Page 59 of Like A Moth To A Flame

Maybe I liked it.

I shuddered at the thought and silenced the gag that lifted in my throat with another quick sip of the coffee.

Oh god. Maybe that was a bad decision.

“Woah,” Amelia groaned, stepping around the room, her head on a swivel as she took in every inch. I silently thanked her for the distraction. “This is where you grew up, huh?”

“Yep,” I said, looking down at my phone. It stayed silent. I slurped another drink without thinking about it. “It’s a little different from what it was when I was growing up, though.”

“It’s beautiful.”

I snorted.

“My dad neglected it,” I said, and I could hear the venom in my voice. “He let it go to shit.”

“You sound a little…” she shrugged, turning to me and plopping down on the couch beside me. I cringed at the cloud of dust that erupted into the sunbeam streaming in from outside.

“Bitter?” I asked with a shrug. I took another drink. “You could say that.”

“How come?”

I sighed, looking down at my mug and swishing it. The whipped cream had all melted in.

“When my parents first got together, my dad bought this house for her,” I said, looking up at Amelia. “She fell in love when she saw it, and she just had to have it. She had so many dreams and ideas that she wanted to do to the house.”

“Then she got sick?” Amelia asked, sighing. Her voice sounded sad.

“Yeah,” I said, nodding. “I wasn’t very old… I think in elementary school when I remember the first appointments. She just kept getting weaker and weaker, and at first, he really tried to do everything she wanted. But he got so overwhelmed.”

I stopped, taking a big drink. I felt something slick slide across my tongue and forced myself to swallow quickly.

Don’t think about it.

Don’tthink about it.

“It’s hard,” Amelia said, nodding solemnly. “My mom was a single mom and…”

She trailed off with a sigh. She never had liked to talk about it.

“Right. I know,” I said. I didn’t know what else to say. “Then when she died, I was only eleven. I tried so hard to do what she would have done, but I was just too young.”

“And caring for an alcoholic father,” Amelia finished for me.

I reached up and wiped the tears out of my eyes.

“Right,” I nodded. “Just wish he would have kept his promises.”

There was a long pause, and eventually, Amelia was the one to break it, reaching over and taking my hand in both of hers.

“I’m sorry, Nessa.”

“No. Don’t be sorry. I don’t want you to be sorry. Hell, I don’t even wanthimto be sorry. He had his demons, and I never could get him to talk about it.”

She nodded again.

“It’s a cop thing,” she wrinkled her nose, shrugging. “They think they have to be strong and emotionless. It eats at ‘em.”

If anyone knew, it was her. She’d been engaged to a cop for four years straight out of vet school. Sadly, he had been killed in an accident.

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