“Well?” I ask between clenched teeth.
“I have a big folder of your artwork, and I was showing it to Kim. She loved this and wanted to frame it and show it off in our front hallway.”
“But I threw this away,” I say quietly, glancing at him out of the side of my eye.
“Liam,” Dad says.
I turn to him and he’s not looking at my face. That’s good, because I don’t want him to see me like this, and I sure as hell don’t want to look in his eyes while he lies to me.
“I threw this away, Dad. What is it doing on your wall?”
He takes in a deep breath and lets it go. “I saved it from your trash can. It was too beautiful to throw away.”
I blink, confused. Not because he dug it out of the trash, but because I’m not sure how I feel. That hurt and anger are back, fresh as ever, resentment toward a mother who never cared enough. Those feelings are mixed with frustration and also admiration toward a father who cared almost too much.
“Does it bother you?” Dad’s question interrupts my jumbled thoughts. “Kim really loved it. In fact, she loves all of your art.”
My stepmother loves what my mother never saw. Never cared to see. I take a deep breath, and suddenly Dad’s hand is on my shoulder. “Liam.”
I stiffen. “I gotta go. I’m already thirty-eight minutes off my schedule.”
His hand slides off. “Okay, son. Love you.”
This time I don’t recite the words back to him like I usually do. Instead, I say, “Goodbye.”
As I go about my workout routine—putting extra vigor into it to make up for the lost time and as an escape vent for these confusing feelings—I think about the things that have happened today. Specifically, Adam’s words about forgiveness and letting go. Later that night when Dad texts to ask me if I’m okay, I answer that I am and that he should keep the picture hanging on the wall.
Chapter 9
Jenna
Early on Saturday morning, I made it to the cemetery as promised. Alex was kind enough to lend me her car, but because I didn’t want to leave her stranded at home all day, I left at the asscrack of dawn.
I didn’t have money for a professional bouquet, so I’d spent some time on a sunset walk the night before picking wildflowers along the side of the road. As I did so, I indulged in memories I usually preferred to keep buried…our first date, our first kiss. The time he spent all his savings from his part-time job at the pizza shop to take me out on a special date and buy me a necklace for our anniversary. I still had that necklace, though the clasp had broken and I couldn’t wear it anymore.
I’d tied up the wildflowers with a pretty ribbon and took them with me to Brock’s grave. There, I removed the wilted bouquet that Helena had set there the week before and replaced it with my fresh bundle.
I passed an hour in quiet contemplation before speaking out loud. Sometimes I did this—and not just when I was at his graveside. If anyone ever overheard me, they’d think I was insane for talking to my dead boyfriend. But I liked to think that, wherever he was, he could hear me. That he could still feel our connection the way I felt it. That he’d know that I missed him.
Indulging myself in self-pity, I cursed what a rotten fate it was to find your soulmate at a young age and then have your time together cut tragically short. I lamented having to live an entire lifetime with him only as a memory, and I mourned the fact that the closest I could get to Brock was a plaque in a green lawn where I lay flowers every so often.
My thoughts drifted to last night, when I did a Tarot reading for myself. I’d wanted to confirm that I was making the right decision by leaving to travel with the Faire at the end of June.
I drew the Fool. How appropriate. How me.
Not because I was foolish, but because of what the Fool represented—a wanderer, an adventurer. A person who listened to the wind and did not set down roots in any one place.
The card showed a man with his possessions in a bag over his shoulder, looking up toward the radiant sun. He was stepping precariously near the edge of a cliff, a happy dog clipping at his heels. Ready to start a brand new adventure.
I felt that also and tried to ignore any of the other pangs at the back of my mind—the thought of leaving Alex, my other friends. And for some reason, William and his surprising lips had popped up, too, before I’d forced the memory of our kiss from my mind.
But as I drove home, my mind kept returning to it—the feel of William’s hands in my hair as they pressed against the back of my head, the way my body had heated instantly from the contact. I couldn’t not think about it.
With a sigh of frustration, I turned on one of my favorite mythology podcasts to listen to on the way home.