Page 107 of Sinful
Won't be there to bring me coffee with his pockets full of creamers and sugar packets he's not sure I'll need.
My chest feels hollow.
My old room—the one I grew up in—feels wrong too.
Like wearing clothes that belonged to someone else.
I'm displaced. Caught between lives.
Not Florida anymore because I can't stay here.
But not Texas yet because I haven't earned that either.
Nowhere.
That's where I am. Nowhere.
I check on Dad around ten that morning.
The door to his room is open, and I can hear voices inside—Mom talking softly, Dad responding with something that makes her laugh.
The sound is so normal, so domestic, it makes my throat tight.
I knock on the doorframe. "Can I come in?"
"Of course, sweetheart." Mom waves me over.
Dad's sitting up in bed looking better than he has in weeks.
Color has returned to his face—not the gray-pale of infection and blood loss, but actual healthy color.
His eyes are alert, bright, tracking me as I cross the room.
He's eating scrambled eggs that Mom made, using his right hand, fork moving steady despite everything he's been through.
"There she is," he says when I sit in the chair beside his bed. "My warrior daughter."
The title still makes my chest tight every time he uses it.
Warrior daughter.
Not disappointment.
Not the girl who betrayed the club.
Not the weak link.
Warrior.
"How are you feeling?" I ask.
"Like shit." But he's smiling, eyes crinkling at the corners. "But I'm alive, so it’s okay."
"Yeah."
He studies my face while chewing, then swallowsand sets his fork down deliberately. "You look sad. Missing someone?"
I try to deflect, force a smile that feels brittle. "I'm fine."
