He made good on his threat and used the key I didn’t know he had to let himself into my apartment.
I stayed on the couch, my feet up on the opposite armrest, my hands folded together over my chest, like I was dead inside a coffin.
I certainly felt dead.
Dad didn’t come to the couch and stand over me. He went to the armchair and took a seat where my face could be in his line of sight and his in mine. He got comfortable as if he intended to stay awhile, separating his knees and propping his elbow so he could rest his cheek against his closed knuckles.
Then he stared at me, like he didn’t know where to begin.
I shifted my gaze back to the ceiling. “What’s new?”
He acted as though he didn’t hear the question.
We sat in silence, my apartment dark because the sun was gone and I hadn’t bothered turning on any lights. That was how I chose to spend my time now, staring at the ceiling while the glow of the city came in through the windows.
He sat there for at least fifteen minutes before he said anything. “I’m sorry, Dex.”
I shrugged. “Whatever…it’s fine.”
“Just because she didn’t appreciate you doesn’t mean she diminished your value. I can only imagine how much this must hurt, but you can’t sit around wondering what went wrong, how you could have fixed it, if you’d still be together if you weren’t Allen’s surgeon. It doesn’t matter.”
“Easy for you to say. What if this was Mom?”
“The question is irrelevant because she isn’t like Mom. What you had isn’t what your mother and I have. It’s not the same—at all.”
It had felt that way…at the time.
“It isn’t what Derek has with Emerson either. There seems to be a trend in this family, where the first one never works out, only the second. I’m afraid you’ve fallen into that pattern.”
Hoped Daisy didn’t.
“Son, you can’t let this defeat you. We’d made so much progress—”
“Dad, I’m not dropping everything.” I pulled myself up and swung my legs over so I could sit up and lean back against the cushions of the couch. “I’m not leaving medicine or abandoning my patients. I just…don’t understand. Sometimes I feel like I’m losing my mind because what we had was real, you know? We were happy…really happy. I never came home to her and thought she didn’t feel the way I felt. I guess…honestly, I expected her to come back at some point. I expected her to realize her mistake and beg for forgiveness. The fact that she’s getting married tells me that she’s never felt doubt or uncertainty about her decision, that she doesn’t have any regrets, that leaving me really was the best thing for her.”
Dad stared at me for a while, his eyes filled with pain. “So, if she came back to you, would you take her back?”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“But would you?”
I shook my head and gave a shrug. “No, not now. But before, like six months ago…maybe.”
Dad stared at me in silence, not passing judgment, at least not verbally.
“This is in a scenario where she apologizes to me and says it was the biggest mistake of her life. You know, shows up at my doorstep in tears and begs me to change my mind, an admission that our relationship was as perfect as I remember it being…”
He clearly didn’t know what to say.
“But it doesn’t matter, because obviously, it wasn’t real. She’s committing to some other guy for the rest of her life, telling him she loves him every day, having his kids, moving on with her life like it isn’t her second marriage, but her first.” I stared at the rug between my feet, half living in the past, half living in the moment.
“So, this doesn’t affect you and Sicily?”
The mention of her name made me look up. “I ended things.”
He stared me down, his eyebrows slightly lifted in disappointment.
“I have nothing to offer her, so I didn’t want to waste her time anymore.”
“That’s not true. You have a lot to offer her.”
“No, I don’t,” I said quickly. “I’m not interested in ever giving my heart to another person. I’m not interested in marriage, in having a family, and frankly, I’m incapable of it. The last thing I would ever do is trust someone again. Catherine’s engagement just makes me realize that I’m not ready—and I’ll never be ready.”
Dad dropped his gaze and rubbed his hands together.
“All I feel toward Sicily is regret. She’s such an amazing person, and I was a selfish asshole who couldn’t resist her. I should have respected her. I should have done the right thing by her. But I didn’t.”
“I disagree with that. You tried to move on.”
“But I always knew, in the back of my mind, that I would never be able to.”