Page 22 of My Unfinished Heart

“I'm here, aren't I?” I say, to deflect what he was getting at—that I’m so cold and callous that I can’t even dredge up a single tear over the loss of my parents.

“I wish you weren’t.”

“Well, it's too goddamn late now.” I pull into the driveway. Once I get him inside, he can do whatever the fuck he wants. I know exactly what I’m gonna do. I’m selling the house.

What’s the best way to take off a Band-Aid? Do you go slow and pull out every hair one by one? Do you suffer longer because you’re too scared to feel the pain all at once? Or do you rip it off?

You rip it off.

You sell the house.

You get it over with.

One day he’ll thank me for it.

FIVE

Birthright

I walk into the executive offices of InVivion looking exactly like I have nothing to offer anyone there, or anyone in the world.

I walk in as someone’s estranged son.

When I leave, half an hour later, in the same t-shirt, same beat up jeans—I’m the guy I was in Seattle. Wealthier, yes, but no one’s heir anymore. I dropped the burden of who-knows-how many shares of stock onto the desk of the man my father mentored. A man who’d seen my father every day for the last ten years. The man my father paid far more attention to than he ever did to me. Nice guy. He seemed really upset about the whole thing.

He also asked if I’d let him buy me a drink.

I thought about it. He’d know so much, maybe even have answers to the millions of questions still spinning through my brain, but I declined. He was a little too good looking, and I’m not trying to torture myself any more than the universe already is.

Though I gave away my share of the company, I still have an obscene amount of money to burn. An amount I can’t wrap my mind around. Even when I total up all the things I could possibly need until I die of old age, I don’t even crack a few million. I don’t know what I’m made of, but whatever it is, it doesn’t cost much to maintain. I think about the money, though. I think about it all the time. It’s burning another hole in my brain along with all the other questions I leave unanswered about the kind of man my father was.

I guess I should buy a house or something. Or I could get a car. I could get a dream car. I could even buy a boat if I knew how to sail one. What I really want today, though, is a bike. Austin has nice trails around the lake. The Hike and Bike Trail around Lady Bird Lake is one great thing this city’s got going for it. The rest has been slowly consumed by urban gentrification and traffic as bad as L.A.

I pull up to a bike store on Barton Springs Road, which hasn’t changed all that much in six years, and grab my phone from the passenger seat of my rental.

The shot of adrenaline I get when I see a missed text from Tristan does something completely different to me than that man’s offer of a drink did.

Tristan

16202 Mountain View Road

His address?

Tristan

Your dad’s house.

Oh. That makes sense. I’ve been wondering what that other key was for.

Thanks

Tristan

Want me to meet you there?

It’s not a good idea. He belongs to Connor, even if it’s not that way. Still…he offered. I respond with a nervous breath.

Sure. Give me an hour.