"Why did you agree to do it?"
"Because I wanted to make her happy?" I laughed, a bitter lump twisting in the back of my throat. "Because I sought her acceptance? I mean, how fucking worthless can you be when your goddamn mom wants to flush you down a toilet before you even open your eyes. At seventeen, I finally opened my eyes and said no to spending the summer with them. Told my parents I was tired of doing labor work for two months. They agreed, but then I fucked it up at a party and they decided to send me anyway as punishment. It turned out to be the worst summer of my life, because it was then that I realized not only Nina didn't love me … she fucking hated me."
Rosie was crying. I didn't dare look at her, but I felt her shoulder vibrating against mine. And I hated myself for making her cry, and I hated Nina for making me have this conversation in the first place. "To make a long story short, Nina did some deplorable things to me when I was a kid. I was a pawn in a very fucked-up game. A means to an end. She used me as an errand boy and made me do some stupid, illegal shit, then bribed my ass with alcohol and weed to make sure I shut up and didn't rat her out to my parents. I was twelve when I had my first bottle of whiskey and hit from a blunt. I thought it was cool that Nina and Owl gave me stuff like that. That it meant that they saw me as a grown-up."
Rosie gulped and looked away. "That's why you do it," she said. "That's why you're an addict."
My nose twitched. "That's how it started. It made me feel good. Weed and alcohol made my summers move faster. They put a smokescreen on my reality-a thin shell that no one had managed to crack through. And so I carried the habit, even when I came back to a place I did love, back with my parents and sisters."
"Nina never told me who my dad was. That bothered me. I knew she was a fuck-up, but I always wanted to know if I was a full-blown fuck-up from both sides, or if maybe I had some redeeming genes in me. And after shit reached a boiling point eleven years ago during my last visit on the farm, I decided to drop the subject and walk away. Cut her out of my life. It worked through college, because I had nothing to my name but a trust fund and a dorm room. But when we founded Fiscal Heights Holdings and started rolling in the dough, she agreed to tell me who he was."
"And?" Rosie asked, a little breathlessly. I slowed down my steps.
"And she wants six hundred thousand dollars to give me his name."
"That's insane!" Rosie protested, stomping her leg on the ground. I halted and turned around to look at her. Her face was red, streaked with pain. My pain. I put it there. And even though it was never my goal to hurt her feelings, I enjoyed her warmth, because she burned for me.
"So? Did you ever pay her?" She kicked some mud around.
"Nope." I ran a hand over her braid, tugging at it. "But that's why she's acting like a deranged stalker and keeps calling me every half hour. Whittaker's farm is losing money, and she has an expensive coke habit to keep up. Prescription drugs just don't cut it anymore. She hates her husband. Wants out. And she wants me to help her. That's out of the fucking question."
"But you want to know who your father is, right?" Rosie blinked, confused.
I nodded. "Yeah, but the feeling is not mutual. If it was, he would have contacted me by now."
"Maybe he doesn't know of your existence," my girlfriend suggested. That was what I hoped. And prayed. And convinced myself every night.
"Or maybe he doesn't care." I resumed walking, and she fell in step with me.
"Or maybe he's scared of your reaction after all these years," she countered. "Maybe, Dean, you need to do what's right for you, even if it isn't what Nina wants."
"Or maybe." I was acting like a fucking four-year-old, I knew it, but couldn't stop. "He is competing with Val over the worst parent award-there's a lot of candidates for this title-and just like Luna is better off without her no-show mom, I'm better off without him."
We stopped in the middle of what looked like the woodlands but was less than a mile away from the car. Rosie was striding at a snail's pace. She turned to face me, and I don't think I'd ever seen so many tears on one face. Her cheeks and chin were wet, gray clouds of mascara fanning her lashes.
"I'm sorry this happened to you," she said, and she was. But I didn't want her pity. I wanted her to know that I was a beast of a man who'd carry us both through storms and hurricanes. Hell and back. Through life-and if necessary, then yes, even through death. "I can't believe you hid this from us all those years." Rosie wiped a tear with the sleeve of her black pea coat. "Your friends have the right to be there for you, Dean. You should tell them."