“Zach,” she whispered, wanting him with her right now. But it was too late to call his house, and he wouldn’t be at a party like this.
Plunging her hands deep in her pockets, she tried to look cool, like she fit in, as she strolled past one group of kids after another, looking for anyone to talk to.
Finally she reached the edge of the river and stood there, watching the swirling current. The anger she’d felt earlier slipped away, and without its heat, she felt cold. All around her, kids were laughing and talking and having a good time, but no one had spoken to her at all. It was as if she were a ghost, invisible and separate.
She heard a quiet, warbling laugh and it sounded familiar. She jerked her head up just as a girl and boy walked past her. Lina’s eyes met the girl’s—Cara Milston. There was a moment of stunned recognition on both their parts. A long time ago—first through seventh grades—they’d been best friends, but now they were worlds apart. Usually they didn’t even make eye contact—the cheerleader and the bad girl.
Lina felt a sudden pang of loss for the girl she’d once been. She wondered what it would have been like if she hadn’t changed friends in the eighth grade, if she hadn’t started smoking down by the river before school, if she’d never taken that first burning sip of whiskey when she was fourteen.
She wanted it all back now, wanted Cara back. A best girlfriend to talk to.
Cara gave Lina a quick, jerking smile and walked past her.
Lina sighed heavily and sank slowly to her knees along the riverbank. She felt the cold, mushy mud squish all around her, chilling her to the bone, but she didn’t care.
She couldn’t remember when she’d felt so lonely. Everything about her life was a joke. No one was ever around when it really mattered. Even now, in the middle of the best school party of the year, she was alone. Forgotten.
Suddenly she wished things were different. She didn’t want to be mad at her mother, didn’t want to have the temper tantrums that seemed as natural to her as breathing. She wanted to be able to sit down with her mom and dad and tell them she loved them.
But she’d felt excluded when they came home, left out. And so, naturally, instead of talking to them like an adult, s
he’d thrown a tantrum and run away.
The dream of what she’d wanted—a daddy—seemed so far away, a little girl’s nighttime wish. All she wanted now was to love him and be loved in return—loved for who she was. And that meant she had to love Angel for who he was.
He wasn’t Francis and never would be. Francis had loved Lina in his quiet, gentle way; Angel’s way would be different. He was like her—loud and reactionary and hot-tempered. Things with Angel would be unlike what she’d wanted … but had she really known what she wanted?
“No,” she whispered into the night. She hadn’t known until now, this very minute. She wanted them to be a family—all of them. And a family didn’t happen overnight, a family didn’t happen without tantrums and hurt feelings and apologies.
Hot tears squeezed past her eyelashes and streaked down her cheeks, mingling with the cold raindrops and splashing on her muddy pants. She was tired of running and being mad all the time, tired of feeling like she didn’t belong anywhere. She thought of home—the Martha Stewart-perfect yard and her mother’s rose garden, and the porch swing Francis had given them for Christmas—and longing squeezed her heart.
A family, she knew, meant going home.
Angel slammed the bedroom door shut. “She’s not there.”
He spun around, stared at Madelaine. His mouth fell open for words that wouldn’t come.
She stood in the living room, unsmiling, unmoving, the color that had tinted her cheeks earlier replaced by a chalky pallor. She chewed on her lower lip and glanced worriedly at the front door.
“Did you hear me? She’s not there. We’ve got to call the police or something.” He could tell that he was yelling, but he couldn’t control himself. Panic was an ice-cold tingling in his blood. He ran to the front door and flung it open.
All he saw out there was darkness. A gentle rain had begun to fall, studding the walkway, clattering on the roof over his head. She was out there somewhere, alone in the middle of all that blackness, alone and mad and hurt.
What the hell had happened? What had he done so wrong?
Madelaine came up beside him. He could hear the silent padding of her footsteps above the ragged harshness of his breathing. Gently she touched his arm, and he could feel that she was trying to comfort him, but he didn’t want comfort.
“I didn’t know,” he whispered. Regret was a black, bitter taste in his mouth. He realized suddenly how lightly he’d taken everything, how cavalierly he’d accepted the burdens of fatherhood.
“What didn’t you know?”
He heard the tenderness in her question, and it made him feel even worse. He turned to her, and for a second, when he looked in her worried eyes, he couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t be Lina’s father or Madelaine’s lover…. Most of all, he couldn’t be what Francis had been to them.
Francis.
His brother would know what to do right now, what to say, how to make it all right. He threw his head back and closed his eyes in prayer. What do I do now, Franco?
The question gutted him. Slowly he turned back to Madelaine, and what he saw in her eyes shamed him to the depth of his soul. She cared about him, even now; he could see it, feel it, and though he wanted to take her in his arms and feel her warmth, he didn’t deserve it. “I didn’t know what it meant to be a father. I thought I could just hang out with her and be her friend. I thought she’d love me unconditionally and never ask for anything I couldn’t give.” Even as he said the words, he heard how hollow and selfish they were. He closed his eyes and shut up, disgusted with himself. “I didn’t know it would be so hard. How did you do it alone all those years?”