Total pages in book: 111
Estimated words: 107077 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 535(@200wpm)___ 428(@250wpm)___ 357(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 107077 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 535(@200wpm)___ 428(@250wpm)___ 357(@300wpm)
He drops his voice before asking, “When was the last time he reached out?”
Years.
Four, to be exact.
I haven’t heard a peep from him since the child support payments stopped the day I turned eighteen. Not that he was an actual presence in my life leading up to that. The most I’d get was a card in the mail on my birthday or maybe a small gift sent to the house at Christmas.
Other than that, nada.
“Not for a while,” I mutter.
His fingers rise to stroke his chin. “I wonder what he wants. Don’t you think it’s kind of strange that he just showed up out of the blue?”
Yeah, it is. He was nowhere to be found when I actually needed him. So…no. He doesn’t get to slide into my life now that I’m an adult and graduating from college this spring.
When I remain silent, lost in the chaotic whirl of my thoughts, he says, “He spoke with Má for a couple of minutes. I’m pretty sure she has his number.”
“Tell her to throw it into the trash where it belongs.”
He gives me a sympathetic smile before opening his arms. “Need a hug?”
Under normal circumstances?
No way. I’m not a touchy-feely kind of person. I like my space.
Although, after hearing that my biological father has popped up and is now attempting to track me down?
Maybe I do.
He grins when I step into his embrace. Before I know it, his arms are locked around me in a bearhug and he’s lifting me off the ground.
“Damn. You need to add a little bit of weight, cuz. You’re way too skinny.”
“Thanks, I’ll take it under advisement,” I say dryly.
“Don’t you know that men like chicks with a little meat on their bones?”
When he finally sets me back on my feet, I draw away enough to glare. “Men are the least of my concerns.”
“Maybe that’s part of the problem,” he jokes. “You know my friend Eric?” When I nod, he continues. “He was in last week and you waited on him. Anyway, he thinks you’re pretty hot and wants to take you out.”
I narrow my eyes as my mind conjures up a mental image. “Umm…isn’t he still in high school?”
His shoulders shake as he flashes a grin. “Yup. Is that a problem? He happens to like older women.”
I roll my eyes. “Is the dude even eighteen?”
“Next month.”
No, thanks.
Before he can say anything more on the subject, I rise onto my tiptoes and brush a quick kiss across his cheek. “I need to get moving. I’ve got a ton of homework to get through tonight.”
“All right.”
As I walk past the hostess stand toward the entrance, he calls out, “I’ll tell Eric that you’re considering it.”
Even though I shake my head, I don’t bother with a response. I know my cousin well enough to realize that it’ll fall on deaf ears. He’s probably texting his friend at this very moment that I’m interested and then I’ll have to deal with that situation on top of everything else.
Pushing my way through the glass door into the chilly night air, I try to shove all thoughts of Tony from my head. Most of the time, that’s easy enough to do. I barely think about the guy. He took off when I was six years old.
My mind tumbles back to the day he packed up his bags. With a pounding heart, I sat silently on the bed in their room with tears filling my eyes and watched as he folded up every piece of clothing before neatly stacking it inside the suitcase. After wheeling his luggage to the front door, he hunkered down in front of me and said he’d come by as often as he could to visit, and that nothing would change.
That was a lie.
One of many.
Everything in my life changed that day.
He stopped by half a dozen times before eventually disappearing from my life. When I was a kid, I couldn’t understand why he walked away. It took years to realize that my mother struggled with mental health issues. Bipolar depression, specifically. Every day was a veritable rollercoaster of emotions with high highs and low lows. Some days were good, and I could trick myself into believing everything was fine. Others were the opposite, and she wouldn’t leave her bed, talk, or eat. It was like she was an empty shell of a human being. Those were the scariest times, because I was never sure if she’d snap out of it.
Before Tony took off, I was shielded from the reality of who she was. He was always there to get me up in the morning. He fed me breakfast, took me to school, picked me up at the bus stop at four o’clock, helped with the worksheets I came home with, and prepared dinners. Maybe I ate too much macaroni and hot dogs, but at least it was warm and somewhat nutritious.