Again.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE - Sloane
I thought maybe a night out with Sarah would make me feel better. Not only do I not feel better, I actually feel a little queasy as I navigate the road back to the house. I’m not surprised really. I haven’t been eating well or getting much sleep since everything happened with Hemi. I reason with myself that I’m probably just run down.
When I get home, Dad is sitting at the dining room table, looking through the cards that are still lying there. Most of the flowers are dead and have already been thrown out. But for some reason, I couldn’t quite bring myself to throw out the cards. Not just yet.
“What are you doing, Dad?” I ask, stopping beside the chair he’s sitting in.
Before he answers, Dad neatly stacks all the flower cards together and hands them to me. “Have you read them all?”
“Yes.”
He nods slowly, folding my fingers around the little rectangles. “No change?”
I don’t really know how to answer that. I’m less upset than what I was, yes, but I don’t know why yet. I don’t know if I’m working my way toward forgiving Hemi or if time is just healing the wound.
Finally, I shrug my answer.
“He came by here tonight. Looking for you.” My father watches me, carefully gauging my reaction. He says no more, which prompts me to speak.
“What did he want?”
“To talk to you.”
Duh.
“Did he say why?”
“Not really. But I think you need to at least listen to him, Sloane.”
“That’s easy for you to say, Dad. You don’t know the whole story.”
“It’s not easy for me to say. I don’t like the thought of anyone hurting you. For any reason. In any fight, I’ll always take your side. Part of me wants to wring this guy’s neck for putting you through the hell you’ve been in the last couple of weeks.
“It’s hard for me to think about my little girl growing up and possibly falling in love, Sloane. It’s hard for me to think of having to give her up to some cocky jerk and hope he takes care of her. But I know that I have to do it. Eventually. And something tells me that this one means a lot to you. More than what I gave him credit for. I knew there was something going on, but I don’t think I knew how important it was to you, how important he was to you.”
Dad scoots his chair back and stands to face me, bending a pinch so he can see into my face. “Life is short, Sloane. When I wanted to forget just how short, you reminded me. Every day for a couple of years now, you’ve reminded me. But you know what? You were right. Life is short and you need to live it, as much as you can for as long as you can. If I could go back and add a few more years or days or even hours with your mother, I would. In a heartbeat. And I would never want to do anything to cheat you out of times like that. Moments like that. So you think long and hard about these, Sloane,” he says, touching my hand that’s holding the cards. “And if there’s a way to forgive him, if you think he might be worth it, then go talk to him. Give him that chance. Don’t live with regret like that for the rest of your life. When you’ve got a lot of regret to look back on, a short life can seem like an eternity in hell.”
With a fatherly pat to my arm, Dad steps past me. He looks back at me before he leaves the room. “You okay? Your face is red.”
I touch my cheek. It’s warm and I’m still not feeling up to par, but I give my dad a comforting smile. “I’m fine, Dad.”
With an answering smile, he walks away. I hear him start to whistle when he gets to the kitchen and I smile bigger. He used to whistle all the time when Mom was alive. Now, it’s rare. And considering all the trouble our family has seen lately, it’s even more special. I know it’s thoughts of Mom—the good, happy kinds of thoughts—that put the song in his heart. Just remembering a love like that can turn everything around. It can turn life to shit for a while, but in the end, it makes everything worth it. I just have to decide if, with Hemi, it’s worth it.
********
The next day, a loud pounding wakes me from my nap. It’s difficult to fight my way out of sleep, to separate reality from the dream world I was so happy inside. But reality is much more persistent, especially when it comes in the form of my brother.
“Sloane, answer the door. I mean it,” Steven blusters from outside my locked bedroom door.
“Whatever it is can wait, Steven. I’m sleeping.”
“It’s not even eight o’clock. Why are you in bed already?”
That’s an excellent question, one I have no answer for. I thought around three thirty that a Sunday afternoon nap sounded great. I think nearly five hours is a touch more than a nap. But I’m just exhausted!
“I’m getting up. Just give me a minute.”
I stir myself as best I can and make my way to the door, turning the lock on the knob and stepping back so my brother can bluster on this side of it.
“Did you know about this?”
He wastes no time in jumping down my throat when he steps inside.
“Know about what?”
“About that ass**le Hemi investigating me? About how he targeted our family?”
“Not at first. Why do you think I don’t see him anymore?”
I slump down on the end of the bed and watch Steven pace back and forth. He’s furious for sure, but behind that, I can see that he’s hurt. And betrayed. Not by Hemi, but he makes an effective scapegoat.
“I knew I didn’t like that prick. I knew it!”
“Steven, like him or not, Hemi was just doing what he had to for his family. And he might’ve even saved your life.”
“How the hell has he done anything good for me?”
“This is about Duncan, isn’t it?”
Steven says nothing, but I can see the muscle along his jaw flex in anger.
“Duncan isn’t the one who was using—”
“Yes, he was, Steven. Duncan was wrong in so many ways. I know he was your best friend and your partner, and I know you feel betrayed, but you can’t make excuses for him. He stole your security pass while you slept, Steven! That’s a pretty shitty thing for a decent friend to do. Do you know how much trouble he could’ve gotten you into?”
“At least he didn’t get our house shot up,” he spits.
“Yes, he did. It was his associations, his illegal activities that even led people to think it was you to begin with. Why do you think he used your pass? This is every single bit Duncan’s fault. The only thing Hemi did was stumble upon it.”