Page 52 of Just A Bet

“Yes.” She nods. “I’m coming with you. Give me your keys.”

My emotions are all over the place, but the feelings I have for this girl are the only thing keeping me standing right now.

The drive flies by, and before I’m ready, the hospital comes into view.

Once we get inside, I can barely move. Lennox takes my hand and leads me through the hospital. She stops and talks to a woman behind a desk, but I don’t register what they say.

What can I say to the man who spent my entire life drinking instead of remembering he had a kid? Sorry karma caught up to you?

Okay, so clearly I haven’t forgiven and forgotten just because he’s sick.

“His room is just down this hall,” Lennox says, nudging me forward, but I feel like I’m trudging through wet cement. My lungs aren’t letting enough air into my body.

We come to a small waiting room, and I collapse into the first chair I see. Dropping my head into my hands, I focus on taking deep breaths.

In…. Out…. In….

“Grant? Are you okay?” she asks, her words so soft I almost miss them.

I drag a hand through my hair, which I’m sure is standing on end right now. “Not really.”

She doesn’t respond right away, and the silence finally gives me courage to open up to someone for the first time. “I was never honest with you guys about my family.” I swallow the emotions working their way up. “I never knew my mom. According to my dad, she never wanted to be a mom. All I had was my dad and grandpa until my grandpa passed away. Grandpa pretty much raised me, while my dad spent his days drinking and his nights yelling.”

She doesn’t speak, for which I’m grateful. She places a steadying hand on my back, and I go on.

“I moved out the second I turned eighteen. I couldn’t live with him anymore.”

“What?” She grabs my arm hard and I finally look at her. “You turned eighteen in January of your senior year. Where did you go?”

I give her a half-smile. “To that apartment.”

Tears spring from her amber eyes like someone just opened the waterway. I guess I did.

“You’ve been living on your own, in that place since you were in high school?” She doesn’t give me time to respond. “Why didn’t you say anything? You know my parents would have let you stay with us. I can’t believe you’ve been there all this time.”

I lift my fingers to her cheek and wipe away her tears, gathering them one by one, appreciating her empathy.

“You know me. I don’t accept help very well. And I was too ashamed to admit my reasons for leaving. I thought I wasn’t man enough to stay there. I’d only ever been a disappointment to my dad. My aunt kept an eye on me, though.”

She shakes her head and my hand falls from her cheek. “That’s not enough. You didn’t deserve that. You deserve a family who loves and adores you. Like mine does.”

Something kicks me right in the chest. Like her family does? Or like she does?

“Thanks to you, I ended up there, eventually.”

She swipes at her remaining tears and forces a smile. I can see in her eyes she wants to ask more questions, but she leaves those things behind for now. For me.

“Do you want to go in?”

I look away and shake my head. “I don’t know if I can.”

“I understand that,” she says, then after a moment, she speaks up again. “But will you regret it if you don’t?”

Yes. She knows the answer to that, or she never would have asked the question.

“I know the last thing you want to be is your dad, so if you can, be the man you always wished your father would be.”

I pat my chest where my tattoo sits. She’s right. Ignoring my dad in his time of need would make me no better than him. But I don’t want to do it alone.

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