Page 99 of Not Made to Last

Without another thought, I pull up his contact—something I’ve done many times in the past. But the difference between now and all those other times is that now, I finally hitcall.

Dad answers on the third ring, his voice scratchy from sleep. “Rhys?” he asks. “What’s wrong?”

It’s been over three years since I’d heard Dad’s voice aside from in the background of a call between me and my mom, or me and my sister. He seems older somehow. Tired. And not just from lack of sleep. But tired fromlife.

“I’m sorry to call so late,” I tell him, staring down at my lap. “I just wanted to talk to you…”

“You don’t need a reason to call, son.”

My chest tightens at his unexpected words. At the tone in which he says them. As if he, too, has been putting off this conversation for years. “Do you need a reason to call me?”

Silence fills the space between us, and I swallow, nervous of his reaction. “It’s something I should’ve done a long time ago, and I’m sorry that I haven’t.”

I sit up taller, fill my lungs through my nose, and let the quiet fall between us while my mind races, until it slows, then stops completely. “You know Belinda?”

“Of course I do,” he says. I can hear movement at his end, and I imagine him getting up and out of bed. “How’s your goddaughter? It’s Layla, right?”

“Layla’s awesome. Growing up way too fast.”

Even through the phone, I can hear his smile. “I bet she loves her uncle Reese’s Pieces.”

I chuckle. “How do you know she calls me her uncle?”

“Your mom told me about it,” he says, then after a beat: “So, what about Belinda?”

I drop my gaze, let my shoulders relax a little. “She does this thing—when we talk about regrets… she has us start the sentence with ‘I wish I would have’or‘I wish they would have…’”

“Okay…”

I feel small, like the little boy he used to carry on his shoulders. “And so I was thinking maybe I could do it with you? And we switch, and you can say something…”

“Okay…” he repeats, even more unsure than the first time.

I clear my throat, clear the fear and insecurities from my mind. Then I throw it all out there between us. “I wish you would’ve visited me at least once while I was in there.”

The silence that falls is so heavy, it lands with a crash so loud it’s almost deafening. “My turn?” he asks, and I nod, even though he can’t see me.

“Yeah…”

“I wish you would’ve told me of your plans before you went off and did it…” he says, and the break in his voice gives mereason to pause, “…so that I could’ve gone with you, and you wouldn’t have had to do it alone.”

55

Rhys

By the time I get back into bed, a couple of hours have passed, and Dad and I spent those hours talking, in depth, about everything that happened and how those things affected us.

For years, I’d held on to the shame of disappointing my family, never once realizing that my father carried his own shame, and that shame is the reason he couldn’t face me, even after all this time.

He was embarrassed that he didn’t have the guts to do what I did and humiliated that it fell on the shoulders of his fifteen-year-old son to right the wrongs that had been done to his family.

His reasons never even occurred to me, and the more we spoke, the more he opened up. He regretted, almost more than anything, that he didn’t have the strength I did to pick up the phone and make the call we both needed in order to move on.

Swear, I’ve never felt as light as I did after hanging up the phone with him. As soon as that call disconnected, I sent my sister a voice message telling her what had just happened andthat I’d go into detail about it more the next time we spoke. And then I told her something I knew would make her smile. I told her I washappy.

And for the first time since I can remember, I actually meant it.

I crawl back into bed, my mind clearer than it has been for a while, but just as I settle in and close my eyes, my phone rings.

---