Page 95 of Keep Me
“We’re ready,” I said, figuring the sooner we got our food, the sooner we’d be able to get out of this mess.
Britt grabbed my hand under the table, and it was shaking, so I rubbed my thumb across her palm, hoping it would help calm her down.
When I turned to check on her, she gave me a small, placid smile and blushed. God, she was so beautiful.
Then she did something I wasn’t expecting. She rested her forehead on my shoulder before rolling her face forward and keeping her head there. I felt this burning need in my gut to keep her safe by wrapping my arm around her, but it wasn’t my place, even if we were technically married.
“Isn’t that cute?” my dad mocked, looking between us. “Like the perfect little couple. I wonder how Olana fits into all this?”
“She doesn’t,” I stated. Why did everyone still think me and Olana were a package deal? We were done. We had been for months, so anyone suggesting we were end game was annoying as fuck at this point.
“So, you’ve dropped her?” My father was shocked. “She needs your help, and you respond by marrying someone else? Gotta admit, I didn’t think you were the type to just shy away from your responsibilities, but then again, isn’t that why you haven’t bothered to see me?”
Responsibilities? She was lucky she was getting any help from me at all.
Britt’s body stiffened.
“Hey, Britt. Did you know the reason why your husband hasn’t bothered to see me in three years is because he doesn’t want me to sell our house.”
“What does that have to do with not seeing you?” Britt asked.
My dad looked between the two of us with mock shock. “Wow. You’re married and you’ve told her nothing about your life at home. Maybe you aren’t as stupid as I thought.” He turned back to Britt with a smug smile on his face. “Ben’s mother passed away his senior year of high school. She left her half of the house to Ben, who has told me he won’t sign off on selling it until he’s twenty-one.”
“It’s the truth. That was part of the stipulation in her will.”
“Then why haven’t you agreed to sell it yet? You’ve been twenty-one for six months, and yet you still won’t even entertain the idea.”
“That’s because I know what you’ll do with your half of the money.”
“Why does it matter to you what I do? It’s not like you care.”
“That’s not true,” I said. The sole reason I was protecting the house was because I knew my father’s assets well enough toknow it was all he had left. He’d spend that money in a couple of months if he had unfiltered access to it.
“I’m not ready.” I closed my eyes, feeling more vulnerable than I had in a long time. I didn’t want to say it out loud, but another thing holding me back was my mom. Selling it felt like I was getting rid of the memories of her and ergo, the only good thing about growing up.
“You’re not ready? But you haven’t been back to the house since you graduated high school. It’s so easy for you, Ben. You don’t live in that house day in, day out. You don’t have to be smacked in the face with your dead wife’s memory every second of the day. You don’t have to be reminded of the pain and suffering she went through before she died. You don’t have to go through her things, thinking about what you should keep. I do. Every single day I’m reminded of her and how her life was cut short. I sit in that house wallowing because I have to accept the fact that I’ve lived out my best years since my only chance of happiness is in the ground.”
I closed my eyes taking in his words. All the things he said were things I felt, I’d just never been able to articulate them.
“I just can’t.” I had nothing else to say, and I probably gripped Britt’s hand a little tighter than I should’ve. If I was causing her pain, Britt didn’t complain. She never did, and maybe my father was right. Maybe I had taken her unwavering allegiance for granted all these years.
“It’s to spite me, isn’t it? I was never a good enough father to you, and you were never shy about telling me. I can take some blame. I own it. I was always busy working. Your mom was the one that was there for you. She cherished you. Told you everything you did was perfect even when it was shitty behavior. Pretty much what’s happening right now. You have the ability to change things for me, and you won’t.”
I could almost see the questions whirring through Britt’s mind, and I regretted not explaining the background between my family before dropping her into this.
“You drink too much, Dad.” That was putting it politely, but I didn’t want to go over how I had to pick him up from bars in the middle of the night before my mom died, or that I found out he was barred from almost every place that serves liquor near our house. I wasn’t being selfish. I was doing this for him.
“And you think leaving me in that haunted house is going to make me drink less?” He laughed bitterly.
“I think it’s better that you have a place you can come home to than living on the streets where I’d never be able to find you.”
He raised his brows, and I had to admit, he looked a little hurt by the comment. My dad was a force to be reckoned with when he wanted to be. He could be spiteful and mean, but I had never seen him quite as broken as this before.
“So you think I’m going to use all the money on booze?”
“Just a hunch.”
“Well—”
