Page 128 of Dear Love, I Hate You (Easton High)

We’re getting through to her.

“What if we don’t want to move on?” I flare. Ashley rubbed off on me, apparently. “What if we just wanted to learn to live without him rather than pretend he never existed? Did you ever think about that?”

“Girl, that’s enough,” Mom orders, her jaw tight.

“No, it’s not enough, Mom.” I stand my ground. “We’ve been keeping quiet for nine years. Nine years acting like we don’t miss him every single day. We can’t forget him just because you did!”

Then she bursts out crying.

You read that right.

My mother, who hasn’t shown an ounce of emotion since the day she peeled me off my father’s body, bursts out crying in the middle of our kitchen.

“You think I forgot him?” she all but yells.

I feel lost, unprepared. Like my mom’s breakdown is a job I’m not qualified for. Without a word, she takes off toward the stairs. Running on instinct, I grab Ashley’s wrist and follow after her. We take the steps two at a time and reach the second floor to find Mom rushing in the direction of my dad’

s trophy room.

I mean, her office.

She drives the key in her hand through the door she’s kept locked since Dad committed an irreversible act. Ash and I always assumed she just didn’t want our noses in her business.

“You think I don’t care?” Mom sobs as she fumbles with the lock. Then she pushes the door open, walks in, and gestures for us to do the same. I’ve barely stepped foot inside her office before my heart decomposes into a pile of dust. Mom doesn’t utter a sound, simply pointing at the walls, ceilings, and furniture.

Every square inch of the walls and ceiling are covered in pictures of him, and us before the accident.

Every. Square. Inch.

Some are Polaroids, some developed photos, all of them telling a story. The first photo I spot was taken the day of my birth. Mom went into labor during one of Dad’s most important races. He showed up to the hospital as fast as he could, but he was too late.

I was already here.

He’s still wearing his racing suit as he stands by Mom’s hospital bed, sporting a thumbs-up. She’s holding me in her arms, looking exhausted.

Happy.

The next picture is the day Dad took Ashley and me on a fishing trip when I was seven. There were no fish all weekend, and Ashley fell into the water trying to chase a butterfly. Oh, and I got stung by bees so many times I couldn’t move without crying for a week straight. I remember he insisted we take a picture of the one and only fish we’d caught before we left. It was small.

And we ended up letting it go right after the picture.

In the photograph, Ashley is soaked from head to toe, I look like a strawberry field, thanks to the swarm of angry bees, and Dad is holding the tiny fish up in the air.

Worst trip of all time, right?

And yet… this is my favorite memory with him.

My gaze sweeps around the room. There isn’t one item in this place that isn’t my dad’s. She’s kept his old desk, the hideous leopard-print computer chair Dad found on the street when he was a broke eighteen-year-old.

She’s kept everything down to our last memory of him.

The last picture.

Mom took it ten minutes before the accident. He’s holding us up in the air, Ash in one arm and me in the other. We’re laughing like there’s no tomorrow. Little did we know, because of this exact moment, there would be no tomorrow.

For Dad, anyway.

“Does this look like forgetting him to you?” Mom’s voice is so weak, so fragile, I wonder how the tragically broken woman in front of me could appear whole for all these years.