Midnight Sun(43)

“Stop,” my dad says through his tears. “I can’t…”

I forge ahead even though it’s hard to weather his grief. “I just want you to have as great a life as the one you’ve given me. I need to know you’ll try to be happy, and have adventures and someone to share them with because… well, that’s the best part.”

Dad composes himself with a few deep cleansing breaths, like we learned from those meditation videos we tried a while back. When I can see he’s almost ready to agree, I try to close the deal fast.

“Just go on one date,” I urge him. “Pick a rando lady and take her out. Please.”

He finally nods. “Okay.”

I grab his hand in mine. “Promise.”

“I promise,” he tells me.

I wrap my arms around him and we hug each other tightly. My tears fall fast on his shoulder. His tears soak into mine. I’m the first to break away.

“Now let’s call Hunan Chinese,” I say, wiping my face on my shoulder.

Dad gives me a smile, and says, “You go upstairs and rest for a bit. I’ll order us dinner.”

My heart feels like it’s somehow stitching itself back together. I know I can still make a difference for as long as I’m here. And maybe even after if I work fast enough.





21

The doorbell rings forty-five minutes later, so I head downstairs.

“Our dinner is served,” I yell as I take the last step and see my dad still sitting on the couch.

“Hey, can you get that, honey?” he asks, his eyes never leaving the baseball game on the TV screen. “It’s full count with two outs and two men on base.”

I laugh at how intense he’s being about a regular-season matchup. “Sure.”

I walk to the door and open it. My mouth falls open. It’s not our delivery guy after all.

I slam the door shut and fall against it. “I think you better come here!” I yell to my dad.

But he’s already standing right in front of me. “I think you better let him in,” he says, offering me a hand up. I take it.

“How did you know it was Charlie?”

“Because I’m the one who called him,” he says. “Having someone to share your life with is the best part, right? Isn’t that what you just told me?”

“I can’t see him,” I whisper. “I mean… can I?”

“Go,” he says, opening the door and shooing me outside. “Talk.”

Charlie’s standing there, holding out two bags from Hunan Chinese. After a moment, he says, “Dinner is served?” and we both laugh a little. How does he do that? Take an awkward moment and make it feel… not as awkward. Still, his ease doesn’t make me feel any less uneasy. It’s like the first time we met all over again.

“You do exist,” he says. “This time I was positive I dreamed you.”

I start to smile but stop when I realize that this is not what I came out here to do. I know what my dad said and I know what I want. But if there’s one thing I’m sure of, it’s that you can’t always get what you want in this life. This is for closure. My gift to Charlie so he can move on: letting him go.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, that was unforgivable, and I wish I could make it up to you, but unfortunately, this arrangement”—I gesture to him and then me, indicating, y’know, us—“it, it… can’t go on.” My speech is coming out oddly formal and stilted. I take a deep breath and try to sound normal. “You and I continuing to see each other is just… a really bad idea, and I—”

Ugh. I look up at Charlie and he’s biting his bottom lip. He looks like he’s going to laugh, not cry, like I was worried he might. Now I feel dumber than ever. I start over.

“Look, love is never fair, but this is particularly unfair, like Guinness Book of Records unfair, and so it should stop. It’s done. It’s not you; it’s me.”

I wince. That was even more awkward.

“Good-bye,” I say in closing, holding my hand out to shake his. He just stares at it. When he looks back up at me, his face is lit with one of the biggest smiles I’ve ever seen.

“That was, like, the worst breakup speech I’ve ever heard,” he tells me.

I don’t get it. He’s not accepting my breakup? That’s not even a thing as far as I know. “What?”

Charlie rolls his eyes at me. “A D minus would be generous. Zeroes from all the judges. A total flop.”

“I’ve never done this before!” I protest before realizing what’s underneath what he’s saying: He doesn’t want us to break up, even after everything that’s happened. And everything that’s inevitably going to happen. “But seriously, we can’t.”

“We can, though,” he tells me.

I stop talking and gaze into those melty eyes of his. My resolve melts with them. I want to believe we can. But how?

He shrugs like he actually heard my unspoken question. “We can,” he repeats. “What I can’t do is stop seeing you. I tried it and it sucks. And”—here he makes his fingers into quotation marks and his voice sound formal like I did before—“it can’t go on.”

I laugh, but the pain I feel is very real. I don’t want to hurt him more than I already have. That would kill me before the stupid XP does. “Charlie…”