Chapter Thirty-Five
Cade
Later That Evening
I felt a little better this time as I put a call to my father. I didn’t have that same knot of anxiety that I once had about him. Maybe things really were getting better between us, slowly but surely.
“Hello?” The moment he answered, I couldn’t help but notice how sleepy he sounded, which reminded me that he was over the other side of the world.
“Oh, I’m sorry, Dad. I forgot about the time difference. I can call you back later if you want? I’m not calling for anything important, just a chat...”
“No, no, I want to talk to you. Hold on let me just go somewhere I can be a little louder.” I paused as I listened to him moving to another room. He was probably trying to escape Helen, which brought that hot anger up inside of me again. The bitch was like bile, and I despised her...an emotion that I was struggling to keep inside. “Now, how are things, son? It’s been a few weeks.”
“Yeah, sorry about that, it’s been pretty busy.”
“Oh, it has been here, too. All good, though; I’ll have to catch you up on it sometime.”
I forced myself not to say anything. I felt like he thought I was a part of the company, even though I turned him down, but that was not what I wanted to talk about right now. I hadn’t called for just a chat – I had something that I needed to discuss. I just wanted to do it in the right way.
“Oh right, yeah that sounds good... So actually, I wanted to talk to you about Alissa. Have you heard from her?” I cringed as those words left my lips because I knew they’d lead to a million questions from the other end. Ones that I couldn’t answer in a good way.
“No, I haven’t heard from her. Haven’t you been spending time with her? You’re the one in the same country. I would have thought that you’d hear from her before me.”
I sighed loudly and started on the speech that I’d been planning in my mind all day long, ever since Matt left this morning. I just hoped that I didn’t end up making things worse. “She’s been upset, ever since New Year’s actually. I think she had a conversation with her mother which didn’t go down too well.”
"What has Helen done?” His sharp tone suggested that he knew exactly what a cold, horrible bitch his wife was. “What did he say?”
“She basically told Alissa that you gave me the money to hang out with her.”
“Oh.” I could tell that he didn’t quite get it, which made my heart sink. I wasn’t sure I wanted to explain this in damn graphic detail for him. “Okay, well that wasn’t great. It isn’t true, anyway. I gave you the money as a gift to help you get your life sorted. I asked you to spend some time with Alissa to check up on her. It’s two very different things.”
“I know that, but she didn’t take it well. She went crazy and kicked me out of her home.”
“Why?”
“Huh?” My father’s question confused me, didn’t I just explain that?
“Why were you in her home? Why did she go so mad? Why hasn’t she spoken to you in weeks? I mean, I presume that’s why you’re asking me if I’ve heard from her.”
I could almost feel the seconds tick past while I tried to craft my answer. I didn’t want to sound like a massive dick right now. I needed Dad to see that I actually had some depth. “Because I have feelings for her, Dad. Because we’ve been seeing each other.”
I clutched onto the phone tightly as I waited for his response. He didn’t say anything for a while, which was fair. He probably needed to digest this messed up situation. Without being here to see how good Alissa and I are together, it probably sounded like a messed-up stepbrother/stepsister situation.
“I see,” he finally said cautiously. “I understand.”
“So, now I hope you can see why she went so mad about Helen and the idea that I’m only hanging out with her for money. Especially after Luke.”
I let that name hang in the air for a moment. I wanted him to understand that I knew what they’d done in the past.
“I didn’t know anything about Luke until it was too late,” he answered in a warning tone of voice. “I know that my accounts were used and someone spoke with him pretending to be me, but I had nothing to do with it. I would never do anything like that to anyone else. Especially not Alissa. I like her; she didn’t deserve that.”
“So, what did you do?” I asked angrily. “What did you do when you found out what had happened?”
“What... What do you mean?” He sounded annoyingly weak and pathetic. “What did I do? I couldn’t do anything; it was too late.”
“You should have seen Helen for what she really is, and you should have divorced her.”
“It isn’t always as simple as that.”
Just as I suspected, she had something on him. I wanted to ask what, but it seemed pointless. “Okay, well, whatever. It’s your life, I suppose; if you want to be married to such a wicked bitch, then that’s up to you. Personally, I would think that you’re too smart to stay married to such a cow, but that’s just me.”
Dad didn’t say anything then; he didn’t bother to defend Helen at all. For a few seconds, we remained in a pregnant pause until I couldn’t stand it anymore. “So, Helen wants to hurt Alissa, again. That’s the only reason she would have told her that. She decided to tear her daughter’s life apart once more. Are you going to do nothing again? Will you continue to turn a blind eye?”
