Page 91 of If You Stayed

“I only have one hundred dollars for the budget.”

I laughed. “I think I can manage to cover the rest.”

“Sweet! Thanks, Boss Man.”

“Welcome, kid.”

She tossed more M&M’s into her mouth and unpaused the game. “Let’s get back to me beating you.”

***

The day of Kierra’s party, Ava and I spent hours setting up. Of course, Henry knew about the party, but he did little to beinvolved. Though, when everyone showed up, he acted as if he’d been involved in every little detail, taking credit for the creativity that Ava had spent weeks on. It was damn annoying to say the least. As I helped Ava with the last tasks, I noticed Henry out of the corner of my eye, greeting everyone with his over-the-top personality.

“I hate that he’s doing that,” Ava grumbled as we finished checking on the champagne table for the birthday toast later in the night.

“Who’sheand what is he doing?”

“My dad. He’s acting like this was all his idea.”

Oh.

So she’d noticed, too.

“You know what’s crazy?” Ava asked as she lifted a glass of champagne as if she were going to drink it.

I took the glass from her hand. “What’s that?”

“Mom laughs with you. Like, her real laughs. The kind where she tosses her head back in a giggling fit. I can’t remember the last time I saw her do that with Dad.”

My gut tightened. “I’m sure your parents laugh all the time together.”

“They don’t,” she replied. “If anything, all Mom does is cry because of him. She tries to hide it, but sometimes I hear her.” She turned toward me after staring at her parents across the room. She crossed her arms and shook her head. “You don’t like him, do you?”

I swallowed hard. “Your father is a brilliant man. He is decades ahead with his tech—”

“That’s not what I asked, Gabriel. I said you don’t like him. Him being smart doesn’t make him a good person.”

I grimaced, uncertain of what I was supposed to say. I wasn’t there to shit on her father. I wasn’t there to make her feel bad about the fact that her dad was some awful human being that most people thought was a saint. I wasn’t going to tell her about his cheating with their former chef, or him treating Kierra like she was nothing. He was a disgusting pig. But how could I convey that to his daughter?

“We’re just different people,” I told her.

“Yeah,” she agreed, “you are. You’re better than him.”

I arched an eyebrow and shook my head. “No, I’m not.”

“Yeah, you are. Based on that response alone. If I told my father he was better than you, he’d agree. Which would in turn prove that he wasn’t.”

“Ava…”

“I caught him screaming at Mom a few weeks ago,” she mentioned, her eyes flashing with tears. “He thought I was gone to my friend’s house for the weekend, but I came back to pick up my book.” Her voice began to crack as she spoke. “They didn’t know I came into the house, but he…” She dropped her head and shook it in disbelief. “He was screaming at her for something, as if Mom had ruined his entire life. I hid in the foyer because I didn’t know what was happening. I waited to see what she’d done that made him so angry. But then I found out why he was yelling so loud. Why his rage was at a boiling point. Do you know what Mom did wrong?”

“What’s that?”

“She burned herself getting a pizza out of the oven. Her hand hit the top of the oven, and she dropped the pizza, making a mess in the oven. She had a solid burn on her right hand, and he screamed at her for it. For a mistake. And the way he did it…It was so clear it wasn’t the only time he’d yelled at her like that when I wasn’t around. For the first time ever, I saw my dad as something new.”

“What did you see him as that day?”

“A monster.”

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