Page 78 of Miss Behaved
Apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.
I sit down in the grass, and luckily it’s dry. I pull my knees up and rest my elbows on my legs as I face his headstone. Even though I know he’s not here, in the past six years, he’s never felt more present.
“I’m not really sure how this works,” I tell him, looking around.
A lady a few rows away is having a picnic, and someone at the other end of the span of grass is crying.
For a man who has built his career writing about murder and death, I’ve never been good at grief myself. Maybe between the pages I’m able to process it in a detached way, so I don’t have to dig too far into whatever stirs in my stomach now.
“You were an asshole,” I say.
This probably isn’t how it’s supposed to go.
“I never got the chance to tell you that before you drank yourself to death, but I hated you.”
Birds chirp in the distance, and it feels like my father is out in the universe, mocking me.
“I mean, what was the point?” I stand up and start pacing. “You couldn’t escape your own demons, so you had to push them on the rest of us? Mom didn’t deserve that. You thought I couldn’t hear you guys fighting, or you didn’t care maybe. But I did. And that shit you used to say was total bull, that she was making things worse. The only one making things worse in that house was you.”
I realize I’m starting to raise my voice, and the woman a few rows down is looking. Dropping down onto my knees, I let out the breath I feel like I’ve been holding he since died.
“I was relieved,” I tell him, facing that patch of earth like it could grow his face any second. “When Mom called and said it was over, I was relieved you were dead.”
The words choke in my throat. How fucked up is that? It’s no wonder I’m such a mess. I celebrated inside when I knew I was done with his bullshit. There’s got to be something terminally wrong with that declaration.
I look down at the ground and think about the man Mom said was good once. He’s not here. That man died when I was too young to remember, and it’s not the same one we buried.
The father I said goodbye to at the funeral was a mean drunk who hadn’t been sober in years. He was the kind of man who punched me in the gut when I accidentally bumped his chair and made him spill his drink. He was the kind of man who wasn’t content ruining his own life, so he made sure to destroy all those around him.
“You were wrong, you know,” I tell him.
Or maybe I tell myself.
Or maybe I tell the birds sitting in the trees, watching me.
“I spent a long time thinking that, deep inside, I was like you, and that at some point that person would just come out.” My eyes dart to the tree line where it meets an almost cloudless sky, and I realize that’s not normal for this time of year. “I’m not that person though. And I’m not you. It just took me this long to see it.”
There’s something about sitting on this dry ground in a wet city, knowing that although I buried my father six years ago I still carry him around. Something about facing a comfortless headstone. And I realize I’m not going to do this anymore.
I look down at the freshly cut grass and place my hand on it, letting the hate go back to the man it belongs with.
I’ve spent too many years fighting an invisible battle. Losing the only woman I’ve ever cared about. Holding myself hostage.
As I walk away from his grave, the man who was crying gets in his car. Grieving his loss. Living his pain. And I know in this moment, deep in my bones, I’ve finally put my dad to rest.
32
Monica
“Girlsonly,”Lucesays,shooting Zac a narrowed glare over the rim of her martini glass.
“Ladies.” Zac gives us his handsome-billionaire grin.
Men shouldn’t actually be allowed to look like that and have as much money as he does. It’s not fair. Tall, dark, handsome, rich, not to mention totally taken by one of my very best friends—much to the disappointment of all the women in the bar who are staring at him.
Kennedy hands him her coat, and he not-so-subtly checks out her backside in that short red cocktail dress. Ever since hooking up with Zac, she’s been wearing a lot more red. And, from the look of heat in his eyes, I think I finally know why.
“Don’t worry; he’s not staying.” Kennedy dips her chin and smiles at him, running her hands over his lapel. She lifts up onto her toes and whispers something in his ear that makes his cheeks turn the slightest shade of red.
