Page 77 of The Absence of You
“He’s my best friend. Was. Is. I don’t really know. I wanted us to be something more. And then he did. But it’s complicated.” I falter, struggling to vocalise what exactly we are.
“Do you love him?” Joseph’s frank question takes me by surprise, but I answer on impulse.
“Yes, I love him.”
“Dahlia. I might not be your father, and even if I am, I haven’t brought you up, so I know I have absolutely no place to offer you advice, but one thing I know is, life doesn’t always work out how you think it will. You never know how long happiness will last or where you’ll find it, so you need to grasp it wherever you can. You don’t even know when it might be snatched away from you, so you should embrace it wherever you find it.”
I digest Joseph’s words. Undoubtedly, the happiest moments of my life have been the ones I’ve spent with Grayson. They’re the moments I felt the most free, the most loved, the most appreciated. I have a great friendship with Callie, and Dee, and my mum even. But the person who makes my heart beat faster, who sees me…it’s Grayson. It’s always been him.
In the years I didn’t see him, I went to school, I studied. When I wasn’t caring for my mum, I partied a little. If my mum hadn’t ended up in rehab, maybe I would have lived the rest of my life like that. It would have been fine.
But I don’t want to be fine. I want to live. To properly live. I want to have fun. I want to laugh and experience new things. I could do that alone, but doing it with Grayson would be infinitely better.
We’re not together because I asked him for space. I told him I couldn’t be with him because I needed to prove to myself, I could do things alone, but I was lying to him and myself. If I’m honest, I was just scared of being hurt again.
But Joseph’s right. You don’t know how many opportunities you’ll get for happiness. This place is always where I have felt happiest. But not because of Dee, or the house.
Because of him.
Because of Grayson.
He’s my home.
Chapter Fifty-Eight
DAHLIA
Talking to Joseph this morning has opened my eyes to a lot of things, not just my feelings for Grayson. Hearing him talk about my mum made things very clear for me.
Their love was real, and it makes sense that she’d be devastated after he went to prison. She had a hard childhood then to be the victim of assault in the way she was, and to go on and lose Joseph because he was defending her, it’s no wonder she was haunted. And not only that, but she spent years hiding those feelings to protect me. I don’t need her apologies. Not anymore, and I am going to make sure she knows that. Instead of waiting for her to finish her treatment and see her in person, I needed to clear the air now.
I settle myself back on my bed and turn on my laptop. A few minutes later, I receive a notification of a video call from mum’s rehab centre.
As soon as it connects, I see my mum pacing in her room. As soon as she realises I’m on the screen, she comes and sits at her desk, her hand holding the edge of the monitor. It’s obvious she’s been crying, her eyes rimmed with red and her face puffy.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry sweetie.”
“Mum,” I whisper. “Mum, it’s okay. You can stop apologising.” She pauses, unsure of herself.
“You’re not mad?”
“Well, I’m a little mad,” I joke, but I watch as her face falls, and I quickly reassure her, “but I get it. I get why you did what you did. I get that you thought you were protecting me.”
“Oh Dahlia, I wish I could go back and do everything differently. Please believe me that I, we, thought this was the best way. I can see now, it wasn’t. I was so young, and it’s not an excuse, but I didn’t want you to grow up with everyone knowing the story.”
“Mum, I understand.”
“Wait, I need to just get this off my chest. If I am being completely honest, one of the reasons I didn’t tell you the truth was selfish.” She wrings her hands, and for a moment, I worry about what she’s about to say, but it turns out I needn’t have. “I wanted to hang on to the possibility that you were Joseph’s for as long as possible. As you got older, I knew if the whole truth was revealed that we’d have to do a paternity test. That was so wrong of me. It should always have been your decision to make, and I’m sorry.”
I blink back tears at the thought of my mum dealing with all this on her own for so many years.
I won’t lie. I will forever wonder if things would have turned out differently if they had all been honest from the beginning. Whoever Joseph is to me, I’ve missed out on almost twenty years of getting to know him. I can’t ever get that back. And the years mum has battled with her addiction. Maybe that could have been prevented too.
But we can’t change the past, and I am sick of dwelling on the things I can’t do anything about. I am who I am, because of the past. We all are.
“It’s okay mum. I’m not sure I’d have been mature enough to make the decision about the paternity test if I’d been much younger anyway.” Mum studies my face.
“I’m so proud of you. I hope you know that. I should have talked to you about this a lot long ago. I can’t believe you ended up finding out like this.” A tear slides down her cheek. I’ve already forgiven her, but I hate that it will be a long time before she truly forgives herself. The news I’m about to drop might go someway to distracting her though.
