Don't Kiss the Messenger (Edgelake High School, #1)(77)

My mom set her knitting aside. “Now, tell me. What ever happened with that boy?”

My dad’s eyebrows perked up. “What boy?”

I looked down at the ground. My throat was stuck somewhere between a laugh and a cry.



When the nurse came in to check my mom, my dad and I walked out to the hallway.

“You can go home if you want,” Dad said. “I’m going to stick around until your mom falls asleep. They’re going to keep her overnight.”

My dad’s eyes were red from exhaustion. I couldn’t leave him.

“You want some coffee?” I asked.

“It’s awful stuff,” he warned me.

I grabbed his sleeve and pulled him toward the elevator.

The ceiling of the food lobby was decorated in strings of Christmas lights and red shiny balls. Aluminum colored ribbons were strung around the windows, twined around fake mistletoe. The chintzy decorations were oddly warm and festive.

We crossed the room in silence toward the vending machines and I studied the options. I wondered why decaf coffee was actually an option, and who the hell ordered it. I inserted a dollar bill and punched the photo for black coffee.

I looked over at my dad and his eyes were frozen, zoning out to the machine lights.

“Dad?”

His eyes stayed focused on the lights and his jaw shifted back and forth.

“You okay?” I asked.

“CeCe, eight years ago a drunk driver almost killed my family.” His face twitched at the memory. “I’ll never forget the moment the cop called me and told me my family was being air lifted to a hospital in Duluth. I’ll never forget walking around the accident scene. The smell of burning metal and burnt rubber. The shock at seeing your mom’s car, smashed like an aluminum can. I remember staring at that car, thinking: how in the hell did you girls live through that? There is really no reason why you two lived. Other than a miracle.”

I looked down at the ground. The lines of the gray tile started to blur.

“So I thank God every day. I’m just thankful I still have you two beautiful girls in my life. It’s not denying it or trying to forget the accident happened or avoid all the hurt. That wasn’t what I was trying to do. I’m just so goddamn happy you and your mom are alive.”

I nodded and my head sunk down to my chest. Tears ran down my cheeks and dripped down my nose. My dad turned and pulled me into his arms and I buried my face in his warm chest, something I hadn’t done since I was young. I could feel his heart hammering against mine and I loved it, that heat, that connection. We needed this.

After a few breaths we separated and he looked away, back at the glowing coffee machine lights. He straightened his shoulders.

“All right,” he said. “Let’s get some of this shit excuse for coffee.”

I pressed my shoulder against his arm.

“Merry Christmas, Dad,” I said.

He smiled down at me. “Merry Christmas.”

It’s strange how life falls into place right when you feel like everything is falling apart.





Chapter Thirty-One


Emmett


I sat in my car, staring at the dashboard, willing myself to move. I glanced down the street, through the thick snowflakes sweeping the air, and saw Scott’s house. The hedges along the driveway were wrapped in strands of white lights. Cars filled every inch of curb space up and down the block. I was already an hour late for the Christmas party, but I was hardly in the mood to celebrate.

I had hoped the drive would ease my mind, but it just intensified a panic inside of me, a feeling that I was wasting time. Time for what, I didn’t know. There is nothing more unsettling than feeling like your body is in one physical place, but your heart is dangling somewhere else.

I closed my eyes and thought about home, a place I couldn’t even pinpoint on a map, because home was my dad.

The cracks and fissures inside me grew larger. And something finally broke. And it’s strange because sometimes when I’m the saddest I feel the most alive. Sadness can prick you and force you to wake up. It can be the very thing that inspires you to move.

I opened my eyes. I wanted to hate CeCe. I wanted to push her out of my mind. But the fight was pointless. I didn’t hate her. I just hated that I loved her. I had probably started to love her the moment I saw her, the moment her face blazed its way into my path. It was always her energy I craved, her muse.

I leaned my forehead against the steering wheel. Maybe CeCe was right. I wanted it all. The perfect face and the perfect brain all wrapped inside the perfect package. But all along, I knew I wanted her.

I needed my dad right now. I needed his advice. I looked over at the glove compartment and breathed out a heavy sigh. As if the emotional knife couldn’t dig any deeper right now. I opened it and some sheet music poured out.

I grabbed a handful of pages and thumbed through the lyrics. I smiled to myself, sitting alone in my car, the afternoon of Christmas Eve, reading my dad’s old lyrics. In a strange way, it was perfect. We were together.

I looked at the messy black prose scrawled over a loose page. My dad had a habit of writing in prose, in random thoughts that meandered like a switchback trail. They always took you on a journey.

I read a few of the lines.

I could watch you for hours, walking in the sunlight.

Trailed by a bee, craving the nectar you bear.