My dad let fly another punch, hitting Flor right in the nose, but he didn't fight back. His fists were clenched and his green eyes shone with rage.
"Get the fuck out of my house and don't come back here."
"Art, stop," River pleaded, grabbing his arm. "It's not just Florian. This thing goes both ways."
"I want him out. End of discussion." My dad turned to me then and a fire lit up his eyes like I'd never seen. I wanted to melt into the floor, disappear into a puddle and never come back. "We're cutting him out of our lives like we should've done a long time ago. He's a poison."
"You can't make decisions like that!" River screeched, her practiced professional patience disappearing in the wake of her anger. I'd debated before if she loved my father or her son more; I was afraid I was about to find out.
"He's a lost cause, River. Look at him!" My dad thrust a finger out towards Flor. "Do you want someone like him around our daughter?" The implications of that turned Flor's anger into a violent rage and I watched in horror as he grabbed my dad by the back of the shirt and yanked him away from his mom.
"Get the fuck away from my mother," Flor snarled as my dad and him got up in each other's faces.
I ruined my family.
I had known this might happen, had been prepared to choose Flor over our parents, but I guess I hadn't actually realized what that would be like. In actuality, I felt like I was in a horror movie. I'd rather have a serial killer take a knife to my throat than have to deal with this mess I've made.
"Are you going to wait until this one grows up, too? Prey on her like you did Abi?"
Flor punched my dad in the face and my stepmother screamed as the two of them exploded into fists. How did this get so bad so fast?
I started to back away, watching as River miraculously managed to step between the two.
"Art," she said, trying to regain some of her composure and failing. I felt her gaze land on me. "This is not just Florian's fault. Maybe your daughter seduced him? Did you ever think of that?"
My heart broke in my chest.
My stepmom was throwing me under the bus just like that while my dad eagerly salivated at the thought of throwing away a kid he'd raised for the past thirteen years, making threats he knew weren't even remotely true. Flor didn't prey on me. He wasn't a danger to our unborn sister. This wasn't about us being siblings. In fact, our love was in spite of that. It had to overcome one of the greatest obstacles of all time. But as I watched the situation before me unfold, I had a terrible thought.
"I knew it," I whispered as I watched them glare at one another. Tears pricked the corners of my eyes. "I knew Flor and I being together shouldn't matter because we aren't family. This," I gestured weakly at the three of them. "This isn't a real family at all. It never was."
I turned and ran from the room, snatching Flor's keys off the entryway table as I went.
I heard him call out after me, heard the sound of his boots, but I slammed the door in his face and bolted down the steps and into the car before he could reach me.
When I peeled out of the driveway, the last thing I saw were his green eyes watching me go.
"Are you sure you don't want to pick up the phone?" Addi asked, trying to hand me my cell. I stayed where I was, curled up next to her on the couch and refused to take it. "This is like the tenth call in as many minutes."
I shook my head and swiped tears away. I figured Flor would be here right after me, but he hadn't shown up yet. I mean, I knew I was the one that had run out, but I'd wanted him to follow after. If he had, it would mean that this wasn't over yet, that we could still be together no matter what.
"Who's it from?" I asked, my throat creaky and my words warbling.
"Your dad. Again."
I sat up and hugged a pillow to my chest, painfully aware of Patrick's desperate attempts to not intrude on our girl time. He was in the kitchen trying to make himself something to eat before he left to go to a job interview.
"If it's Flor, I might take it," I whispered. "Nobody else."
Addi sighed and watched me with sympathetic eyes. At least I had her to count on. She'd known about my Flor obsession since forever and hadn't shunned me for it. That's what real family was all about. Real family stood by you no matter what, didn't judge, let you be yourself and loved you for it.
"But I guess he's not calling." I paused and wiped away a sniffle. "Or coming."
"You guessed wrong, dope." The door swung open and Flor marched in, his face a bloody mess and his clothes rumpled from the fight. I wanted to stand up and throw myself at him, but I didn't. I made myself sit and wait for him to come to me, to wrap me in his arms and pull me against him. His fingers brushed through my hair and drew a shaky breath from my chest. "Sorry I took so long. You took my car, remember? And the fight didn't stop after you left. Your dad rushed me." I curled my fingers in Flor's shirt. "And then my mom took off and we got into yet another fight trying to stop her. I have no idea where she is right now and she won't answer her phone."
"I ruined our family," I whispered. "I'm sorry."
"No," Flor growled sharply, squeezing me even tighter. "You didn't. What happened back there … there were a lot of feelings that needed to come out. Your dad's never liked me, and my mom's always kind of resented him for it."
"But they're the perfect couple," I whispered and Flor snorted.
"Even perfect couples fight every now and again. Some things needed to be said and they were. It wasn't pretty, but it happened." He paused and I felt his breath catch. "Besides, it doesn't matter. They're adults and we're adults. They can do what they want to do and so can we. Abi, I spent all these years avoiding an 'us' for this very reason, but now that I've let myself have you … I could never let you go. I'd choose you first for infinity."
My throat closed up and Addi excused herself, grabbing Patrick by the arm and steering him from the room.
Flor ran his hand down my side and rested it on my hip, just over my tattoo, and then we sat in pained silence for awhile.
"I'll talk to my mom again," Flor said finally, breaking the quiet and drawing his cell from his pocket. He dialed her up and got no answer, shooting off a quick text before he scooted me off of his lap. "Just as soon as I can get ahold of her."
I watched a frown cross his lips and sat up, feeling groggy and waterlogged, like my emotions were too heavy to bear. But bear them I would. This thing with Flor and me, it would work. I would make sure of that.
"First," I told him, reaching out a thumb to brush his bloody lip. One of his lip rings was missing again. Not good. He flinched, but he didn't pull away. "We need to get you cleaned up."
Flor showered and switched into a change of clothes that he'd left in my top right dresser drawer for our sleepovers before planting a searing kiss on my mouth and leaving to find his mom. Meanwhile, I paced and let Addi force a beer on me, gazing down at my phone and wondering if I should just delete all of the voicemail that my dad had left me. It couldn't be good, really. None of it could. In the back of my mind, I held onto the hope that my dad would just give up and turn a blind eye, pretend none of this was happening and go on like he always had, but I knew the situation had grown beyond that, morphed into a monster that I wasn't capable of controlling.
"River's a grown ass woman, Abi. If she doesn't want anyone to find her, it's not like it's hard. Maybe she got a hotel room for the night? Stopped over at a friend's house? Hell, she could be sitting in her office right now trying to figure things out." Addi paused and twirled the empty brown bottle in her hands, eyes focused on the label and not on me. "As for your dad, maybe you should hear what he has to say? Running from things won't make them any better."
"I know," I moaned, slumping over the counter and gazing at Addi from the corner of my eye. "Logically, I get that, but at the same time, I'm terrified of what he's going to say, how he's going to look at me."
"Then maybe it really is best that you go and see him, talk with him about this when Flor and River aren't around. Honestly," Addi said, her voice getting that I told you so tone in it, "that might've been a better way to go about it to begin with. If you two hadn't been rutting in the hallway – "