In Your Dreams (Falling #4)(40)

He called me a cancer. What irony.

“Maybe after dinner,” I lie.

Murphy’s knuckles graze against mine at my side, and I flex my fingers in hope as she cups her hand in mine. The second her palm is flush with mine, I squeeze it—and that same feeling when she stumbled out of the car less than thirty minutes ago fills my chest. It’s like I can breathe.

I clutch her tightly and pray she doesn’t give me a sign that she wants me to let go as we both walk to the far end of the table. As we sit, her palm remains in mine, and I leave them linked on top of my thigh out of view. I’m sweating—my palm is sweating, and I know she can feel it. I run my thumb over the top of her hand in small circles to clear more nerves. It doesn’t help, but it doesn’t hurt. It’s peaceful, as opposed to the quiet storm brewing above the table.

She has no idea how grateful I am for her, how much I need her to survive this. I’ve made it this far and it’s only because she’s by my side. I lean on her, my hand clenching more tightly as my heart speeds up. With every squeeze I give, she gives one back—silent courage.

“How nice,” my father says, stepping through the small hallway into the dining area. He’s dressed as if he’s ready for a day at the office, but I can see the small change my sister warned me about. It’s only been a few weeks, but his shirt collar is loose around his neck, the bones and tendons more pronounced.

“This was a nice idea, Gina,” he says to my mom.

She pulls out a chair next to the one she just rose from, and he smiles and slides it out farther, almost as if to prove he can still do it on his own.

“Casey,” he says, his eyes landing on me for a brief second before he sits. He looks down at the plate in front of him as he slides his chair forward. “I see you brought a friend.”

“Hi, sir,” Murphy says, standing and circling around the table. I rub my hand on my leg to dry it, then panic that she won’t hold it again when she sits back down.

I glance around the table to see half of my sisters looking down into their own laps, the other two staring nervously as this stranger I’ve brought home tries to win over the unwinnable.

“My name’s Murphy. Thank you so much for inviting me for dinner,” she says.

My father pauses a second, finishing a sip of his water, then finally bothers to reach for her hand, shaking it. He smirks and glances to me then to my mom. “Did we? Invite you, I mean?” he says, that familiar pompous smirk making it’s first appearance of the day.

I see everything in Murphy freeze up—and sick or not—I want to punch him for treating her like an extension of me.

“Luke, don’t joke with her,” my mother says through a nervous giggle. Nobody thinks he’s joking. Nobody thinks it, because we all know he’s not. But maybe Murphy doesn’t know, and that’s why my mom says it—to smooth the waters and dial back the storm.

My father chuckles and his eyes wrinkle with his smile as he looks at me again, his eyes telling me the truth before he glances back to my now-speechless friend. “Right, I’m sorry, Murphy. My humor…it isn’t for everyone,” he says.

She laughs in response nervously and lightly before letting go and slipping back into her seat. Her hand finds mine quickly, and I stroke her wrist with my thumb this time, hoping I can soothe her.

My mother glosses over everything and begins passing dishes around. My father asks Christina about some real-estate contract she’s been negotiating for a new high-rise downtown, and then the rest of my sisters and he begin talking about some new chip being manufactured, and how the process has an “anomaly,” but nobody can figure out where there’s a misstep. My eyes glaze over for their fifteen-minute conversation, but as I silently count how many green beans are left on my plate, I’m brought out of my trance when my father says my name.

“Casey was always good at that, finding the hiccups in projects? Seeing what’s broken in the process,” he says while chewing. He runs a napkin over his mouth and looks at me, and I breathe in slowly through my nose to fill my chest. If I’m going to be held under water, I may as well prepare.

“Weren’t you, Case,” he says, putting the napkin next to his plate and laying one hand flat on the table next to his setting.

“I guess,” I say, not quite audible enough for his liking as he tilts his head to the side and cups his ear. My mother stops eating and places her napkin and hands in her lap, looking down.

“I said, I guess,” I say, now overcompensating as if he’s deaf. I copy his posture and look right at him.

My father grunts out a small laugh, his tongue pushed in his cheek.

My mom and two youngest sisters all stand and begin clearing the table, asking if anyone would like coffee. My father holds up a finger indicating he’d like a cup. We continue to stare at each other.

“So what do you do, Murphy?” he asks, his eyes still on me. The smirk is there. He’s treating this dinner as a process problem, weeding out the error. I should save him the trouble and just leave.

“I teach music,” she says.

“And how does that pay?” There’s almost a low grumble of a laugh in his chest. It’s barely audible, but I hear it. It’s that satisfying checkmate laugh he does so well.

Murphy stumbles in her answer, not really sure how to reply, so my father saves her. “Not well then, hmmm?”