Riven (Mirus 2)

There was a story at the root of that, one Ian hoped to have the chance to suss out. He’d banked on Harm throwing in to help Marley, but he hadn’t counted on anyone else stepping up. Every one of them gave Marley a better chance. An unfamiliar surge of gratitude tightened his throat. Swallowing it down, he mustered a grim smile. “Good. Let’s talk details.”

~*~

Later, much later, after a lengthy confab session where details were discussed and tasks were assigned, everyone started to drift away, and Marley was left to face that gaping, awkward space between her and her father. It was still hard to call him that, even in her head. He was on board with his support. Marley felt like she owed him for that. But she had things she needed to say, questions she needed to ask if she was to trust her life and Ian’s to him and the rest of his people who’d volunteered for the plan.

No way could she sit down for this conversation. She was too twitchy with nervous energy. “Walk with me?” she asked.

“Of course.”

Marley got nothing out of that bland reply or his neutral expression, so she picked a direction at random and started moving away from the others. Ian caught her eye from where he talked something over with Diego, and the contact felt like a bolstering smile, though his expression didn’t really change.

It felt good to stretch her legs after the long hours of sitting and the tension of the meeting, but that gave way to another tension, and an uncomfortable silence built between them as Harm matched his stride to hers. She’d made the invite. He was waiting for her to start. Marley wondered, if she and Ian stayed, would this awkwardness ever go away?

“I want to apologize.” The words came out in a rush. “When I first got here, I said some things—”

“There’s no need for that,” he interrupted, his voice clipped and gruff. “You don’t have anything to apologize for. You were hurt and afraid.”

“I was also pissed and trying to hurt you. I’m sorry for that.”

“It’s less than I deserve. I did abandon you. To a point it doesn’t matter why.”

Marley felt a little punch to her chest to hear him say it so baldly. She hadn’t expected the admission to hurt her. There’d been enough hurting, enough pain on both sides, but she had to bring it up. “Ian told me about Charon. About what you did after they killed Mom.” Her hand hovered just above his arm, but she couldn’t touch him. Not yet. She let it drop. “It matters why.”

“Walking away from you was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. Staying away was almost worse. But I couldn’t risk that they’d find you. I knew, in intimate detail, exactly what they could do to a child. I couldn’t have borne it.”

“I get it.” She had to cut him off because it was too hard to hear that note in his voice that spoke of the things he had seen, both real and imagined. “You did what you thought was best. I could say ‘I just wish I had known the truth,’ that somebody wanted me, that I wasn’t thrown away—”

“Marley.”

“But I don’t really know if it would have mattered.” Because my childhood sucked so much. In ways you could never have guessed or you would have come for me. You would have found another way. You would have taken care of me. She didn’t say it, bit the inside of her mouth to keep from saying it, but she wanted to tell him. Not to hurt him with it but…because he was her dad.

“I can’t…I don’t really have the words to tell you how much I regret it. All of it. I just didn’t know any other way.”

The words hung between them and the silence grew thick again until they reached the barn. “There’s still one big thing I don’t understand.” Marley focused on the horses, keeping her voice as steady as possible. “If you had this place, why didn’t you ever come get me? Wouldn’t I have been safe here then as I should be now?”

“It’s complicated.”

“Explain it to me.”

“Well, to start with, I didn’t know for sure if Charon was really gone. Scum like that, you cut off one head, another rears up to take its place. All I knew for sure was that if I came after you, they’d come after us, and they’d hurt you. That’s what I knew. Can you understand that? It was years before I could accept that I’d actually done what I set out to do.”

“And then?”

He laid his hands on the split rail of the corral and watched the animals milling around inside. “By that time it had been so long. And the block I’d had put in your mind… You didn’t remember me. I convinced myself you were better off where you were—”

“Are you kidding me?”

“Marley, you were an adult by that time. You were building a life. I told myself you wouldn’t thank me for showing up after all those years, trying to butt in and be a father.”

“That was cowardice.” She didn’t know why she said it. She hadn’t meant to.

“Yeah, it was.”

She shoved her hands through her hair and turned to the horses, leaning on the rail, hiding her face against her arms and feeling like crap. She was so damned tired of feeling like crap. And of being angry. And of not having a dad.

She could change that. Finally, that choice was hers to make.

“I’d have gotten over it.” She said it softly, as gently as she knew how. “I would have let you in.”