Page 79 of Dove
Confusion flickered through me as my father stepped out onto the porch in his sleep shirt and plaid pajama pants, arms crossed over his chest.
“She’s home,” I reassured him quietly. “She’s upstairs sleeping.”
He nodded once but stayed where he was.
An anxious feeling flickered to life in the pit of my stomach.
“You look just like her, you know,” my dad mused, his focus out on the driveway.
He was talking about my mother. And yes, I knew.
I’d only ever seen pictures of her, but even as a baby we looked identical. As I grew older, it became clear I was the spitting image of her—only in male form.
“I came down to get a glass of water for Josie.”
The nerves rolling in my stomach turned into a stone of dread.
Finally, my father faced me, the set of his face harsh in the yellow lighting of the porchlight. Where Dove had looked beautiful in its soft glow, my father looked stern and unforgiving.
Somehow, I knew this was not going to end well.
“I saw you kiss her.”
No, I thought wearily,this was not going to end well at all.
I remained silent. It was no use arguing with my father, even if what he thought he saw was wrong. Well, mostly wrong.
“How dare you,” my father’s voice trembled with anger, straining to keep his voice low.
I knew that as the sign he wanted to yell at me but was restraining himself. Likely not to wake Josie or Dove.
“If you can’t keep those disgusting feelings to yourself, you need to leave.”
My heart ached hearing him call my feelings for Dove disgusting. To hear the words from someone other than myself.
Nothing about them felt disgusting, not when she was so beautiful and bright, but they were. I knew they were.
“I won’t lose another woman because of you.” The sharpness to his voice cut me to the bone. “And I won’t let you ruin that innocent girl with yourperversions.” He spat the word.
Words bubbled up in the back of my throat, the anger and pain that always simmered beneath my skin around him threatening to explode out of me.
I didn’t mean to take Mom from you, I wanted to scream.
I’m sorry,I wanted to yell.
I wish it had been me instead,I wanted to cry.
But I swallowed them down.
It didn’t matter anyway. When Gareth Hex made his mind up on something, that was it. It was why our relationship was as strained as it was.
He believed I’d killed his wife—that I was to blame for why she wasn’t here with him any longer.
I guess in a way I was.
This was just another thing to add to the list of why my father hated me.
The man before me visibly shook with fury. “Well?” he demanded, voice rising, his control slipping. “Don’t you have anything to say for yourself?”
