When I got back from the trip from hell, I’d sequestered myself in my apartment. Avoided everyone’s phone calls and logged onto FindMe to catch up on what I’d missed while I’d been away and too afraid to log on for fear of being caught. I’d been beyond the point of livid with Harry. I’d sworn I’d tasted a dash of hate in the aftertaste saying his name left in my mouth.

I spent a whole day looking at pictures of the little girl who had grown inside my body, who I’d given birth to, who had my mother’s eyes and my father’s smile - and who I didn’t know at all. She’s not your daughter replayed over and over again in my head.

But the seed had been planted. I couldn’t stop hearing his refrain in my head as I looked at the pictures. And suddenly, she looked like a stranger. Instead of feeling like I was watching my child grow up, I started to feel like a creep. A peeping Tom. A stalker.

A week passed, my interactions in my book groups stopped. I’d log in and look at the pictures she posted, but I didn’t see my mother’s eyes anymore. Instead I saw how her fingers twined in her mother’s hair in the selfies they took together. I saw how she and her older sister dressed alike on their first day of school.

The refrain in my head changed to she’s not my daughter, I logged into my online counseling portal and set up a session with the therapist I’d stopped talking to when I’d started my game of catfish.

Two weeks later, I’d been able to wean myself down to only logging in when I got a notification from Christina, Michaela’s mother.

Two weeks after that, it was over. I logged and read the post that ended it. My heart plunged to my toes and back up into my throat as I read.

I cried until my entire body ached. But, in the river pain, there was also trickle of relief. This torture was over. Because that’s what the last few months had been. A cruel and unusual punishment.

I took a screenshot of the message, suspended the Facebook account I’d created and then I called my parents. When I was done talking to them, I called my sisters. When I was done talking to them, I bought a plane ticket to Houston and I went home.

* * *

It’s been two months, three weeks and six days since I closed my Facebook account. I’m working, talking to my parents and healing. My sisters had both come down twice. I moved back to Houston so that I could be close to my parents again. And even though it’s great to have them so close by and to be back in the city that I called home for the first sixteen years of my life, I know it’s not where I will settle.

My heart is across the Atlantic Ocean, held firmly in the grasp of a man whose trust I shredded and whose generosity I squandered. I’ve told myself that he’s lost to me. That the bridge I crossed when I told him about Michaela and what I said about wanting her more than him, had left me firmly in the camp of “burned to ashes.”

His family probably hates me. When we left Castle Burne, the only person who was there to see us off was Jan. She apologized for everyone’s absence, but had been unable to meet our eyes.

I know for a fact that my sisters wouldn’t spit on Freya if she was on fire. My parents don’t speak of her and I try very hard not to think of that night. And, I haven’t heard from him since. Not that he would know to reach me, but he wouldn’t have to try too hard with his brother being married to my sister’s best friend and all. So, I take his silence to mean that he hasn’t made the effort. And I haven’t found the courage to call the way Jan had implored me to when we were leaving.

Then, I’d been sure I’d never ever want to speak to him again. Not after the way he’d decimated me. Not after the ultimatum he’d issued as soon as I’d told him the truth.

Now, I’m nursing a soul deep throb of longing for Harry. I didn’t know it was possible to miss someone that I’d only known for totality of a six weeks so intensely.

When my mother told me that my father had declared his love three weeks after they’d met and before they’d even shared their first kiss, I had roared with laughter. My fifteen-year-old heart couldn’t imagine falling in love before a kiss or after a few weeks.

When she’d reminded me of this story during one of our family therapy sessions, I’d laughed again, but this time it was at how little I’d known about matters of the heart.

I hadn’t understood that our hearts didn’t bow to any master. That it rules supreme and that nothing; not time, distance, age, beauty, money, truth or a lifetime of lies can manipulate or stop it. I release a frustrated sigh into the night.

“Those kinds of sighs aren’t allowed on Sundays.” My father’s deep, gruff voice interrupts my day dream. It’s our day to eat dinner together. My mom had her quarterly book club meeting tonight. So, my father came over to my little town house by himself. When my dad fell asleep on the couch, I came out to onto my back patio to enjoy a rare cool evening in Houston’s typically hot and humid late spring.

