Page 52

“Yes. Torrence. Wow. I can’t believe you remember me. But I thought that was you. You’re so grown up.”
I swallowed thickly, a cloud settling over me because this wasn’t going to be the happy reunion I’d once hoped for. Too much time had passed for that to be a possibility. “That’s what happens when you don’t see someone in twenty-five years.”
The smile fell from his face. “I know. It’s been a long time.”
“Understatement of the century.” I was being sassy and rude, I knew, but this man wasn’t my father. He might have been the person who’d donated his sperm to create me, but he wasn’t my parent.
To be fair, my mom hadn’t been much of a parent either, and I’d still loved her.
But at least she’d been around.
Torrence had disappeared when I was five or six and never came back.
“What are you doing here? Do you live in Saint View?” That didn’t seem possible. I’d lived here my entire life and I was sure I hadn’t seen the man since he’d walked out all those years ago. If he lived here, I would have run into him before now.
He shook his head. His hair was completely gray and on the long side, so it bounced around. His eyes weren’t mine though. His were a catlike green. It was how the child in me remembered them. Mine were more like my mom’s.
His eyes crinkled at the corners. “No, I haven’t lived in Saint View for a very long time. Not since your mom kicked me out.”
I prickled at the lie. “Mom never kicked you out. You left. Don’t blame it on her now. That’s a shitty thing to do.”
Kian put his arm around my shoulders and squeezed, supporting me quietly. “We can go if you want, Little Demon. Just say the word and we can go sit in the dark, or I can take you home. Whatever you prefer.”
But I shrugged him off. I hadn’t seen my father in so long. I wasn’t letting the opportunity pass to tell him exactly what I thought of him. My voice rose. “You broke my mother’s heart when you left. And mine! You didn’t even say goodbye. Don’t you dare tell me my mother kicked you out when I had to watch her lie on that dingy, gross, government housing floor and cry until she passed out.”
I expected an argument.
I didn’t expect the way his face crumpled. He reached out his hand to touch my arm, but I flinched away.
The man nodded in understanding. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know about any of that. But, Rebel, you have to know, I didn’t leave willingly. She didn’t want me in her life, or yours. If she cried after I left, I don’t think it was because she missed me. She could have had me all along. I never would have left you if I’d had the choice.”
His words hurt. They confused. This wasn’t the story I knew. This was all wrong.
But my mother had kept things from me before. Bart being one of them. Maybe this was another.
“Where did you go when you left?” I asked. “Why are you back?”
He cleared his throat. “I saw news of Miranda’s murder. It was all over the national papers back home.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “So, what? You thought you’d come back and see if there’s some sort of inheritance for you?” Opening credit music was starting up inside the theater, but it was like my feet were glued to the spot. I couldn’t move until I’d worked this guy out.
The man stuck his hands into his pockets and looked down at the stained carpet. “No. I know Miranda had nothing to her name. I don’t know why I came here, honestly, Bel. Some part of me thought that maybe, now that your mother is gone, that you might need me. Not the other way around. I just got in the car and drove, and the next thing I knew, I was here, back in the places we used to go.” He gave a tiny smile. “I used to bring you here. Do you remember? To watch kids’ cartoon movies.”
I opened my mouth to tell him off for calling me Bel, and to tell him he was full of shit. I couldn’t remember coming here once as a kid.
Except then I did remember.
Sitting in the darkness. A Disney movie on the screen.
A man next to me, offering me candy and popcorn, his green eyes bright in the dark room.
I did remember.
Shit.
“Bel, I don’t want anything from you. I just thought I should be here. In case you wanted something from me.”
Suddenly, all the times my mother had told me my father never gave a shit about me seemed questionable. Did a man who never cared take his kid to a movie? Did he come back when her mother died just in case she needed him?