Okay (37 page)

This is so embarrassing. "When you said no I thought..."

I don't finish the sentence but Sam's eyes go wide and he finishes it for me anyway.

"That I meant we
wouldn't be together?"
He says it like it's completely unfathomable, and it dissolves the last of my anxiety about this whole exchange. "God, Ror, you're the one who doesn't get it." He shakes his head in admonishment, but doesn't say another word.

He kisses me instead, and his kiss is a reminder. A promise. It is joy and hope, present and future.

"Let me take you to breakfast," he murmurs once he pulls away. "That is if you're still not sick of me." His lip twists up into a smug smirk.

I want to think of some witty response, but I've got nothing. "I can't think of anything I'd rather do right now." My stomach grumbles on cue, confirming my words, and Sam chuckles.

"Let's get you fed, baby girl."

We get dressed quickly and I pile my hair into a messy bun. We're about to head downstairs when my doorbell rings. I look to Sam, but he doesn't have any ideas of who it could be either. Carl or Tina surely would have called or texted if they wanted to come by.

Sam follows me down the steps, but he makes his way in front of me before I even reach the door. He looks through the peephole and his entire body stiffens. Suddenly he's radiating such protective intensity that it sets me on edge.

"Sam?" I say trepidatiously.

He takes a moment before he even turns around to face me, like he needs it to compose himself, but when he does, he's utterly conflicted. He licks his lips. "Ror, it's… your dad."

I gasp. Out loud. Like an overdramatic movie character.

It doesn't seem possible. My father belongs in Linton. Not New York. It's as if another character, from a different movie set in another time and place, jumped out of a screen and found his way into the wrong story. It just doesn't fit. He's been to Port Woodmere before, of course. He used to visit my Grandma Mimi with us. But he was a different man then. I was a different girl then.

Everything was different then.

The bell rings again, but I'm still frozen.

"I could tell him to leave," Sam offers, but he's obviously waiting for me to give him some direction.

Part of me wants Sam to tell him to leave. Who am I kidding? Most of me does.

But it's the coward part. The one I promised myself I wouldn't let rule my life anymore.

"No. I want to see what he wants," I tell him.

Sam nods, his gaze full of support, of fierce protectiveness, giving me the strength I need to open the door.

My father stands there looking like himself in khakis and a golf shirt, but also not like himself. He looks almost haggard. His hair, usually perfectly combed in place, is a bit unkempt, and dark circles underline his familiar dark eyes. I don't even think he shaved today. I don't remember him ever going a single day without shaving.

He startles when he sees me, even though he's the one who came to my doorstep. He must know my mother would be at work at ten o'clock on a Monday morning. He must be here to see me.

But why?

Sam is at my side, his muscles tense and ready to act.

My father's eyes jump from me to Sam and take in his stance. I expect a sneer, or at least something resembling the unadulterated hostility he cast Sam's way the other two times they met, but there's only a vague sense of disapproval.

"Aurora," he greets.

Rory
, I almost automatically correct him. But I stop myself. I can be Aurora. It is my name after all. But not the Sleeping Beauty version. No, I can be the Aurora Sam told me about—the goddess of the dawn, the one who renews herself.

"What are you doing here?" My voice comes out firm. Far stronger than I actually feel.

He pats his hair as if he's only just realized it's all out of place. "I was hopin' to talk to you."

I stare at him.
Okay, then talk.

"Maybe we could have a few minutes?" he's asking me but he's looking at Sam. Strangely enough, the disapproval is gone. He looks at him almost beseechingly.

I can tell Sam wants to refuse. But he looks to me instead, waiting for me to decide what I want him to do. I nod, telling him it's okay. My father may have betrayed me, but he wouldn't hurt me. Not physically.

Sam's not happy. He doesn't want to leave me alone, but he will.

"I'll be right inside, okay?" he says purposefully.

I nod. I know he will.

Then he turns back to my father. "You keep your goddamned hands to yourself," he says in warning.

I'm suddenly hit with a strange sense of deja vu. Of Robin on Cam's front porch the morning after I heard he'd been cheating on me. It's eerie and unsettling and I do my best to shake it off.

Sam presses a chaste kiss to my temple, something about it equally possessive and challenging, before he goes back inside the house.

My father watches him leave and then stares at the door. "He sleep here?" he asks.

I resent the question. He had no problem letting me sleep at Robin's when we were dating. In fact, he was the one who insisted on it. But even so, that was then. This man has no right to disapprove of anything I do.

"Yes."

"Your mom's fine with that? That boy sleepin' over?"

Him judging my mother's parenting is just crossing the damn line. "She is. And I'm eighteen now, remember? I make my own choices. And
that boy
would kill for me. Unlike the one you were fine with me sleepin' with. You know, the one who would've killed
me
if not for
that boy
," I practically growl.

My father glares at me, but it's not hostile. In fact, I can't get a good read on it at all.

"You wanted to talk," I prompt. "So, talk." If he says one negative thing about Sam or my mom, this conversation is over.

He startles at my gall. He doesn't know this stronger version of me. I'd say he should get used to it, but I doubt he'll be around long enough to get used to anything about me.

I don't know what I expect of him. I know he probably thinks he came to my rescue by agreeing to testify against Robin, but I don't feel like he did me any favors. All he did was tell the truth, and that was after a year of calling me a liar. Does that warrant gratitude? Perhaps some. But certainly not forgiveness.

