Anyway, thank you for the reviews on the first chapter. I hope you guys like this one, too, and keep going with the honesty!Chapter Two
It was odd to look out the window in the morning and not see T.J.’s car in the driveway, waiting for me. I wondered what he would say to his friends, what kind of reaction I was going to get when I walked through the front doors of the school. None of the people I talked to were necessarily my friends—they’d only put up with me for T.J.’s sake. Would they ignore me? Act pissed or disbelieving? I let the curtain fall back into place, straightening my shoulders. It didn’t matter. I wasn’t here to make friends. I was here for my dad.
I fed Buddy before I left, and locked the front door. The cab of my car felt unfamiliar to me as I slid in the driver’s seat; it’d been so long since I’d needed to use it. T.J. had driven me everywhere.
This is going to take more getting used to than I thought, I realized. I hadn’t comprehended how dependant, how used I’d gotten to T.J. and having him around. He’d even gone with me to visit Dad at the hospital a few times. Some part of me worried that I might have made a mistake, but I shoved it away.
The engine of my ’96 Riviera Buick started with a purr, and I backed out slowly. There was more snow on the ground than I thought there would be, and my tires weren’t exactly cut out for the job of rolling through it.
Rochester, Minnesota, had about 86,000 people, and it was way bigger than my old hometown in California. Dad had owned a small vineyard in a rural part of the state, and his wine was still coveted in the most elite of restaurants. He kept the price lower, though, to around $70 a bottle, when in reality even I knew it could be much higher. “I want people to enjoy it and not have to literally pay for the experience,” he’d told me once. “Besides, I’ll still make a profit even at this price, as long as people keep buying it.”
He named our famous bottle Katherine’s Heart. After both my mom and me. She was Kathy, I was Kate. Annoying, but I really didn’t have a say when they’d named me. “So I’ll never forget where we came from,” Dad had told us in the kitchen one night. It was when he’d gotten a phone call from Chris, his foreman, saying that Katherine’s Heart sales had skyrocketed overnight when their first shipment had gone out.
“People love it!” Chris enthused. “We’re going to be rich!”
“But, Dad, I thought we were rich,” I said, looking up at him with a frown. Dad ruffled my hair, smiling tenderly. “Yeah, we are. You’re right, sweetheart.” He’d always been the quiet type. Where Mom was a chatterbox—you could never really get her to shut up—Dad said what he thought only needed saying. And even when he did open his mouth, the tone of his voice, the deep tenor, was a soothing sound. I’d never, once in my life, heard him yell at anyone.
Even on that dark day when he and Mom got the test results back. Even when Mom told the two of us that she just couldn’t take anymore, and was moving in with a guy she’d met at a gym. Even when we’d had to sell the home Dad had lived in since he was a kid and move up here. Minnesota. But apparently the Rochester Mayo Clinic was well-known. I’d heard that celebrities had gone there before.
I missed the hot air of California, the scent that always lived in the vineyard and filled my nostrils when I opened the front door. I missed the sounds of the birds, the sound of laughter coming from the workshops. Dad had the same crew around each season, and by the time I was thirteen, the six men working for him were like six uncles to me. And one of the men had a son… Blake…
My jaw protested suddenly, and I realized I’d been clenching it. The only sound in the car was my blinker, and I reached over to turn on the radio. Loud rap filled the cab now, and I cringed but left it on anyway. It kept me from thinking. There was only the overwhelming music to focus on as I pulled into the high school parking lot.
“Hey, Kate,” one of my classmates and T.J. oldest friends, Briana, greeted me. I nodded, getting out of the car and grabbing my bag. So T.J. hadn’t told anyone. I should have known.
“You ready for the big test in Psych today?” she asked me.
“Yeah.” I forced a smile and turned away. Briana was used to this kind of thing from me; she fell into step beside me, unruffled, despite how apparent I made it that I wasn’t in the mood for conversation. T.J. had been telling her throughout our entire relationship that even though I seemed cold, I was really a softie deep down. Of course he would say that—he’d been trying to make me in that right girl all along—but I refused to do anything that would make it seem true.
“Why don’t you want to make friends here?” T.J. had asked me once. “You never seem to care about what anyone thinks of you.”
“Because I don’t,” I replied simply. “And I don’t need friends. I have my dad. He’s the only one that I need to care about.”
