Page 98 of Truth or More Truth
“Yeah, this is Kelli—Kelli Jacobs.”
Nausea builds in my throat. “Is your dad OK? Your mom? What’s wrong?”
She huffs out a laugh. “No, sorry, nothing’s wrong. Well, not the kind of wrong you’re thinking. Dad and Mom are both OK.”
I close my eyes and let out a slow breath as I drop onto the couch, still bundled up in my winter gear. “Good. That’s good.” But why is she calling? “Does your dad know you’re calling me?”
“Um, no? But please don’t hang up! I really need to talk to you. Promise you won’t hang up?”
I sigh. I don’t think Bobby will love that I talked to hisdaughter without talking to him about it first, but I can’t just hang up on her. She sounds desperate. “OK, you can talk to me. But you have to tell your dad you called me. You don’t have to tell him everything we talk about, as long as you’re not planning to tell me you’re doing something illegal or harmful, which I don’t think you are, but you need to tell him we talked. That’s the promise I need from you.”
I’m starting to sweat under all my layers, so I unzip my coat and ski pants and do my best to take them off while holding the phone to my ear.
“I promise,” Kelli says, “even though he’s not going to like it. But I can deal with him. And it’s not about anything bad. It’s … maybe it’s good? I think so, at least.”
“What’s on your mind?”
“I want us to move to Chicago, but my dad won’t listen to me.”
I freeze with my pants halfway to the floor and my coat dangling off one arm. “What?”
“I want us to move to Chicago,” Kelli repeats, “because that’s where Uncle Diego and you and Randall and Ash are, and it’s where all Dad’s clients are gonna be, and I think it’s where he really wants to be. But he thinks we need to stay here for me and Mom, and we don’t agree. Sure, I’ll miss Whitley and my other friends and my team, but I’ll make new friends. Plus, Whitley’s parents are loaded so she can come visit. And if Dad’s around all the time, he can even coach my new soccer team. Mom says she can find new doctors, and I told her she can be friends with you and Wendy and Leslie, and she can make more friends. My dad needs this. He’s never had friends before, except for Uncle Diego, and he’s never ever had a girlfriend. Andallof you are in Chicago. You gotta help me convince him, Melissa. You justhaveto!”
I fall back down onto the couch and yank off my pants but leave the coat halfway on. “You’re really sure you’d want to move?” What teenage girl actually wants to move to a new state? Usually they resist moves with the force of a freight train. They think leaving their friends will be the end of the world.
“Yes. Would I randomly choose to move to Chicago? No. It gets totally frigid there. It bet it’s like zero degrees right now. But I can deal with that if living there makes my dad happy. And I think it will.”
“But he doesn’t agree?” I finally pull my coat the rest of the way off.
“He just shuts me down when I try to talk to him about it. He won’t listen to me or to Mom. But I think maybe he’ll listen to you.”
Somehow I doubt that. There’s a reason Bobby won’t consider moving and hasn’t talked to me about it. And I’m not sure I want to know that reason, because I’m pretty sure I won’t like it. But I need to know.
“Kelli, your dad and I have only been dating for a couple months.” And I thought we cared enough about each other to talk about stuff like this, but apparently not. “I don’t know that we’re at the point where I can ask him to consider moving his family to Chicago for me.”
“But he asked if you’d be willing to move to California before you even started dating! It’s not fair that he thinks you should move, but he won’t do it, even though Mom and I are fine with it. And it’s not just for you—it’s for everybody. No offense.”
As much as I want to keep asking Kelli questions, I know I shouldn’t. I need to end this conversation and then decide what I want to do about it.
“None taken. I appreciate you telling me all this. I’ll think about what I want to do, but you and I don’t need to talk about this again, all right? I don’t want your dad to think we’re conspiring behind his back. And as much as I want to talk to you more and get to know you, we can’t talk again unless your dad says it’s OK.”
Kelli sighs. “I hate this. I hate that he doesn’t want us to talk or to meet yet. And I hate that he won’t listen to me about moving. He’s so stubborn!”
She’s not wrong, but it’s probably best that I don’t say it.
“Stubborn or not, he’s your dad, and even if you don’t agree with him on this, I hope you don’t let that change anything aboutyour relationship. He’s a great dad, and I don’t want you to forget that.”
“I won’t,” she says softly. “OK, bye, Melissa. Thanks for listening to me.”
“You’re welcome, honey. Have a good night.”
“You, too.”
I hang up with a sigh, pull an afghan over me, and curl up on my side.
Why didn’t Bobby talk to me about this? And if he’s not willing to even consider the possibility of moving, then is he as invested in this relationship as I am? I love him. I haven’t said it yet, but I’ve been feeling it for awhile. I’m just not sure his feelings are as strong as mine are. He has been more open with me about his feelings than I thought he might be, but I can tell he’s still holding back.
I’ve been willing to sacrifice being close to my friends and family in order to be with him. But if he’s not willing to sacrifice … I don’t even know what he’d be sacrificing, actually, if he moved here. He’d be bringing his daughter and her mother with him, and he’d be in the same city as everyone else he cares about as well as all his clients. I don’t see the problem with that. I need to talk to him, though I wish we could have this conversation in person. But I’m not waiting until I can see him again, because who knows when that will be? This long-distance thing is much harder than I thought it would be.
