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“Where are you?” My dad’s gruff voice came through. I gritted my teeth. My dad never cared about where I was as long as I showed up where I needed to be. And I didn’t need to be anywhere until later this week.
“I’m at Seth’s.”
“Be home for dinner tonight. We have to discuss a few things.” Then he hung up. I stared at the screen, looking at the end time. Sixteen seconds. Not the shortest phone conversation I’d had with the man, but also not too far off from the longest.
“He could have texted me,” I grumbled.
There was a soft knock on the door, and then Paxon was peeking into the room.
“What?”
“What was that about?” he asked, leaning against the doorframe.
I wanted to pretend I had no idea what he was talking about, but instead, I sat up and glared at Paxon. “You can’t tell me you’re okay with Justin being around that bastard?”
“I’m not, but it isn’t our decision either.”
“He’s going to get hurt,” I snapped out. “And then we’ll be back where we started.”
Paxon’s arms dropped to his side, and he stepped into the room. “Is that what you’re scared about?”
“Tell me you aren’t.”
Paxon’s lips pressed tightly together.
“Exactly.”
We had almost lost Justin, and it was like no one remembered. It had taken Justin a full week to even say a word after he woke up in the hospital. And it took even longer to get him to laugh again. Now he was going to be around that man.
“We know better now,” Paxon said. “We know what to do to help Justin. And the man is dying. He can’t touch Justin.”
“You know he doesn’t need to lay a hand on Justin to hurt him.”
Paxon’s uncertainty finally cracked through his expression.
“You agree with me, don’t you?” I asked, starting to feel a bit lost. If I was the only one voicing how wrong something was, did that mean I was the one wrong?
Paxon ran his hand through his hair as he stared off into space. “I do,” he finally said. “I don’t like the idea of Justin being around his dad.”
“Then we should talk to Justin. Make him listen to us.”
Paxon came over and sat with me on the bed. “I talked to my dad about it because I wanted to understand Justin’s reasoning.”
“And he said Justin was being stupid, right?”
Paxon raised an eyebrow. “Have you ever heard my dad call anyone stupid?”
I snorted and shook my head.
“He asked me how I’d feel about my mom being in hospice care and I think I got it. I think I understood. Well, not quite like what Justin is probably thinking, but I felt remorse. Fear. Lost. If I didn’t go see my mom while she was in the hospital dying, I think after she passed, I’d be very angry.” Paxon sighed. “It’d feel too much like watching a tied soccer match in the last few seconds of the game and my team is kicking for a goal, but then the power cuts off and I’m left never knowing what happened.”
“That is…” I pressed my lips together. He’d probably not appreciate my lack of appreciation for his analogy.
Paxon snorted. “Stupid, I know. But it’s about endings. It’s about seeing the ending. The relief of knowing how it ends, good or bad. For a long time, Justin has been forced to live in uncertainty when it came to his dad. If that man was ever released from jail, even when Justin has already become an adult, what would that mean for Justin? And now he’s being told that his dad is about to permanently be out of his life, an ending he never imagined. He wants to see it until the end. I can’t fault him for that.”
“That man is going to hurt Justin.”
“We won’t let it. We’ll support him.”
