Ellison
Emotionally exhausted from watching Drix’s interview, I park my car around back and sit in the driver’s seat for a few extra minutes. I glance up at the towering house and think of all the years my heart leaped when I headed down this driveway. This used to be home to me. It meant comfort and safety and a place to heal. Now I’m overcome with a feeling of dread each and every second I’m trapped in this house.
Blackmailing my parents came with a price—we no longer have a relationship. We decided it was best all the way around for us to pretend through the election that we’re still as close as ever, but we don’t even talk anymore. We’re like lost ghosts roaming past each other in the dark of night.
They, at least, didn’t kick me out like they did Henry, and they are still paying my tuition for my senior year of high school. For that, I find the grace to be grateful. It’s a lot more than other parents do for their children and a million percent more than they did for Henry.
A buzz of my cell and it’s like Henry read my mind. Saw the interview. Maybe this guy isn’t so bad. Maybe he’ll live.
I snort. Henry and Drix have yet to meet, but this will happen once Henry is in Kentucky again. He’s texting so that must mean he’s stateside, but whatever the army is having him do isn’t in my home state. Do him wrong and you’ll have to deal with me.
Henry: So scared...
Done putting off the inevitable, I leave the comfort of my car and enter the house through the kitchen. I head for my room, and as I’m about to turn the corner for the staircase, my stomach cramps at the sound of my mother’s voice. “Elle.”
I pause and consider still walking.
“Please, Elle,” she says. “I miss you.”
Those three words hurt, and I turn without thinking how any interaction with her typically wounds more. There’s always this small shred of stupid hope that this time we’ll figure out how to be a family again.
I blink because Mom’s dressed down. Cotton shirt, yoga pants, hair in a ponytail, and she looks younger and more vulnerable than normal. She must be getting ready to work out.
We stare at each other, and I wait for her to speak. I did try to talk to Mom and Dad a few weeks after I forced their hand, but they shut me down. As far as I’m concerned this relationship is their responsibility to repair. When the silence between us stretches, I go to move again, and Mom steps forward. “Wait.”
I breathe through my nose to keep myself from getting angry. If she’s truly trying, losing my temper won’t help. “What do you need?”
“Your father still might pull off the election,” she says. “People are responding well to Hendrix’s interview tonight, and that’s causing your father’s approval rating to bounce.”
The muscles in my back tighten. “He didn’t do it for Dad. Drix did it to save the program. I’m really tired, so is there anything else you need?”
“Your father would like to speak to you. We both would. We’ve made mistakes, and we’d like the opportunity to make that up to you.”
There’s a knot in my chest, and that knot is the representation of all the emotion that’s wrenched inside me due to my parents. Do I want to move forward with them? Yes, but I’m still angry. So angry at both of them.
“Come with me to your father’s office. Give him a chance to talk with you.”
I shake my head because I’m not the one giving again. “If he wants to talk to me, then he finds me. I’m not playing on his turf anymore.”
With that, I climb the stairs and head to my room. We’ve played this game twice since the press conference that ended all press conferences for us. Both times Dad tried to rule me from behind his desk, and both times I walked out. I’m done being ruled. It’s time they start figuring me out and try speaking to me on my terms.
Once in my room, I kick off my shoes, go to text Drix, and the pattering of feet causes me to spin on my toes. It’s an odd sound in my house, one I recognize, but can’t quite place, and I blink twice when a ball of fur bounds into my room.
It’s a dog, a big dog, not huge, but not a puppy, and he stops short when he sees me. His fur is all black, he’s matted in several places, and my heart aches when I spot his ribs. He begins to pant, a sign he’s anxious, so I drop to my knees and hold out my hand. The dog stretches forward to sniff. In seconds, he steps closer. One paw at a time until he’s near enough that I can scratch him behind his ears. “You are definitely lost.”
“He is,” Dad says, and my head snaps up. “I saw him outside of the capitol building this week searching through the trash. I thought of you the moment I saw him.”
“Because I’m a lost scrawny mutt in your eyes who needs to be saved by you?”
“Because hundreds, if not thousands, of people passed by this dog this week, and not one person tried to help him, and I was one of them. I heard what Hendrix said about you on the interview tonight, and he made me realize something.”
I sit back on my bottom, and the dog lays his head in my lap. I continue to pet him and brace myself for what could be a ripping off of carefully placed bandages on my soul. “Did it make you realize you should have never fought me on Drix?”
“That and that he knew you better than I did. Instead of trying to mold you into something else, Drix saw your strengths in who you are, and that faith in you saved his life.”
I stay silent as I honestly don’t know what to say. Dad continues, “You would have been the one person to stop and help this dog. No matter how many times I yelled at you, no matter how many times your mother yelled at you, no matter how many times you were punished for your actions, you still would have stopped and saved this dog.”
This is true.
“You told me once that every life is valuable. With what happened that night, the lives hurt and lost, that’s weighed heavily on me. I don’t claim to know all the answers, and I don’t know how to fix what I broke, but I do know you would have saved this dog, and now I need your help because I don’t know what it entails to save this life.”
My heart throbs with each beat. “Bringing this dog home doesn’t fix anything between us. It doesn’t even start to heal all that’s been done.”
Dad leans his shoulder against my door frame and shoves his hands into his pockets. It hurts how incredibly sad he appears. “I know, but it’s the only way I know how to start trying with you. I love you, and I wanted only the best for you, but I’m realizing I never stopped to figure out that what I considered the best might not have been a match for you.”
I’m terrified to forgive him, terrified to hope that maybe my family can be repaired, but here’s the thing about forgiveness—I can allow it to take time. I don’t have to fake words and actions or offer him a hug or accept all sorts of blatant lies of bygones being bygones. This isn’t a made-for-TV movie. This is real life, and sometimes in real life, we take a million baby steps until a wound is healed.
Tonight, Dad is trying, and because of that, I will, too. “Have you fed him?”
“Found some leftovers in the kitchen earlier.”
“He needs dog food and he needs a bath. There’s some dog food in the laundry room in the bottom cabinet.”
Dad pushes off the door frame. “I’ll get the food.”
I stand and shake my head. “I’ll get the food. You’ll do the bath. In your bathroom.”
He raises both of his eyebrows, and I stare at him to see if he’s going to accept being ordered around. To my shock, Dad gives and calls the dog with a whistle. “Let’s go get a bath.”
They start down the hallway to their bedroom, and I follow. Dad glances at me from over his shoulder. “I thought you were getting the dog food.”
“I will, but I want to make sure the dog doesn’t eat your face off.”
“You don’t think I deserve it?”
I half chuckle, and I spot a ghost of a smile on his face. “Maybe.”
“At least you’re honest, Elle. At least you’re honest.”