Page 103 of Over & Out
“You were in California,” she whispers. “I saw the photos.”
“Mabel…diverted the press with some old pictures.” Those were Mabel’s words, because she never actually came out and said “cover-up.”
Chris looks like she’s going to throw up.
“I’m sorry, Chris,” I say softly. “I’m so fucking sorry.”
If there’s one small mercy in all of this, it’s that finally—finally—the truth is out there. My father’s twisted version of it, anyway. If there’s another, it’s my dad,looking between the two of us, realizing who Chris really is. He didn’t mean to blow it up quite so badly. The wind seems to deflate from his anger. He looks down, leaning on his cane.
I open my mouth to tell him once more to leave. That he can send his lawyer and a court summons and whatever else he has up his sleeve. But it’s not my voice that rings out. It’s Chris’s. “You asked me,” she says, whirling on him, “if Hopper told me any of those things.”
My father looks deeply sorry he asked now. I’ve never once seen that. In the past, he always doubled down when he knew he’d done wrong. Dug in his heels like the narcissist he is. Now he seems sorrowful. Pathetic.
“He hasn’t. Yet,” Chris continues. “But you need to know that I trust he will, in his own time. And in his own way. That’s because I know who he is. He’s a good man, despite you ripping his childhood from him. He’s a kind soul not because you raised him, but in spite of your version of fathering. If you came here to break him, you won’t. You can’t. Because he’s not on his own anymore. And he’s stronger than you’ll ever have the privilege of knowing.”
That weight lifts, just the tiniest bit. Like someone’s taken a car jack to a corner of it. Because she’s seen me. She’s not storming out.
She trusts me.
She just might not ever forgive me.
“Now,” Chris says. “If we’re done here, you can leave. And if you don’t, I’ll call the cops to have you removed.”
She turns and heads for the stairs. Shaken, I watch her go. I should follow.
But I’m not finished. I turn around, because I need to tell him I don’t ever want to see him again unless it’s in a courtroom. But my father has his hand up. It shakes.
“I didn’t mean for this to happen,” he says to me, his voice sounding pained. “It’s not why I came.”
“Then why did you come?”
He meets my eyes for what feels like the first time since he arrived. “I came to apologize. I’m in a program and…well, yeah. I fucked that one up real bad.”
I’m too stunned to speak.
“I’ll be staying at the inn in town for another week…”
He says more words, but I don’t hear them properly. Then, in a sweep of low headlights, he’s gone.
I head back up the stairs in a daze. But just as I reach for the door handle, the door swings open. Chris’s eyes are red, and I feel sick that it’s my fault. But she doesn’t look away. I prepare for her to yell at me, but that’s not really her style either, is it?
“Chris, I?—”
“I’m just going to head out for a bit.”
I reach for her hand. “It’s not like he says.”
“I’m sure it isn’t.” She pulls her hand away, and a knife twists in my gut. My hands drop to my sides.
“I just need a little time,” she says. “I’ll be back in an hour—if you wouldn’t mind being gone, please.”
My heart feels like it’s been thrown into a blender, pulled out, and tossed back in. I run my hands over my hair, panic corkscrewing my insides. I can’t lose her. I can’t.
“Is that it, then?” I croak. “Is this the end?”
“No, Hopper.” Heat drips into Chris’s cheeks. “That’s not it, and fuck you for thinking that. I just need space. So give me some space.”She enunciates those last words.
Then she slips by me, heading for her car.
