The Brightest Stars

“Karina, I told you about him.” My dad pointed from Kael to me. He was always quick at trying to slap a Band-Aid on a problem. “I told you he was trouble and you didn’t take me seriously.”

“What the hell is going on?” My heart was pounding. Kael looked different, like a stranger again. It made my blood run cold.

“Tell me what you’re talking about!” I yelled, and when neither of them spoke, I screamed, “Now!”

Kael reached for me but I jerked away. “I can tell you what’s going on, your dad’s a crooked son of a bitch and has—”

“Bullshit!” my dad tried to interrupt.

“Let him speak!” I snapped at my dad. My hands were shaking. My whole body was shaking.

“It’s him, Karina. He’s a senile narcissist who has convinced himself of some plot that I’m with you because of him. It’s not true, he’s the cause of all of this!” Kael’s veil of composure was slipping. I wanted to comfort him. I wanted to run away.

I stood there between them as their truths swirled around me, trying to stick.

“Mendoza … the MP who fucking came at us! He’s behind all of it. My dad balled his hands into fists. “Speaking of military careers, did he tell you he’s on the verge of getting himself a dishonorable discharge?”

I could feel my face changing colors. The blood was rising to the surface as my chest throbbed under my work top.

I tried to read Kael, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t pull back the screen to see the Kael I was falling for.

“At this point you don’t even care, do you, Martin? You have your bags all packed to move up to Atlanta. Word travels fast. You bought a house there, right? Another project for you to destroy.” My dad’s golf shirt was pulling, untucking from his jeans and his skin was red, all blotchy. Like a liar, or an innocent man on trial. I couldn’t tell.

“You bought a place in Atlanta?” I turned to Kael. A lump in my throat.

He was speechless. I wasn’t having it.

“Did you?” I pushed hard at his chest, but he didn’t move. He was in his uniform. The green and tan had always been an omen to the bad shit in my life. Looks like that hasn’t changed.

I pushed him again and he latched onto my wrists. “It’s not like that. He’s twisting everything, Karina. He is. This is me.” He tapped his fingers against his chest.

“He falsified a report, don’t let him fool you. He signed that paper knowing damn well what happened. Are you denying it, Martin?” My dad was goading him. I knew the tone. I had despised it ever since I had learned to decipher it.

“Are you denying that you came into my office, shivering, your leg all bandaged, and signed your name on the bottom of that page? You signed it. Mendoza signed it. Lawson signed it. All of you! And now you decide, almost two years later to come back and dig up old bones?”

My dad was in full-on officer mode. I listened obediently. So did Kael. It was sickening to watch the way my dad knew just how to warp the tone of his voice to whip soldiers into submission—anyone, really.

“His friend died, Kare—”

“Don’t call me that,” I managed. My stomach turned. My dad’s ashy skin fell in loose folds around his jaw. That, combined with his shock of white hair made him look like a villain. Kael looked wounded and hurt, more hero than antihero. But looks can be deceiving. I knew that. I wanted both of them to disappear. The façade of a normal life … this stability I had convinced myself that I had with Kael was shattered. Shattered into tiny little shards too dangerous even to attempt to pick up.

“His friend was shot in the firefight when Mendoza murdered those innocents. Do you know how much investigating goes into those types of claims? You are children.” Now he was talking to both of us. “I was helping them! I saw their faces when they returned. You.” He pointed an accusing finger at Kael. “I watched you pull his body into camp, barely able to walk yourself.”

“You were protecting your own ass!” Kael snarled at my dad. “You didn’t give a fuck about us or our lives!”

My dad was talking over him. My head was spinning.

“Tell your daughter how you use the lives of young men and women to get promotions and medals. Tell her that because of you damn near threatening us, my fucking friend is losing his mind over the guilt and he can’t even talk to anyone about it because he …” Kael stepped toward my dad. I gave up trying to stand between them. “Tell her that Mendoza begged you to let him turn himself in. Those victims haunt him and you’re keeping him from healing so your retirement won’t be at stake!”

“Those victims haunt him? Are you hearing yourself, Martin? You’re a soldier. I’m a soldier. We’ve seen and done things most people can’t dream of.” My dad was talking to Kael in his own language. I could hear the words, but unlike them, I couldn’t call up images of death and destruction like they could.

“You know what will haunt him? If he can’t feed his family and his wife is left alone with those kids and no paycheck. That’s haunting. You need to man up. You and him. This isn’t some fucking video game. This is grown man shit and if you can’t handle it, you’re a waste of a soldier. Either you want to protect your friend and his family, or you want him to heal. You don’t get both in the real world.”

My dad always invoked “the real world” when he wanted to make a point, the point being that he was a grown-up and everyone else—me or Austin, or in this case Kael—were not.

“Going about this by sleeping with my daughter isn’t the way to resolve this, unless you want to get yourself in more trouble.” My dad was threatening Kael, openly. Then he turned to me. “He’s trying to strip my rank before my retirement and I won’t allow it. I’m sorry, honey.” My dad was working hard to compose himself, shifting now to the dad costume he’s so quick to throw on and off. It was eerie how he could change his voice, his stature, to match the role he was playing. At the moment, it was concerned parent.

“This goes way beyond you and whatever feelings you have. He’s putting people in danger, including himself by trying to shine a light on a closed case that not one of us need to open up. This will bring attention to you too. Did you think of that?” I couldn’t tell if he was talking to me or Kael.

“All I did was ask Lawson if it was you.” Kael turned to me. “I didn’t know, Karina. I would never lie about that. I didn’t tell you the rest because—”

“Because he knew it was better for everyone.” My dad interrupted.

I stared at Kael while he tried to explain himself. I tried to find my footing, my center of gravity. I needed to process everything but it was beyond me. I looked at Kael. I searched his eyes but I couldn’t find what I was looking for. He was blank, shutting down, taking my silence as doubt.

“I didn’t even recognize your dad at first, I swear.” Kael reached for my hands. The oven timer went off randomly and I thought it was pre

tty ironic the way it was beeping and beeping, almost as if my house was trying to help me escape the chaos.

My dad started in on me next. “He was using you to get back at me, Karina. Trying to take you away from me. I had your picture on my desk, everyone saw it. Think about it, how distant you’ve been lately. The missed dinner. Not returning my calls. He put that in your head, didn’t he?”

I thought about it. I thought about it hard. I thought about how easy it was for my dad to twist the truth. He was so good at it. He should have been a politician.

And yet, Kael had told me that my dad was complicated, but I had shrugged it off. And he had told me that I should give myself a break by not going over to my dad’s for dinner. I had shrugged that off too. And what about Kael and the discharge and the house in Atlanta. What about the sudden change in his behavior, how he went from being flaky and unpredictable to constantly at my side. What about the way he told me I could trust him? He peppered my face with gentle kisses after he’d had his way with me. I could throw up just thinking about it.

“Karina, you’re my daughter. I have no reason to lie to you.”

At that, I laughed. “That in itself is a lie.”

“You barely know him. Think about it.” My dad was talking to me like I was a child. Like he was on the verge of telling me that I was overreacting, kids your age are so emotional.

“How easily you’re influenced scares me and he’s irresponsible, Karina. Risking his career to ask questions about something that’s over, done with.”

“I wasn’t asking questions of anyone except Lawson,” Kael said at the same time that I said, “How easily I’m influenced?”

“You brought Mendoza to mental health. Did you not? I have eyes and ears all over this post. Did you forget that?” My dad had given up being the concerned parent. He was pure wolf now.