“Mr. Chen.” Alex’s voice seemed pleasant enough; only those who knew him could detect the lethal blade beneath his words, waiting to strike. “Please, take a seat.” He gestured at the leather chair on the other side of the table.
Michael did, his expression growing more irritated. “I have work to do, and you made me come all the way to D.C. for a supposed emergency.”
“I sent a car,” Alex said, still in that deceptively pleasant tone.
“Your car or mine, it takes the same amount of time.” Michael’s eyes flicked between Alex and me before settling on me. “Don’t tell me you’re pregnant.”
Confirmation he knew Alex and I had been an item at Thanksgiving. Not that I cared what he thought anymore.
“No.” I raised my voice so I could hear it over my pounding pulse. “I’m not.”
“Then what’s the emergency?”
“I—” I faltered. Alex squeezed my hand again. “I—”
I couldn’t say it. Not with an audience.
Alex already knew everything, but what Michael and I had to discuss seemed too personal to air out in front of other people. It was between us. Father and daughter.
Pinpricks of light danced before my vision. I dug the nails of my free hand into my thigh so hard I would’ve drawn blood had I not been wearing jeans.
“Alex, can you let us have a moment alone, please?”
His head whipped toward me, his expression thunderous.
Please, I begged with my eyes. I need to do this on my own.
Knowing how protective he was, I expected more resistance, but he must’ve seen something in my face—my unshakeable belief that I had to fight my own battles—because he released my hand and stood.
Reluctantly, but he did it.
“I’ll be right outside,” he said. A promise and a warning.
Alex shot a dark look at Michael before he exited.
And then there were two.
“Ava?” Michael raised his eyebrows. “Are you in trouble?”
Yes.
I’d run through this conversation in my mind hundreds, if not thousands, of times before I stepped foot in this room. I’d labored over how to bring up the topic and how I’d react to his response, whatever it may be. Oh hey, Dad, nice to see you. By the way, did you try to murder me? Yes? Oh damn, okay. But I couldn’t drag it out any longer.
I needed answers before the questions killed me.
“I’m not in trouble,” I said, proud of how steady I sounded. “But I have something to tell you about what happened over Thanksgiving weekend.”
Wariness crept into his eyes. “Okay…”
“I remembered.”
“Remembered what?”
“Everything.” I watched him closely for a reaction. “My childhood. The day I almost drowned.”
Wariness morphed into shock and a faint tinge of panic. Deep grooves appeared in his forehead.
My stomach dropped. I’d hoped I’d been wrong, but the wild look in Michael’s eyes told me all I needed to know—I wasn’t wrong. He really had tried to kill me.
“Really?” His chuckle sounded forced. “Are you sure? You’ve been having nightmares for years—”
“I’m sure.” I straightened my shoulders and looked him straight in the eye, trying to keep my trembles under control. “Were you the one who pushed me into the lake that day?”
Michael’s face collapsed, the shock in his eyes tripling. “What?” he whispered.
“You heard me.”
“No, of course not!” He raked a hand through his graying hair, agitated. “How could you think that? I’m your father. I would never do anything to hurt you.”
Hope whispered through my heart even as my brain shook its head in skepticism. “That’s what I remember.”
“Memories can deceive. We remember things that didn’t actually happen.” Michael leaned forward, his face softening. “What exactly do you think happened?”
I gnawed on my bottom lip. “I was playing by the lake. Someone came up behind me and pushed me. I remembered turning around and seeing a flash of gold. A signet ring. Your signet ring.” My gaze dropped to said ring on his finger.
He glanced down and rubbed it. “Ava.” He sounded pained. “I was the one who saved you from drowning.”
That was the part that didn’t make sense. I’d passed out, so I hadn’t seen who’d saved me, but the paramedics and police said Michael had been the one who called them. Why would he do that if he was the one who pushed me in?
“I came over to speak with your mother about the divorce, and no one answered the door even though her car was in the driveway. I went around back to see if she was out there, and I saw—” Michael swallowed hard. “It was the worst few minutes of my life, thinking you were dead. I jumped in and saved you, and all the while your mother…she just stood there in shock. Like she couldn’t believe what had happened.” His voice dropped. “Your mother wasn’t well, Ava. She didn’t mean to harm you, but sometimes she did things out of her control. She felt so guilty afterward, and between the divorce and criminal charges…that’s why she overdosed.”
Pain ripped through my head. I pressed my fingers to my temples, trying to sort through my father’s words and my own memories. What was real? What wasn’t?
Memories were unreliable. I knew that. And Michael sounded sincere. But had I really been that off base? Where did those visions come from, if not my memories?
“There’s another instance,” I said shakily. “Third grade. I brought home an essay from Mrs. James’s class and showed you. We were in your office. You looked at me and said I was a carbon copy of Mom and you…you pushed a pillow into my face and tried to suffocate me. I couldn’t breathe. I would’ve died, but Josh came home and called for you, and you stopped.”
The story sounded ridiculous beneath the bright lights of the conference room. My head pounded harder.
Alarm spread across Michael’s features. “Ava,” he said softly, calmly, like he didn’t want to spook me. “You never had a teacher named Mrs. James.”
My heart crashed against my chest. “I did! She had blonde hair and glasses, and she gave us sugar cookies on our birthdays…” Tears prickled my eyes. “I swear, Mrs. James was real.”
She had to be real. But what if she wasn’t? What if I’d made everything up and thought they were memories? What was wrong with me? Why was my brain so messed up?
I couldn’t breathe. I felt crazy, like nothing in my life was real and I’d dreamed it all up. I pressed my palms into the table, half-expecting it to dissolve in a shower of dust.
“Honey…” He reached for me, but before he could touch me, the door banged open.