Page 14 of Just Say Yes

“Hey,” I said cautiously, setting the sticky note on my desk. “Not at all. What’s up?”

She closed the door behind her, leaning against it as though she needed the extra support. “I just got a call,” she began, her fingers twisting the edge of her blouse. “It’s about your dad.”

My stomach dropped. “What about him?”

Her lips pressed into a thin line before she finally said, “He’s dead, MJ. It happened over night.”

The words didn’t register at first. They hung in the air, sharp and impossible, like a punchline to a joke no one wanted to laugh at.

“What?” The word came out choked, barely audible. “How?”

Bug sighed, her shoulders sagging under the weight of the news. “He was stabbed at the county jail. Someone got to him with a shank.” She hesitated, her gaze darting to the floor. “It was . . . Oliver Pendegrass.”

That name. The recognition hit me like a slap. Oliver Pendegrass was a ghost from my brother Abel’s past. Oliver had been Abel’s roommate in prison.

“He killed Dad?” My voice was barely above a whisper.

Bug nodded, her mouth a grim line. “It sounds like he considered it a twisted kind of favor to your brother? I don’t know all the details yet, but . . . it’s done.”

I sank onto the edge of my bed, the weight of the news pressing down on me like a lead blanket.

My father—dead. Stabbed in prison.

My mind scrambled to reconcile the man who had loomed so large in my life with this abrupt, violent end.

He was my dad. But he was also Russell King. A tyrant. A liar. A murderer. My feelings for him had dimmed a long time ago.

Still, a hollow ache spread through my chest.

“I don’t . . . I don’t know what to feel,” I admitted, my voice cracking. “I feared him. But he was still my dad.”

Bug crossed the room, sitting beside me on the bed. Her strong arm wrapped around my shoulders, steadying me in the storm. “You don’t have to know what to feel right now, MJ.”

A shaky breath escaped me. “It’s just . . . I thought having him gone would feel like freedom, you know? Like I could finally breathe. But now . . .” I trailed off, my hands trembling in my lap.

Bug reached for my hand, her grip warm and grounding. “Russell made his choices, and those choices had consequences. You don’t owe him anything—not your forgiveness, not your grief. Nothing.”

I swallowed hard, her words both a comfort and a challenge.

Did I believe that? Could I let go of the guilt that always seemed to trail me like a shadow?

My gaze drifted to the sticky note on my desk. Logan’s number. His invitation to the game. It was a sliver of something—something new, something outside the orbit of my father’s influence.

Bug followed my gaze, her lips twitching into the faintest smile. “What’s that?”

The note stared back at me, its significance dimmed by the events that had just unfolded. “It’s nothing,” I said, my voice flat.

Her eyebrows lifted. Bug rose, brushing a strand of hair from my face. “You’ve got a good head on your shoulders, MJ. Trust it. And trust yourself.”

She left with a gentle pat on my shoulder, leaving me alone with my thoughts.

* * *

The days blurred togetherafter Bug’s revelation. I floated through them, doing the things that needed to be done—eating, working, existing. But everything felt muted, like the volume of my life had been turned down as I struggled to musteranykind of emotion regarding my father’s death.

Was I some kind of heartless monster?

Bug took care of most of the arrangements, and for that, I was grateful. Neither my siblings nor I had it in us to make decisions about memorials or urns or any of the logistics that followed a death.

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