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Kane had taken my refusal as a slight against him. A lack of openness and trust.
Whatever semblance of a relationship we had might be beyond repair, but I wasn’t going to give up. We didn’t have to co-parent. Penelope was grown. But I fully expected Kane to be a fixture in both of our lives. A prominent and permanent one.
The longer I didn’t speak, the more tense he became.
I placed a hand on his chest. His heartbeat was steady and sure.
“You’re an anchor,” I whispered.
The revelation was powerful. All these years, I’d pushed away the very person who could’ve tethered me.
“What?”
“You’re always so calm, so sure, so confident,” I said into his chest.
“Did I sound any of those things a few minutes ago on the phone with Penelope?”
“You did.” I kissed his cheek. “You’re a great father.”
He scowled, and I hated we were in this place. If Alma wouldn’t have lied, he’d have had twenty-one years to see just how true that was.
Instead, I’d only reminded him of what he’d lost.
Even though he couldn’t stand me, he still held me. Still had the instinct to protect and shield. Still was curious to know what had me so terrified of storms.
“I went out on a sailboat with a friend.” My voice trembled as I remembered how sunny it was when we left the dock. “I-I didn’t want to go, but I did want to too. Does that make sense?”
“I get it,” he rumbled.
Somehow I felt relief that I didn’t have to explain, even though I wanted to. “I went on a boat sometimes with Daddy or my family. I was so tired of always being scared. Of being left out of the fun.” I blinked up at him. “I wanted to be brave, and Tyler was my best friend other than Alma. I trusted him.”
He stiffened. Would he always have that reaction when it came to my sister?
“Who else was on this boat?” His words were clipped.
“No one. He’d been sailing all his life. The boat was massive. His father’s. He knew how to handle it.”
Tyler always had stories of weekend and summer sailing. He did it competitively too. It hurt that the images of his happy face were fuzzy. That the details that were so prominent were the ones of horror. Those never went away.
I drew in a deep breath and released it. “I didn’t tell anyone where I was going.”
“That seems unlike you.”
I found it comforting that Kane would know that about me, despite how we were still mostly strangers.
“Everyone had gone shopping and out for lunch.” Why could I remember that? Why could I still picture them pouring out the front door of the house and piling into Daddy’s car? “Not long after they left, Tyler came by, and I decided to be adventurous.”
“This Tyler was more to you than a friend.” There was absolutely zero gentleness in Kane’s tone.
“Maybe.” Fingers dug into my side. “But we’d been friends my whole life. I never really thought about our relationship beyond what it was. He never made any moves either.” I dropped my chin to my chest. “Actually, I assumed he was interested in Alma. Not me.”
“No one with any sense would choose her over you.”
I made a face. “You’re jaded . . . and rightly so.”
“If this Tyler asked you to go sailing, he wasn’t interested in her.”
It was irrelevant now. And since Alma had been born, I’d been in her shadow, always overlooked because of her beauty and charisma. Except by Daddy and my grandparents. I’d never really minded anyway. Attention wasn’t something I craved or needed. I preferred to be unnoticeable.
