Page 118 of Faking All the Way
“And you look…” He trails off, clearly trying to find a diplomatic way to say it. Then finishes carefully, “Not great.”
I try to brush it off, setting the photos back in the box with hands that aren’t quite steady. “I’m fine.”
He gives me a look that says he doesn’t believe me for a second. He’s been giving me space the past few days, clearly noticing something was off but not knowing if it was his placeto ask. Not wanting to overstep when our relationship is still so new, still so fragile. But apparently he’s done waiting.
“What’s going on, Asher?” His voice is gentle but firm.
I blow out a breath, running a hand through my hair. I can’t really hide that I’m in rough shape. Haven’t shaved in days, probably look like hell. “It’s nothing. Just tired.”
“That’s not nothing.” He comes closer, his movements careful on the uneven basement floor. “You’ve been here every day, working yourself to exhaustion. Something’s eating at you. Talk to me.”
I hesitate, my fingers finding Kat’s hair tie again, twisting it around my wrist before letting it snap back. Then the words come out before I can stop them. “Kat ended things three days ago.”
My dad’s eyebrows shoot upward. “What? But you two seemed so happy together. Every time I saw you, you couldn’t take your eyes off her.”
My heart clenches at that, and at the memories it brings up. “I thought wewerehappy.”
He moves closer, lowering himself onto an old wooden crate and setting his crutches aside. “Do you want to tell me what happened?”
I should say no. Should keep it to myself like I always do, like I’ve learned to do over years of not trusting people with the vulnerable parts of myself. But suddenly, I’m tired of carrying it alone. Tired of pretending I’m fine when I’m falling apart.
So I tell him. The whole messy story.
How our relationship started as a fake arrangement, just a favor to help her save face in front of her ex and her hometown. How it was supposed to be simple, uncomplicated, temporary. But how somewhere along the way it became real for me. How I started to feel things I never expected to feel, things I’d convinced myself I wasn’t capable of feeling.
“I thought she felt something for me too,” I finish. “But then she ended it out of nowhere the other day, saying we should stick to the original agreement of it being temporary.”
My dad seems genuinely surprised by the revelation of the fake dating thing. His eyebrows have migrated even higher, and he blinks a few times like he’s trying to keep up with all the twists and turns of my story. “Wow. And did she say why?”
“Not really. Just that it was getting too complicated, and she didn’t want it to get messy or for either of us to get hurt.”
Murphy jumps onto my lap without warning, his considerable weight settling across my thighs as he makes himself at home like he always does.
I look down at the big cat, petting him automatically as I admit, “I never wanted a relationship. Never wanted to fall in love. I saw what it did to you and Mom, saw how it all fell apart and destroyed everything. But then this whole crazy thing happened with Kat, and I started to feel differently about all of that. Started to think maybe I was wrong.”
My jaw clenches, and I blow out another breath, sliding my fingers through Murphy’s fur. “I don’t know what to do. Maybe itisbetter to just let it end before things get more complicated. Before someone gets hurt worse than they already are.”
Even as I say it, part of me rejects the words, fighting against them, but I forge ahead anyway.
“If she wants to walk away, if she doesn’t want me, I’m not going to chase after her.” I keep petting Murphy, focusing on his rumbling purr. “I made the same promise to myself when you left all those years ago. That if you didn’t want me in your life, I wasn’t going to keep torturing myself by hoping for more, by waiting for something that was never going to happen.”
My dad blinks. Something shifts in his expression, his face going pale as his head jerks back slightly. “Is that what you think? That I didn’t want you in my life?”
I laugh, but there’s no humor in it. “Come on, Dad. You made that pretty obvious when you left and never came back.” I shake my head, not wanting to dredge up old resentments. I’ve put a lot of that behind me by now, the sharp edge of anger fading. “I guess the upside of it was that it taught me to protect myself. Not to put my heart out there too much. Not to risk getting hurt like that again. Because if your own father can walk away and never look back, then why should you trust anyone else to stay?”
Edward gazes at me for a long moment, the corners of his mouth tight. He reaches up to scrub a hand over his jaw, a deep sadness reflecting in his eyes. Finally, he shakes his head. “That’s not true. That’s not what happened at all. I never wanted to leave you, Asher.”
I frown, finally shifting my attention fully from Murphy to him. “What do you mean?”
He hesitates, closing his eyes for a second. Then he sits up straighter, seeming to steel himself. “When you were little, about seven years old, I found out your mother had been cheating on me.”
That wasnotwhat I was expecting him to say. I go still, my hand freezing on Murphy’s fur.
“I came home early from a work trip one day,” he continues, his voice steady but pained, as if he’s reliving something awful. “And found her with him. A coworker from her office. They were in our bedroom.”
I can’t speak, my jaw dropping open a little as my brain struggles to process what he’s saying. My entire understanding of my childhood is tilting sideways.
“I confronted her that night, and she cried, begging me to forgive her. She said it was a mistake, that it would never happen again. That she loved me, loved you, loved our family.” He’s looking at his hands now, not at me. “So we tried to workthrough it. Went to counseling, tried to put the pieces back together for your sake. I wanted to believe we could fix it.”
