I shrugged. “Sometimes I’m human. Sometimes I’m not. It’s not all that difficult to miss an appointment and reschedule it for a time when I’m just a girl.”
Just an ordinary girl.
Yeah, right.
“Does your mother know?” His voice was honey-smooth and clear, like he’d recovered his composure, but his eyes were as dead as any zombie’s. “If she does, we have to leave. Now. Tonight. It won’t be easy, but I have some money set aside. We’ll be fine for a while.…”
“I have no idea what that woman knows,” I said, “but I’m not going anywhere, and neither are you.”
It shocked me that he wanted to, that he would pick up and leave everything behind—his career, our house, his friends.…
He’s done it before, I thought, and the reminder almost broke me all over again. The two of us had never been more than ships passing in the night. He had his life, and I had mine, and the only time the two coincided was when he needed a plus one.
“What Rena and I did was wrong, Kali. I know that. I’ve known it for a very long time, and when I look at you, when I think about what we did to you …”
I’d spent all of these years thinking he didn’t care. And maybe he didn’t, not the way fathers were supposed to, but there was something between us—something so powerful and awful and overwhelming that it hurt him to look at me.
“I was never good at this. She was, your mother. She knew how to play with you and how to talk to you, and God, you adored her. You asked for her every night, every single night.…” He trailed off. “She loved you, in her own way, but this—her being here, you being different … it’s too much, Kali. It’s a risk.”
He didn’t know the half of it.
“It’s my risk to take,” I said finally. “One way or another, it’ll be over soon.”
I waited for him to ask what I meant. If he asks, I’ll tell him.…
This time, he didn’t.
There comes a moment in every kid’s life when they look at their parents and realize that they’re people—stupid and fallible and as breakable as the rest of us. Standing there, an ocean of space between me and my father, I realized that maybe he had tried. That maybe it hadn’t been easy for him. That I’d never made it any easier.
I realized that maybe he did love me, just a little.
I hated him—for what he’d done to me and what he’d never done for me. I hated him because for years, I’d been going through this alone, and if he’d told me, given me even a single hint about the way I’d come into this world, I wouldn’t have had to.
I hated him, but I loved him, too. And when it came to family, I didn’t have anyone else—I wouldn’t ever have anyone else.
For better or worse, this was it.
“Don’t worry about me,” I told him, walking toward the door and pausing just long enough to press my lips to his temple. “I promise, Daddy—I can take care of myself.”
So now I knew—what I was, how I’d gotten that way, why my father had never been able to look me straight in the eyes.
I collapsed on the end of my bed and set the cell phone he’d bought me to the side.
My mother was a psychopath.
My father was the good parent.
And I was an experiment they’d whipped up in some test tube.
Kali?
Until I heard Zev’s voice, I hadn’t realized how much I’d missed it. Missed him. But right now, I didn’t want someone else in my head. I didn’t want anyone or anything. I wanted to be left alone.
Close your eyes.
What was the point in convincing myself that I didn’t care if he could tell that I did? I wasn’t okay. I might never be okay again.
Just close your eyes, Kali. It wasn’t an order—just a request—and I let my eyelids get very heavy, let them close all on their own.
And just like that, I wasn’t sitting on the edge of the bed. I was standing in a forest, and Zev was standing next to me. He lifted one hand and trailed it over my cheek.
“Hello.”
Laughter burst out of my mouth. We were having some kind of psychic rendezvous, and that was what he had to say for himself?
“Hello, Kali.” His breath was warm on my skin, his presence coating my body, beckoning me forward as he repeated the first words he’d ever spoken to me, back when I was human and half afraid I was losing my mind. “I’m Zev.”
“Hello, Zev,” I said, leaning into his touch. “Have you been enjoying the show?” My voice was sharp, bordering on bitter. “Drama, revelations, betrayal … just another day in the D’Angelo household.”