"I'm sure by now you know that I'm the reason he knew you'd be in Miami," my father begins.

I nod.

"I wasn't even thinkin', Rory. We were all havin' dinner, and I just mentioned it in passing. I never thought for a second Robbie would follow you down there, and that if he did he would try to
hurt
you."

I listen to him call Robin by the affectionate nickname. I listen to him defend himself by telling me about his cozy dinner with the family that destroyed my life and his cluelessness over Robin's behavior. But he has no right to it. None.

"He didn't
try
to hurt me. He
did
hurt me," I correct him.

He shakes his head vaguely. "I never thought—"

"Well that's just it, isn't it?" I cut him off.

My father's brow furrows.

"You
never thought for a second
. But you should have. You should have believed me the first time I told you what he'd been doing. You shouldn't have even been there!" I take deep breaths, trying to calm myself. The last thing I want is to become hysterical—to be the crazy girl he saw me as for the past year. And I also don't want Sam coming back out to intervene, and if he thinks I might work myself into a panic, that's exactly what he'll do.

"You shouldn't have been having dinner with... with my
rapist
." I say the word I once avoided at all costs. The word that made it seem too real. But I know now that it
was
real, that no softer word could ever soften the reality of it. "With the people who helped him get away with it, who harassed me, who made it impossible to live in my own hometown. You should have
thought for a second
about what Robin might do with that information. You had no excuse not to," I tell him, months worth of training my accent away abandoning me in seconds.

But I'm far from the little girl desperate for his approval. And he's far from the father I once knew. But he stands there without an ounce of the indignation I expect, accepting every word as if he knows he deserves them.

"Your excuses died the morning I worked up the nerve to tell you what'd been goin' on," I say pointedly.

"I told you what he did to me and you handed me right off to him not minutes later," I remind him. "Did you ever even look at the pictures?"

I know the answer before he even shakes his head.
No
. He didn't. Why would he look at photos that are evidence of an attack he never believed actually occurred? I doubt he ever even read my statement. He heard the Forbeses' side, and backfilled what he needed to in order to make it work. Of course, if he believed a word of my account, that meant he could have prevented it, and how could he admit that?

It infuriates me—his willful denial. His dereliction of his duty not only as a father, but as the district attorney, a job he'd always taken remarkably seriously. I don't doubt for a second that this was the first and last case he ever handled so cavalierly. I can't even imagine another situation in which he would decide on charges or plea deals without actually reviewing the evidence. No, this was a privilege reserved solely for his own daughter.

I lift the hem of my tee shirt and pull the waistband of my yoga pants just an inch, revealing my scar. "He almost killed me in that locker room. He would have killed me in Miami if Sam hadn't gotten there in time. And both are on you. You know what? You should have known somethin' was wrong even before I told you. You just completely stopped payin' me any attention, and I think... I think part of why I stayed with him, why it took so long for me to speak up, even when I was suffering like that, was because I wanted to please
you
."

I realize how true it is as the words flow out of me. My father's abandonment made me vulnerable to Robin. He's more at fault than I even realized. And though I realize I'm ranting, it's cathartic. I don't care if he wants to hear the truth or not, I need to speak it.

"But I finally worked up the courage to tell you the truth... Do you have any idea how hard it was for me to get those words out?"

My father bows his head subtly in shame. It's unexpected, but it changes nothing. "I can't even imagine," he mutters softly—to me or himself, I can't be sure. But I don't care, I have more to say. Even if he's the one who came to talk, I'm the one who has finally found her voice.

"Still, I was able to tell you because I was sure you would finally make it stop... I
needed
you to make it stop." I wait for him to meet my eyes again. "You were my daddy. It was your job to protect me. Not once did I consider that you wouldn't believe me. Or worse, that you'd
blame
me," I admit.

He rubs his face with his palm. "I'm so sorry, Rory."

Words I never thought I'd hear, but they aren't enough. No words will ever be enough.

"But you know what the worst part is? You made me blame
myself
. You made me believe that wearin' a short skirt or kissin' my boyfriend meant I asked to be assaulted, over and over again."

I glare at him intently. Part of me is taken aback by the dampness in his eyes. I have never seen my father cry. Not once. But I've shed more than enough tears for us all, and the fact that I'm finally reaching him doesn't negate what he's put me through.

"But it wasn't my fault. None of it." My voice grows quiet as I realize how fervently I believe it. "I know that now," I add softly.

One tear slides down my father's cheek, and it stuns me into silence, which he takes as his cue to respond.

"Of course it wasn't. It wasn't your fault. I'm so sorry, sweetheart—"

"Don't call me that."

He nods. "Okay. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, Rory. I was blind. You were my little tomboy and then suddenly you were a woman and I didn't know what to do with that. I neglected you, and then... I couldn't let myself believe that I'd let that happen to my little girl." His voice cracks.

"But you did let it happen," I remind him. "Denying it didn't change it, it only made it happen more."

"God, I know that now. I don't know what I was thinkin'. I let myself forget you were the same little girl who broke that goddamn vase with a baseball," he sobs.
Sobs
.

My father is sobbing on my doorstep.

I know the vase he's talking about too, but I don't know what the hell it has to do with anything.

"I'm so sorry, Rory. You have to believe that. I won't ever forgive myself. But I need you to know that I believe you. That I know it wasn't your fault. That I was so goddamn wrong." Another sob.