Page 91 of Between Desire and Denial

I wasn’t sure I cared one way or the other. The weight of the information was a lot, and I think, more than anything, I just wanted the comfort of his presence. We’d played that game as kids. It was a safe place for both of us even if my mind was a mess and he was struggling through whatever pulled him toward taking drugs.

Maybe we were broken. But families had a way of either completely breaking you or holding you together and piecingyou back up. I’d wanted us to be the latter for each other, thought we were moving toward that.

Yet, he didn’t answer my call. Nor did he answer the next morning. He wasn’t there for basketball when I walked by at the normal time either. And his phone went right to voicemail.

I waited all day with the phone in my hand.

I waited until I got the call. It wasn’t from him, though, but my father.

Chapter Thirty-Three

OLIVE

The gruff voiceof my father was irritable rather than loving when I picked up the phone call. “Knox wanted me to let you know he won’t be playing ball for the rest of this week.”

“Okay.” I dragged out the word in question. It was late in the day, but I pulled out my calligraphy supplies to work at the table in the dining room, holding the phone in the crook of my neck. “And why exactly couldn’t he just text me that?”

He scoffed at me like he was disgusted that I even asked. “Because he talked to his father instead. We have a lot of stuff going on, Olive. You can’t expect people to drop things just because you’re back home. It’s quite selfish if you ask me.”

“I’m being selfish?” The question bubbled up fast. I unscrewed the ink and slammed it down harder on the table than I would have liked.

“Why are you back here stirring all these things up? Doesn’t your friend Kee need you?” It was almost as if he was pushing me to leave.

“I’m here for Knox and—"

“You know, he’s trying to level out his medications, and your stepmother says you just keep calling him in the early morninghours to play basketball? He’s been helping me with business and needs rest. I can’t keep dealing with—”

“Wow,” I cut him off, hurt that Knox had told him that because it was true. I had called him but only because I thought we were on the same page. I laid out the different nibs and sat down at the table, trying to stay calm during the call. “I thought that—”

“I don’t care what you thought. We don’t want to be bothered with you. You shouldn’t be here.” His tone stabbed at my heart. Had I really let him down so much that he didn’t want me there ever? “My family needs stability right now.”

“Your family?” I inquired softly as I tested a new nib on the pen I’d ordered. The stroke I made was heavy and rough. I set down the pen and folded my fingers together, trying my best to cull the emotions rolling around inside me. You had to be delicate, precise, and handle calligraphy with care if you wanted the writing to come out perfectly, the flick of my wrist and the pressure on the paper changed every part.

“Yes. Georgette and Knox. So, leave him alone.” He said it with finality. No inclusion of his own daughter. And suddenly Lucille’s words started to make a bit of sense. Instead of feeling hurt and ignoring the anger, I embraced them both.

I narrowed my eyes on that heavy stroke of ink I’d made, feeling the anger of it. “What business are you two working on anyway?”

“It’s not your concern.”

The rage and prickle came out in my voice then. “It’s always my concern when it has to deal with my brother, Father. I won’t call him if he doesn’t want, but I’ll behere,ready to answer, when he calls me. I’m not going anywhere. You can bet on it.”

“You’re impossible,” my father retorted before he hung up on me.

And I think my heart broke in another way that night. My father had said I wasn’t a part of his family, and I accepted that as I stared out the window that night, but I felt the pain of the bond truly severing.

When I got another text from Dimitri, I ignored it.

Another day, another time to ignore.

The next day, he texted again.

Dimitri: You must still be stressed.

I got an alert then from an unknown number that the whole spa was booked for me next week and the message said, “Congrats on booking your spa day.”

I knew the culprit and tried not to smile at his over-the-top effort. I took a screenshot and sent it back to him.

Me: What is this?