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My father stepped closer, his voice in a hushed tone. Part of me wondered if his shift in body language was because he cared, rather than how it looked for me to have missed the interview. “Have you been keeping your appointments with Dr. Chaves?”
I stared up at him with pure disdain. Dr. Chaves was a psychiatrist that felt his patient stats and pharmaceutical contracts were more important thanactuallyhelping them. “Dad, I’mfine.”
“Fine? You call this fine?” His voice pitched an octave higher than normal as he picked up a beer bottle and held it upside down. Only the leftover foam remained. He stood there waiting for my response, his anger disintegrating as the silence continued. “Your mother and I are worried about you, with everything that happened with Daniel and Sofya?—”
“Stop,” I said firmly, my hands held up in surrender. I refused to think of Daniel or Sofya—it was a rule.
I retreated quickly to the bathroom, slamming the door shut.
His voice grew muffled from behind the thin wood keeping me away from him and conversations I didn’t wish to have. I leaned against the cold marble countertop, feeling the smooth surface against my skin. My heart pounded in my chest as I tried to calm my breathing, knowing that I needed to stay grounded. But my mind was floating away from me, leaving my tired body behind.
I wasn’t myself, and hadn’t been for a while.
“Audry, he–he—”Sofya, my best friend, collapsed into me, the hospital machines beeping as a melody to her cries.
“Shh, it’s okay,” I whispered into her ear as I held her. I didn’t dare look into that hospital room. I didn’t want to see what lay on the other side.
The knock on the door brought me back to reality. A single tear rolled down my cheek.
Sofya ran off after Daniel passed…and left me here a few months ago—alone.
The cold of the counter cut into my skin, reminding me of my plethora of mistakes I made on Saturday night—Quinton being one of them. There was no escape from them. It was one fuck up after another, after another.
“Grief is normal, Audry,” he said, his muffled voice shaking. The words were uncomfortable on his tongue, each one forced out after the last. “But, you have to continue on.”
Did he even believe what he was saying?
With a deep sigh, I opened the door.
My father stood there, his eyebrows furrowed, and his lips in a tight, uncomfortable line.
“This isn’t about…them,” I said. The fact I still had trouble saying their names didn’t help my case much. But it had been months—nine months of deafening, insanity driving silence.
I accepted Sofya wouldn’t come back here; the memory was too much for her to bear. But I hadn’t been able to accept that she would turn her back on me. Me, her best friend, of all people couldn’t convince her to stay.
“This isn’t a cry for help,” I said to my father. Before he could cut me off, I moved toward my dresser, pulling out an appropriate dress. “I had some friends over this weekend. I didn’t plug in my phone, and unlike your generation, paper calendars aren’t my thing.”
He watched me keenly as I plugged my phone in, throwing the dress into the bathroom. “Aud?—”
“I’m sure Mother is expecting me for tea. It is Tuesday, after all,” I said with a smile. Tuesdays and Wednesdays were the Ladies League: a required appearance for me unless I wanted the continue being on the receiving end of her wrath.
My father’s nose turned up. He took another glance around the room. “If this isn’t about—” He redirected as I tensed, “Then what is it about?”
“Just a breakup,” I said, the lie falling from my lips. Quinton and I weren’t something that required a breakup. But, as far as my parents knew—he was. “I had a few girlfriends over for a movie night.”
“Another one? Another short-lived relationship, Audry?” His anger grew. “You know, sometimes—” He closed his mouth tight.
I tilted my head, nodding slowly, and took a step closer. “Sometimes what, Dad?” I pushed, ready for the age old threat to fall from his lips. I knew it all too well. Whenever he flipped a lid, he would threaten it.
“Perhaps you aren’t ready to take over the hotel.” The threat fell as I thought it would. Over the years, it lost its bite.
My father never wanted me to take over. He would cite reason after reason: I party too much, it’s no place for a woman, I lacked the spine, or the intellect. There was always something he would come up with. It would be laced with as much malice as he could conjure.
And after each time, he continued to show me the ropes. He continued to let me sit in on business meetings if I wanted—or didn’t. He would spend hours talking over the books with me. I would have to participate in the interviews and board meetings, and, of course, tea with the Ladies League.
“Your younger brother has always been better suited for it.”
I rolled my eyes. “Andrew is a child, Dad. And you know it,” I said.