“Everyone needs friends,” my now ex-boyfriend had said. “Even you, Kate.”
Briana wasn’t trying to talk to me as I made my way to my locker. “What’s up?” I finally asked, tired of hearing the sound of her heels clicking on the tile floor. She looked at me sidelong, a thoughtful expression on her dainty face. I noticed that she wasn’t wearing makeup today. Briana was one of those girls that didn’t have to try to look good. Even without makeup, she was pretty. That was one of the reasons I put up with her friendliness—she didn’t give her reflection near as much attention as the other girls. She wasn’t as shallow as them.
“T.J. told me about you two,” she told me after a moment. “I just wanted to say that I still want you to sit with us at lunch. T.J. wouldn’t have said anything, so I decided to. I mean, he thinks all you need is space and time, but I know how it is. You never seemed as into him as he was into you. So don’t disappear just because of this, okay? You should still hang out.”
I tried not to let my face betray my surprise, and I recovered from it quickly. “That’s nice of you to say, but I think I’ll just go to the library. That’s where I used to eat even before I came here, anyway.”
“You know T.J. won’t make it awkward,” Briana insisted. “He loves you.”
I grimaced. “Listen—”
“Oh, I didn’t mean to say that. Sorry, I don’t want to make this any harder for you. But just so you know, we want you around, okay? Oh, and T.J. wanted me to tell you that he isn’t going to tell anyone else about the… uh, break you two are taking. He said it’s up to you whether or not you wanted people to know.”
“If it’s up to me, then why did he tell you?” I asked bluntly. As soon as the words were out I realized how they sounded, but Briana didn’t seem to notice. The first bell was ringing overhead, a loud warning to get to class, and Briana glanced around. “Better go. Travis is probably looking for me.” She smiled at me, touching my shoulder for just an instant. I watched her slide away, her perfect blond hair bobbing as she walked. Travis wasn’t looking for her. I knew this, because—
“You don’t look so good.”
Book and notebook in hand, I slammed the locker shut and turned to face Travis Hartwell. He leaned against the wall, smiling at me. I didn’t smile back or tell him that Briana was looking for him. Instead, I turned my back and walked away, to my class down at the end of the hall.
“Hey, good morning to you, too.” He caught up with me easily. I may have had long legs, but he had motivation. “What happened? Did another guy tell you you’re gorgeous or something?”
Ignoring him was the only way I could think of to get him off my back. Ever since the first day of school when he’d asked me out, and I’d given him a flat no thanks, Travis had been relentless. And I wasn’t one of those delusional girls who wanted to believe the best; I knew I wasn’t anything special to him. I was just a challenge. The typical chase for the typical macho.
“Hey,” Travis flattened his hand against the door to the classroom before I could open it, and I stood back. “Just one word? Please?”
“What do you want me to say?” I brushed the hair over my left eye back. His glance flickered to my hand, then back to my face. “I’m going to be late.”
“So?” he retorted. “You’re late every morning. I make sure of it.”
I wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of a reaction, but I felt my patience slipping. “Good morning,” I quipped. “How was your weekend?” Grinning, he opened his mouth to answer, but I quickly went on, “Well, that’s good. Mine was great, too. This was a nice conversation. Let’s go in now.”
“Love your humor,” Travis said dryly. “But you know there’s only one thing I really want to hear.”
By habit, I almost mentioned T.J. and the fact that I was dating him, as I usually did when Travis bugged me, but I stopped myself just in time. I couldn’t use that excuse anymore. No, not excuse. Reason. I hadn’t been going out with T.J. just to dissuade Travis.
While I was going through all of this in my head, Travis was watching me. He must have sensed something, because that annoying grin grew. “Everything is okay with you and Mueller, right?”
I avoided it. “Could you please just let me go inside?” The bell rang over us the second time as if it were taunting me, and I smothered a groan. Officially late. The last thing I needed was to have the school try to get a hold of Dad. “Damn it, Travis, just get out of my way.”
Travis surprised me by wordlessly stepping aside. I didn’t question the sudden change in tradition, but I yanked the door open so fast that the corner of it hit the toe of my boots, and I sucked in a breath. There was a sound from Travis, lie muffled laughter, but I didn’t glare at him like I would have, because my teacher was staring at me, waiting for me to come in.
“You’re late again, Kate,” she said.