I look up at him, and give a small, affectionate smile. I pat the cushion of the seat next to mine and he drops his long, rangy frame into it.

In the waning light, the fiery red of his hair that’s been increasingly replaced by white blazes. I love having him back. I love how good it feels to talk to him, face to face. He always listens so closely; his eyes never leave your face.

“Penny for your thoughts.” He shoots me that crooked little grin of his, the one that says “Come on, you know you want to tell me.” And I do. So, I tell him.

“I miss him.” I bite my lower lip, to stop it from trembling after my admission.

“Hmmm.” Is all he says.

“Do you think it’s hopeless?” I ask him.

“You and him?” He asks in mock confusion.

I nudge him with my shoulder, “Daddy. I’m being serious.” I whine.

“Well, I couldn’t tell. You told me missed him, and you said it like you were about to cry. So, I’m thinking you mean it. So, why you’re sitting here, on your porch thinking about missing him is beyond me.”

“Daddy,” I moan, “It’s not that simple. Things between us were a mess when I left and we haven’t talked in three months. I want to call but last time we spent three months apart the next time I saw him he had a girlfriend. And that was before he knew I’d had a baby in secret and then broken a bunch of laws by breaking into a database, stealing personal information, and cyber stalking them. I’m sure after I left he brought one of those special cleaners in to burn sage.”

He bursts out laughing and I stare at him, not finding anything funny.

“If you’re just going to make fun of me then I’m leaving.” I say and start to stand.

He closes a hand gently around my wrist and stops laughing, but a smile still dances on his face.

“I’m not laughing at you.”

I scoff at that, giving him a look that says I don’t believe him.

“Well, okay maybe just a little,” he acquiesces. “Come on, sit back down.”

I do, plopping back into the seat, a pout firmly on my face, my arms now crossed over my chest as I stare straight ahead.

“Lilly, you were always so prone to hyperbole.”

“Harry used to say that, too.” I whisper sadly, staring unseeing at my backyard.

My father pats my leg in response.

“Your imagination has always been your biggest asset and your fatal flaw. You paint scenarios in your mind, my darling, that are always more spectacular or terrible than real life could ever be. If you’ve learned anything over the last few months, I hope that it’s that saying things out loud takes away their power over you. The truth is where all of the real things live. Not in the fairytales we spin or the horror stories we weave. And when you release the truth from the cage of fear it lives in, the truth releases you, too. It’s not always pretty. It’s not always comfortable, but Lilly, it’s who we are.” I turn to look at him and see him watching me with a fond smile on his face.

“Oh Daddy.” I nestle into him, letting my head rest of his shoulder, my arm linking through his.

“It’s a lesson that I didn’t teach you before I left, not in word or deed. But, better late than never.” He grasps my hand and I squeeze his. We sit in a comfortable silence for a minute, my mind grappling with what he’s said and how true the last few months have proven it to be.

“You’re wearing your pendant again.” He says quietly and my hand comes up to touch the small gold pendant sitting in the center of my throat. I found it when I moved back to Houston and I put it back on.

“Fawohodie. Translated literally, it means with freedom comes with responsibilities.”

I lean back and look up at him. “I’d always thought it just meant Freedom.”

“I know you did. From the minute you turned eight, you started demanding freedom. We always told you, if you want it, you have to earn it. And once you earn it, you have to keep earning it. You have to work for it. It doesn’t happen overnight and it’s never easy.” I nod impatiently when he stops talking and looks at me to see if I’m keeping up. Satisfied, he continues.

“Honesty, Courage and Kindness, my love. Those are the ingredients. You’ve always been courageous, Lilly. And there’s not a kinder soul in the world. No one’s heart is as wide open and giving as yours. But, until you decided to start being honest, you were always going to find that freedom elusive. The truth is your responsibility. Not just to yourself, but to the people who you love.”

