Yours to Bare (Slip of the Tongue 3)

I look at the ground, my throat thickening with unshed tears. He drove an hour in the middle of the night to see me. It’s becoming clear that I’ve gone out of my way to hurt all the people who love me. It’s been a two-way street, but I’ve grown a lot the last few months and I can’t help wondering if much of my struggle the last ten years was imposed by myself.

“How much did he tell you?”

“You’re shacking up with some middle-aged artist?”

I roll my eyes. “He’s not middle-aged. He’s in his thirties. And we live together.”

“You should’ve told me. What if something had happened? I wouldn’t’ve been able to find you.”

“Like what?” I ask. “What else could possibly happen?”

He furrows his eyebrows, then leans his elbows on his knees. “I know you’re hurting. I just don’t know why you won’t let us help you.”

“I have to do it on my own, Dad. I want to heal, not numb myself forever. I never properly dealt with my feelings surrounding . . . that.”

“Minnie’s death.”

I inhale back tears. He rarely uses her name. I know it hurts him to even say it. “It felt like when you put me on that stuff, you just wanted to shut me up. Make me move on.”

“I wanted to stop the pain for you,” he says. “If you were going through even half of what I was—”

“Of course I was. More, because it was my fault.”

“Oh, baby.” He rubs his face, his hands shaking. “It’s not your damn fault.”

My chest constricts. I don’t know if he realizes he’s never said that. “You made me think it was.”

He looks up. He’s crying. “I’m sorry. I didn’t take care of you. I couldn’t. Getting you treatment was the only way I could deal with the fact that I was falling apart. I was scared to bring you down with me, so I gave you to a professional.”

“Then why keep me there for ten years?”

He shakes his head. “I thought you were doing well. Weren’t you? You graduated college. Rich was good to you. You’ve been a productive, creative employee. She’d be so proud of you.”

I cover my face to hold in the tears. A blur of the provocative images Finn and I took flash through my mind. “No she wouldn’t.”

“Yes.” He reaches out and pulls one hand away by my wrist. “She is.”

After a few stuttering breaths, my sobs break through. Dad moves over to the couch and holds me while I cry. This is what I needed. All I ever needed. To be allowed to be sad, to have regrets, and for my parent to support me through it.

“I’ve screwed everything up,” I say into his chest. “All these years, I resented you when I should’ve embraced the fact that I still have you.”

He rests his cheek on top of my head. “We still have plenty of time, you and me. Time to make the changes we both need to.”

“Changes?” I look up at him. “How?”

“I don’t know, but I don’t want to go back to how things have been. I want to be part of your life, not just at work or during December. How do I do that?”

As soon as he asks, I know the answer. He won’t like it, but it might be the best road to repairing our relationship. I swallow through the lump in my throat at the same time a laugh bubbles up. I begin to giggle.

“Are you losing it?” he asks, frowning.

I shake my head. “Therapy. You and me, together. Not with Lumby, but with a new doctor. A fresh start.”

“Fuck.”

That makes me laugh harder. “It’s not so bad. Sometimes it’s actually nice to just talk to someone who won’t judge you. That’s why I write.”

“You write?”

“My journals. You’ve seen them.”

“Oh, right. Your diary.”

“It’s not that,” I say carefully. “It’s more like . . . poetry, I guess. It makes me happy.”

“I didn’t know.”

How could he? I never told him. “Well, you do now. And one day—” Maybe this is too much for today. I shouldn’t push it. But, to my surprise, I want him to know. “I think I want to try and publish it.”

He rubs my arm. “That’s—I don’t know anything about that, but if that’s what you want, I’m sure it’ll happen.”

I grin. It’s as good an answer as I’ll get for now.

“So what’re we going to do about this mess?” he asks. “I assume since you’re here, it’s over with that photographer and you’ve got nowhere to live.”

My smile vanishes. Finn. If I can forgive my dad and Rich and move forward with them, then I can do the same with Finn. Once he understands where I was coming from, and he will now that I feel more equipped to explain, then we can patch up the holes we exposed last night and start on firmer foundation. “I love him,” I tell my dad.

“Banana . . .”

“I know. It’s soon. It seems irrational.” I pull back to look him in the face. “It’s not. He’s really good to me, Dad. In a roundabout way, he’s the reason you and I are having this conversation. He’s showing me how to be comfortable in my skin. Well, mostly. I’m working on it.”

My dad looks torn, and I don’t blame him. It sounds shifty, any way you slice it. “How does he pay the bills?”

“His pictures.” Kind of. “And he used to work on Wall Street, so I guess he does some trading on the side.”

His posture relaxes. “You don’t say?”

Now I’m speaking my dad’s language. But his question still stands.

What am I going to do about this mess?

Because that’s what I am—a mess. I’m realizing I’ll never have my shit together. And maybe that’s okay. Finn fell in love with my mess, and that makes it a little bit magical.

It’s become ours.

I ran away, though. I’m still learning to manage the emotionally-stunted teenager inside me. Will Finn understand that? How can I tap into the adult I need to be rather than indulge the adolescent I can’t seem to outgrow?

I’m not sure. All I know is, I’m not ready to walk away from him. I’m ready to run back.

31

As soon as I hear a key in the door, my eyes open. I didn’t shut the blinds last night; the room is bright and cheery. This time, it only takes me a second to realize there’s no key. No Halston. I haven’t really slept all night, startling awake every time I hear a noise, thinking it’s her. I’ve been too on edge to do much more than shut my eyes, my emotions pinging between worry, anger, and hurt.

She’s there.

With him.

I gave her a choice, and she didn’t choose me.

I told her this would happen. Love can only take you so far. If Rich gave her the kind of stability our relationship may never have, can I blame her for going back to him?

Yeah. I think I can. I let myself fall hard and deep. Now I feel completely fucked.

I didn’t handle things the best way last night, but when I saw another empty glass on the bar, I panicked. She was drinking with a big, alluring idea in her head—who knows what she might’ve done? After months of watching her come apart with even a hint of negative feedback, I wasn’t about to let her put herself in front of a firing squad. Not until we’d discussed it thoroughly, and I’d figured out a better way to explain how risky going public would be. She’d have nowhere left to hide. No armor to deflect judgment. Just me, and I’m not sure how much longer I could’ve gone trying to preempt anything that might’ve hurt her.

“Finn.”