Page 46 of The Silent Count
What have I done?
NINETEEN
LEA
*new group message with Dad and Fortune Parker*
Dad: I’ll see both of you in my office at 8 a.m. sharp. Don’t be late.
* * *
“I’m a horrible daughter,aren’t I?” The walls of my bedroom feel like they’re closing in on me, which is an odd sensation considering I’ve got a chasm in my chest that’s a mile wide.
It’s been three days since I blew up on my dad, accusing him of punishing Fortune to retaliate against our relationship. Even now, I can’t stomach the reminder of what I’d said to him. How horribly I acted. How completely out of proportion I took the situation, all because I let my emotions get the best of me.
It was stupid. But at the moment, I felt hurt.
I thought my dad was trying to punish Fortune to hurt me. To make him pay for breaking his rules. To make me sit back and watch him suffer from the sidelines since I hadn’t gone to him to tell him the truth.
Instead of inviting him out to dinner and sitting him down to tell him everything with a level head, I blew it. My dad didn’t get to hear the story about Fortune and I meeting online a few months prior to him being signed with the Matrix. Or how we spent every day for three and a half years talking for hours. Or how much the guilt of hiding this from him has been eating away at me for months.
No one knows my dad better than me, and while I know he’s upset right now—with me for lying and Fortune for betraying him—I know he’ll hear us out. It’s just who Phil Sterling is. He doesn’t like to waste time being mad about things he can’t control, but that doesn’t mean he wasn’t hurt by my actions and words.
“You are not a horrible daughter.”
“Pretty sure you have to say that because you’re my boyfriend.”
“Even if I ran into you on the street and you broke down the story for me, I’d say the same thing.”
“Again, I think that’s like rule number twenty-seven in the Boyfriend 101 instruction manual.” I roll my eyes. “When your girlfriend says ‘you have to say that because you’re my boyfriend,’ tell her you’d say the same thing even if you didn’t know each other—it’s a tale as old as time.”
“Out of curiosity, do you know where I can get my hands on that instruction manual? I feel like I’m at a disadvantage since you already know the playbook by heart.”
A huffed laugh breezes out of my lungs as I sit up in the bed. “Don’t make me laugh. I’m trying to sulk.”
“Lea, look at me…” Fortune cups a hand over my jaw and turns my face so I can look down at him still laying against his pillow. “If your dad is going to be upset with anyone in this situation, it’s me. I knew you were his daughter the day I signed with the team, and I actively ignored the rules he laid out for me.”
“I—”
“Stop beating yourself up over this. At the end of the day, he’s your dad, Lea. He’s going to get over it eventually, but something tells me if we’re honest with him, he’s going to be forgiving a lot sooner.”
As a kid, I dreaded those times when my dad would sit me down at the kitchen table to dish out the, “I’m not mad, I’m just disappointed,” speech. I can distinctly remember the way my shoulders would slump forward and I would draw my attention to the wooden table, counting the ridges so the tears pricking the back of my throat wouldn’t break through. I couldn’t bear to look at his eyes, the way I could see his hurt pouring through them as the wrinkles around the edges grew soft.
My stomach twists at the memory.
Those eyes have been on a continuous loop in my mind for the last seventy-two hours, and I know for a fact they’ll stay that way until I make up with my dad and apologize. Fortune is right, though. He’s my dad and I know we’ll get through this one way or another. It just might take a while for me to rebuild his trust, and I hate that I even made him question his trust in me.
I’ve been lying low, keeping to my office unless it’s absolutely necessary for me to leave. I’ve skipped meetings and even went as far as working from home one day after I saw my dad in the hallway the morning after the showdown with a cup of coffee from the gas station across the street.
I knew he wouldn’t come into my office to make his usual morning coffee, but seeing the brown paper cup was a punch to the gut because that meant he wasn’t even going to consider it. He knew before walking into work that morning that he wouldn’t come tell me good morning, and that hurt more than I’d like to admit.
I can’t say I didn’t deserve it, though.
Fortune and I go about the morning, getting ready for work in silence. Both of us have been quiet the last few days, watching endless movies together after work to avoid talking about the reality check awaiting us.
The only thing that’s giving me hope right now is that my dad hasn’t called Fortune into his office yet. He hasn’t put him through the ringer or kicked him off the team. According to Fortune, he’s been acting normal during practices.
No cold shoulders. No extra drills or conditioning workouts. Absolutely nothing.