The employees at the Mayo Clinic already recognized me when I came through the front doors. The woman who was sitting there the most often, Rita, gave me reports. I respected her for that. She didn’t lie about it. If Dad was having a tough day, she would smile at me and say, “Tell him a few jokes today, will you, Kate?” On the good days she’d give me a wink. “Have fun today, sweet. He’s driving all the nurses crazy.”
Today was a good day. Rita sent me one of her signature winks. When I noted it something in my chest loosened. “Did he eat?” I asked her. I knew it wasn’t necessarily her job to check up on those kinds of things, but she did it anyway, for people like me.
“Sure did,” she told me, stapling two pieces of paper together. Her red hair was bright under the harsh lighting. “Go on up. He’s been excited about seeing you. Talked about it for hours last night. Hey, I never knew you were in the Poetry Club at your old school.”
Dad had been talking, all right. That was ancient history. “I was.” I shrugged. “Not anymore.”
Rita eyed me. “What, you don’t like poetry anymore?”
I was already moving towards the elevators. “Not really.”
The phone rang, thankfully distracting Rita, and I left her there at the front desk. The buttons to each floor glowed red as I went up, up towards my dad, getting closer with each second. My book bag was heavy on my shoulder, so I set it down.
“I need clean towels for Mr. Anderson,” an aid called, rushing by as the doors slid open. I picked my bag back up and stepped into the hallway. This place was as familiar to me now as home, and I headed to Dad’s room on the right, 406.
The door was open, as always. And as always, I took a moment before going in. It was hard, arranging my expression into the smooth, easy one my Dad only saw. For him, I was the girl with no problems, the girl with the fun life I knew he wanted me to have. I hung out with friends every night, I had a great relationship with my mom, and I never worried about whether or not he was going to get better. And as long as I had a say in it, he would think of me in only this way.
“Hey, you,” I said, walking in. I pushed the curtain beside his bed aside so the room felt more open. Dad beamed up at me. He hadn’t changed much since my last visit, two days ago. He was still pale, the stubble on his head just a little longer.
“Kate, my lovely fate,” he murmured. He’d been calling me that since the day I was born. He always said that I was the reason he existed—his fate. I sat beside him, in the chair that practically had the grooves of my shape in the cushion now.
“You look great,” I said, reaching over to squeeze his hand. He squeezed back.
“Here, help me sit up,” he said, struggling to do it himself anyway. “I was just taking a little nap. I wanted to be fresh for your visit.”
“Hold still, you old dolt,” I teased, hastily arranging two pillows behind his back. “Can’t just slow down a little, can you?”
“Did you get all your homework done before you came?” Dad asked, a stern note in his soft voice. I smiled at him.
“Of course I did. What do you take me for, a teenager or something?”
Dad grinned. “No, never. I couldn’t think of you as a teenager even if I wanted to. You’re growing too fast.”
It seemed we went through this ritual every time I came. I think Dad took some comfort in the predictability, the fact that I would come every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday without fail. And if he was feeling a little lonely, he sometimes let me come on the weekends. The one thing I always appreciated about T.J. was that he never seemed to mind about me canceling on him on Saturday nights or Sunday mornings.
T.J. I should probably tell him about T.J.
“So where did you and Tim go last night?” Dad questioned, as if he sensed the direction of my thoughts. He was the only one who called T.J. that; they’d bonded this year over the miracle that was Brett Favre.
“We went to a movie,” I answered, fluffing the pillow behind Dad’s head again. I didn’t want to meet his gaze, but I did anyway, because I knew if I didn’t he would know something was up. My father knew me better than I knew myself.
Dad nodded, satisfied, and rubbed my knuckles with his thumb. He didn’t ask me what time we’d gotten home, or anything else, because he trusted me. We had an unspoken promise to each other—to be honest, to be trustworthy. Which was why I knew I should tell him that I’d broken up with T.J.
The TV blared just then—an old rerun of Friends was on, me and Dad’s favorite show—and Dad laughed. “Love this show,” he said in his scratchy, tired voice.
I held his hand tighter. Later, I’ll tell him later, I thought. “Me too,” I said. “Remember when we cried during the season finale? When Ross and Rachel got back together?”
“They should definitely make a movie,” Dad told me.
I agreed.
Your one of my writing inspirations, you know 