He puts his arm around my shoulder, and strokes my hair. I close my eyes and say a prayer of gratitude that I’ve had my father here when I needed him more than I ever have in my life.

“I’m sorry that you suffered alone, Lilly. I’m sorry I wasn’t here. I’m sorry that those who were let their fear stop them from making you tell them what was wrong.”

“I know. You don’t have to say it again.” My family has spent the last two month in a circle jerk of apologies. Them to me for not wanting to see what was plain as day and me to them, for not trusting them with the truth sooner. “I think we’re all sorry’d out, now.”

He chuckles softly.

“Well, let me just get in one more apology, it’s a new one. “

I quirk an eyebrow at him and lean away from him, eyeing him suspiciously. He holds up a hand, as if to say “patience.”

“That you shouldn’t be tempted to run when things seem hopeless, because that is only an illusion. Light can’t be seen without the dark. And the darker it is, the brighter the light shines.”

“Okay, Socrates.” I tease him, but I hear his words, they wash over me like warm rain and I soak them in.

“Now, for my apology. I didn’t tell you that Harry called the house this morning. He found some courage and asked Dean for our number. And then, he actually used it. He asked me if he could come visit and I said yes. I gave him our address and he’s on his way.”

I jump up out of the chair and screech, “What? Omigod, Dad. What?” I look across the yard to my back door and start to pace. My pulse is doing what I think is the happy dance. Joy unfiltered and fast moving as wildfire, fills me from the inside out. My mind races. I run my fingers through my hair and when it gets snagged in a knot of curls, I remember all of the things I’ve neglected over the last couple of months.

I turn to face my father, my eyes wide and frantic. He’s smiling.

I ignore his smile and demand, “When’s he coming? I mean, next week, next month? Did he say?” I wonder if I’ll be able to get an appointment with Helena, my wax lady. She’s usually booked, but if I beg, she might be able to fit me in next week. “Why didn’t you tell me this morning? How could you keep that to yourself all day?” I rush back to the chair and grab my phone and start scrolling through my contacts. I need a mani pedi desperately.

“Well, I kind of promised I wouldn’t say anything until he got here.”

Fingers freeze and the phone falls out of my hand. I stare at my father, stupefied at what he’s saying.

All the blood in body seems to rush to my head and I feel a little like I might fall over.

“Wh-what?” I whisper.

My father’s smile spreads into a huge, satisfied grin.

And then, like the answer to all of my prayers, Harry is standing across the yard, filling the frame of the door that leads into my house.

My tall, dark, impossibly handsome Harry is here. His beautiful hair is completely unruly, his dark heavy brows furrowed, his sexy eyes, the ones I lost myself in so many times are boring into me

I let my eyes feast on him and my hungry, starving heart starts to fill itself with the same passion and happiness I see reflected in his eyes. I wish I was a liquid so he could put the vessel that held me to his lips and drink me. I want to be absorbed by him.

My greedy gaze moves to his mouth. The one that should come with a warning sign that says, “Kiss me and you’ll never be the same,” is tilted up at the corners and he mouths, “I’m sorry.”

Tears spring to my eyes and my mouth forms the words I never thought I’d have the chance to say - “I love you.”

He drops his bag and starts walking toward me. His eyes eating up the distance faster than his legs can. His intent is clear, he’s coming to bind me to him so that I can’t ever leave him again. I can’t fucking wait. So, I start walking too.

My father, who I’d completely forgotten was there, stands up and says, “I’ll give you some privacy,” and walks past Harry into the house, and shuts the door behind him.

As soon as the door closes, we break into a run and close the short distance between us in less than three strides.

And then I’m in his arms. The energy of us, connected and revived, creates a crackle in the air. We don’t speak. Our mouths, hands and hearts immediately lock onto their soul mates and love takes over.

His kiss, more passionate and demanding than any kiss we’ve ever shared, steals my breath and my knees sag. He stoops down, hooks an arm under my knees and swings me up into his arms. And, Oh. My. God. As soon as my arms wrap around his neck, my heart sings, We’re home.