What do you mean? What are you talking about, Luna?” He fires off both questions, blinking rapidly.
I let out a shuddery sigh, trying not to let my hands shake. “Before he deployed, Kaleb and I got married.”
“Before he deployed?” Dad leans his head forward as if he didn’t hear me right. “That was several months ago and you had just started dating, what do you mean you married him?” There’s no surprise to him that Kaleb and I found each other again and fell in love, as we chat often, but I’m giving him the story in small pieces so that he can wrap his head around each one.
“He needed someone the Army could contact in case something happened to him, Dad,” I explain gently, “otherwise they were going to contact his father, and I’ve told you what a bad person he is. He just wanted his home to be okay in case something happened.”
“Luna,” my dad sighs, and I can see his hands clenching on his hips as he shakes his head. “I can’t believe you’d do this – marry someone so quickly when you’re both so young…” he trails off as he stares off towards the far wall. He clearly doesn’t know what to make of this. It hasn’t sunk in deep enough for him to process.
“I love him,” I say quietly, “and I’d do anything for him. He had no one, Dad.”
My father lets out a rattling breath before bringing his hands to scrub up and down his face before pulling them into prayer position.
“We also thought my having a different last name would help with the Carter situation.” I inwardly cringe at the asshole’s name.
“And you’ve been married all this time,” he grumbles out. Not once during this bombshell has he raised his voice. I actually wish he would lay into me instead of the disappointment his low tone is conveying. “My twenty-one-year-old daughter has been married this whole time. You didn’t tell me or your mother,” he finishes with a solemn look at me.
“We wanted to give you guys some time to get used to us being together,” I mumble while staring down at my lap. “We thought that would be easier on everyone,” I finish and lift an uncomfortable shoulder.
And fat lot of good the name change did me when my studio’s lease is in my maiden name. I’m sure that’s how that despicable shit found me. If I’d just gone home instead of there…
Fortunately, a tap of knuckles on the open door keeps me from falling too far down that rabbit hole.
“I’m afraid I need to finish getting your statement, Ms. Shane,” the officer’s voice rumbles, but he gives me a tenderly regretful look before I look to my dad to check in.
His hands have found his hips again, and his shoulders rise with the deep breath he pulls in. “We’re going to talk about that at another time,” he informs me, referring to my eloping with Kaleb. “I’m going to need some time to get my head around it anyway.” His lips press together as I nod like an obedient kid. “Right now, let’s focus on getting you better and making sure Carter gets his ass tossed in a jail cell,” he sighs before coming over to sit in the chair by my bed. It’s like his way of stating he’s shoved this conversation in its own compartment and is focusing on the matter at hand, leaning in close with his arm on the bed rail. My dad is giving me one hundred percent of his support right now as I confirm and clarify everything for the officer.
Dad lays a hand on my shoulder and gives it a squeeze as I recount every excruciating detail. When he’s confident he got everything, the officer gives me his card, as well as that of the detective assigned to the case.
“Is mom okay?” I ask my dad after the cop takes his leave.
He takes in a breath to answer, just as I hear his phone ping and he reaches in his pocket, pulling it out and looking at the screen. “Your mother is a damn wreck,” he reports, holding the phone up to indicate this isn’t the first text he’s gotten from her. “You don’t know what it took to convince her to stay home. You’re her baby girl, and she doesn’t like that you worry about what this would do to her. In the end, I explained that Matthew shouldn’t see you like this, and since I’m the one with the medical license, I should be the one to be here.” He exhales, gripping the bridge of his nose and then scrubbing his palm over his forehead.
I drop my head, feeling immense shame. Noticing my phone that’s charging in the bed next to me, I distract myself by picking it up to examine it, and though the screen has a nasty crack in it, it seems to be charging and functioning okay. I look back up at him. “Dad, I know you have to tell Mom everything, but I was wondering if maybe you guys could… not tell Matty?” I ask cautiously. My brother’s so young and I feel the need to shield him from the evils of the world, futile as it may be. “At the very least, I just don’t want him worrying about me. He should just get to be a kid.”
My dad’s eyes dart around slightly as he turns the thought over his head, and then he nods. “Yeah… we can do that.”
“Thank you.” The words seep out on the breath I was holding just as my phone rings next to me, startling me. I pick it up and squint at the screen. It’s hard to decipher who’s calling as it’s a number I don’t recognize, and the big-ass crack doesn’t help.
“That better not be that piece of shit trying to call you!” My dad’s words come out between teeth clenched so hard, you’d think his jaw has been wired shut.
