Secret Lucidity(102)

Tranquility is interrupted by my ringing cell, and my stomach sinks a little lower in my belly when I see it’s my dad calling.

“Hi, Dad.”

“Your mother sent me your flight information, and I needed to touch base with you,” he says. “I won’t be able to pick you up from the airport because Parker has his soccer game at that time, so can you see if one of your friends can give you a ride?”

“Where’s Gwen going to be?”

“She’ll be at the game, too.”

Irritation pricks from within. “Can’t you miss one game? He’s her son, not yours.”

“He’s my stepson, Ady.”

And I’m your daughter. Flesh and blood. Shared DNA.

“Look, it’s a busy time right now—not that I expected your mother to retain that when I told her—but Parker is out for spring break at the same time you’ll be here. So, you’ll be spending most of the week with him and Gwen.”

“You’re not taking off work?” I question a bit too harshly as the heaviness in my chest grows.

“You know how it is. I can’t just take off days at a time.”

“Why am I even coming then?”

“Because I miss you.” He’s quick to answer, as if he’s become so well rehearsed in his response that it’s second nature. I know better, but it still hurts. Deep within the walls of anger and annoyance I’ve built up lies the pain of rejection—of being so easily replaced.

“You haven’t even called me since Mom and I moved. I started a new school, and you haven’t even texted me to ask how it’s going,” I tell him as I hear chatter in the background on his end of the call.

“Is that Ady?” I hear Parker’s small voice call out, and I want to hate the kid for having the dad that used to be all mine, but he’s only seven. It isn’t his fault.

“Can I call you back later?”

“Are you going to make time for us to hang out . . . just the two of us?”

“Parker and Gwen just got home,” he says, completely distracted. “We have dinner plans that we need to get ready for.”

“Whatever,” I grumble under my breath and disconnect the call without another word spoken. My nose burns as tears form in the corner of my eyes, and I hate that my dad is able to puncture the softest parts of me. I wish I was more detached than what I am, but he’s my dad, and I love him. I just hate feeling as if I’m disposable, especially when I used to be his entire world when our family was still intact.





Breathless and sated, I roll off my indulgence and stare at the water stains on the ceiling to avoid her eyes. Her heavy panting slows as I lose focus in the fan above. The blades stir the thick air that smells like our sex, and I close my eyes to draw out the lasting remnants of my high as it radiates through my limbs.

The moment she speaks is the moment I sit up and rip off the condom.

“I’m glad you stopped by,” she says as I pull my shorts on. “This week has been crazy at work. They fired a few people, and I’ve been picking up the extra shifts to try to stash some money away.”

“For what?”

“I don’t know. Been thinking about taking a couple of cosmetology classes or something. Working in a salon could be fun,” she says, and a part of me wants to tell her that she could do so much more with her life than scrubbing calluses off strangers’ feet, but I don’t. “It’s not like I want to be a grocery store cashier for the rest of my life, you know?”

I grab my shirt off the floor and turn to look at her as she stares up at me. She lies on the bed, completely naked, with no sheets covering her body. Her eyes are needy. They always have been. Not for me, though. They’re needy for self-worth and hope for a better life. Krista uses me, just as I use her, but where I use her to satisfy my physical needs, she uses me for something far more unfortunate—a false perception of importance.

Having the attention of the boy next door fulfills her in a way that allows me to keep coming back for more, and I do. For years, I’ve been knocking on her door and fucking her on her bed.

“You should look into classes if that’s what you really want to do.”

Krista rolls onto her side and props her head up with her hand. “Yeah, maybe.”

I shove my feet into my flip-flops and pick up my keys from the nightstand before asking, “You okay?”

“You don’t have to ask me that every time you leave. I’m a big girl.”

And I know she is at the age of twenty-two. That’s why this arrangement works so well. Neither one of us has to worry about emotions getting involved, since neither of us is interested in anything more than sex.

“See you later.”

I step out of her ground-floor unit, walk over to the adjacent building, and climb the stairs to my apartment. Walking in, I find my mother in the kitchen, boiling a pot of water.

“What are you doing home?”

“It’s nice to see you, too, Son.”

“I didn’t mean it like that,” I say as I walk over to the stove. When I see the box of dried pasta and a tub of margarine, I take the fork out of her hand. “Why don’t you sit, Mom.”

She purses her lips before taking a seat at the rickety linoleum table that’s pushed against the wall.