This, of course, only makes me cry harder. Because I’ve given up on this amazing father. Who read me stories and learned how to dance from watching YouTube videos with me, and always maintained that I was talented and beautiful and could do whatever I wanted if I put my mind to it.
“What happened? Tell me.” I hear the door to his office click shut.
“Dad, I’m so sorry. So sorry for the way I’ve behaved . . .”
I can’t seem to finish the sentence. He clears his throat, soothing me again. “I’m your father. I can be here for you, even if I don’t necessarily agree with your behavior at certain times. Now, tell me what happened so I can help you.”
But he can’t help me. No one can. I lost Dominic and no one can bring him back.
“I-I-I had a fiancé,” I hiccup.
“A fiancé?” He sounds stunned.
“Y-yes.”
“And . . . you broke up with him?” He sounds confused. Cautious. Put off.
“N-n-no.” Each word falls out of my lips like it’s a hot potato. “H-he—he—he died.”
Putting this as a statement makes me lose it all over again. As if there is anything left to lose.
“Your fiancé died?” Dad asks. I can tell he is lost and shocked.
“Yes.”
There’s a pause while he digests the information. Finally, he speaks.
“How did he die? When?”
“C-c-car accident. Yesterday. A few hours after we got engaged. I don’t know what to do.”
This is the truest thing I’ve ever said. I do not, in fact, know what to do. Not in the next ten minutes, next hour, next week. I have no idea how I’m supposed to behave right now. There is no protocol to what happens next.
There’s silence on the other side of the line. For a moment, I think maybe Dad has hung up. I don’t know if I can blame him, after everything that’s happened.
“I’m getting on a plane, Ever. Wait right there. I’m coming to see you. Today.”
“Oh. You don’t need to do that . . .”
“I love you.” The words hit me with the force of a semi. He says them in a low growl. With heat. “You hear that, Everlynne? I love you.”
I cry hysterically all over again, this time in relief. He loves me. He still loves me. After everything that’s happened—he still wants to be there for me.
“Th-thank you.”
“Stay strong. I’m coming.”
The line goes dead.
For the first time since Joe called to tell me about Dom, I remember how to breathe.
The funeral is an open-casket event.
In true Dominic Graves form, and despite his head injury, his face has remained flawless and scarless.
Nora was in charge of the makeup. She asked beforehand if it would be weird for me. I told her that it wouldn’t, even though I had no idea how I was feeling about it.
This past week, I felt extremely disconnected from reality. Life seems to be happening in my periphery.
I don’t sleep, but I occasionally pass out in random spots in my apartment. Dad and Renn have been here for a week now. They’re staying at a nice hotel downtown and show up at my doorstep first thing in the morning with coffee. They brought Dunkies the first morning, but it reminded me of the Girlfriend Promise and I sobbed into the box, making a whole stink about it, like they were supposed to know.
Dad and Renn get along great with Nora and Colt. It’s all very cordial on the outside. We look like just another family. But we’re not, and all the things we don’t say to each other pile up between us in an invisible mountain of sorrow.
Renn looks so different now. So tall and strong. So lost and motherless. Dad looks different too. But not necessarily in a bad way. He looks like he’s lost a few pounds and like he actually gets his hair professionally cut, now that Mom is not there to shave it for him.
Dad and Renn arrived the day I called Dad, just like he promised. Even though the funeral is taking place a full week later, neither of them have complained about the time they’re missing from school and work.
I opt to not see Dom’s body in the casket. Ironic, considering I’m obsessed with graves. Maybe I’m a fraud. Maybe that’s why Dom and I got along so well. After all, he turned out to be a fraud too. Although, weirdly enough, I barely think about his betrayal and focus more on his loss.
As we sit and listen to the sermon from the front pew of a Dover church, I hold Dad’s hand for dear life. Renn shoves his shoulder against mine lovingly.
I don’t allow myself to ask Dad if he is mad at me, or what it was that he wanted to tell me all those months ago. I don’t broach the subject of how our relationship is going to look after this is all over. I also don’t dare ask Nora what Dom looked like when she worked on him. I find myself incapable of making conversation with anyone. Everything feels swollen and raw. Things that bothered me—Dom’s hectic schedule, Lynne and Babe and his awful—awful—taste in music—now seem so small and insignificant. I would pay in weeks and months and years from my own life just to be able to kiss and touch him again. To tell him that I love him. To explain that I really didn’t need the tampons.