“You let me worry about my business, Cade, you just worry about your own.”
That answer was so frustratingly vague that it almost made me want to scream. I wanted to launch into yet another rant about how he was an idiot, allowing Helen to walk all over him, but it hardly seemed worth it. If he wanted to deal with her by himself, then that was up to him.
“Well, Alissa is my business, and I need to protect her from Helen.”
“How are you going to do that if she won’t even talk to you?”
“It doesn’t matter if she talks to me or not, she can have nothing to do with me ever again if she doesn’t want to and I’ll protect her. I have to put this money to some good use.”
“And, that’s your life plan, is it?” His scathing tone irritated me. “You’re going to watch Alissa forever more?”
“If that’s what it takes.” I wouldn’t be forced into a corner. I needed my father to understand just how serious I was about Alissa. I didn’t want him to think this was just another fling because she meant so much more to me than that. “I’ll do whatever I can to keep Helen from ruining any more of her. I won’t let her win.”
“Good.” I paused as I noticed happiness in my father’s voice that hadn’t been there before. Clearly, I had given all the right answers; I’d said everything that he wanted to hear, even though I’d argued with him the whole time. “That’s very good news. Congratulations on finally becoming a man.”
“What... What do you mean?” He’d thrown me completely off guard, and I barely knew what to say.
“I mean you’ve finally found something that means so much to you that it’s worth protecting whatever the cost. To me, it’s my business, to you, it’s Alissa. If you have something like that to take care of, then the world is a much better place. You must really love her if you’re willing to protect her whether she wants you or not.”
Love... There was that word again, chasing me around as if it was clinging to my tail. I didn’t dispute it; there hardly seemed to be any point. If everyone could already see it, then maybe I didn’t need to find out a way to express it.
“Right, yeah.”
“Look, son, I know this is hard, and I know that Helen has been a nightmare when it comes to Alissa, but it won’t happen again. You don’t need to be worried about her; you can take my word.”
I didn’t know if my dad could be trusted since he seemed so scared of Helen, but I had to give him the benefit of the doubt. He had much more control over Helen than I did right now since they were both in the same country. I had no choice in the matter.
“Thanks, Dad. I really appreciate it. I know Alissa will, too.”
“Don’t tell Alissa. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but she doesn’t much like people up in her business.”
I smiled secretly to myself as I thought about her self-protecting nature. Maybe she wasn’t mine anymore – although I hoped she would be again – but I could still find happiness in the memories that we’d shared together. “Yeah, okay. I won’t say anything. I do know that about her.”
Once we said our goodbyes and hung up the phone, I checked to see if I had any messages from Matt yet. I should have heard by now, he should’ve found and spoke to Alissa, but there was nothing. I didn’t want to call him, to harass him when he was already doing so much for me, so instead, I sat at my dining table, and I proceeded to make a list of everything that I needed to get done for tomorrow.
If I wanted even a chance of getting Alissa back, everything had to be right.
Hearing me out would be fine, but I really wanted her to be mine. I wanted to hold her in my arms again, to kiss her, to make love to her... But at the same time, what I said to my dad was the truth. Even if she didn’t want anything from me, I would do everything in my power to keep her safe. After everything that she’d been through, she deserved that.
Bleep, bleep.
I glanced at my screen rapidly to see Matt’s name there staring back at me. I clicked onto the message with anxiety tearing through my system.
The message passed on.
‘What did she say? How did she seem?’
Why hadn’t he told me all those things? I demanded to know everything when we talked about him going to see her, why was he leaving me in the dark now?
‘She didn’t say much. I think she’ll turn up tomorrow, though.’
I let out a sigh of relief. Matt wouldn’t have said that if he didn’t mean it, he didn’t want me to get my hopes up. He’d been surprisingly good about this whole thing, and I was very grateful to him. He was far away from being ready to settle down himself, but he still seemed very willing to help me find love.
‘Thanks, man, I really appreciate it.’
I was going to have to take him out for a nice drink sometime soon, a proper drink. Hopefully, it would be a celebration rather than a commiseration, but he still deserved recognition. If it weren't for his encouragement, I would still be in some dive bar somewhere, drinking myself into an oblivion. Probably searching for some faceless woman to screw and delving deeper and deeper into sadness.
Taking action, being proactive, felt so much better. At least I wouldn’t be left with regrets and what ifs. At least I would know for sure. Even if I didn’t like the answer.