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The moment is long, and I wonder if they stay content with the value of that. That is until I sense Finn’s tension.
It radiates from here, and I don’t have to turn over or even open my eyes to know he wants to say something. That’s the thing about Finn though, he wears his emotions like he does his clothes. Visible and sometimes too bold.
More silence follows. Finn is usually never shy about confrontation; he thrives with attention. This, though, is different. Anyone with a pulse could understand that which is why Abram stays quiet.
That or he’s content in knowing he has his son back, either way, he waits, not the least bit impatient.
Finn sighs, but it’s weighty.
Here we go.
“I want to apologize,” he rushes out. “Not about telling you that I want to play basketball but for how it all went down. It’s just…”
“Stop,” Abram interjects softly. “Don’t apologize. I should’ve been more involved. If I had been, I’d have understood better how much this means to you—the importance of it,” he corrects. “As your father, I wish I would’ve been there more.” His tone is richer now.
Finn snorts, brushing it off, but I know there’s regret there too. He would’ve liked the same.
“There are many things I wish I could go back and change but being a father to both you and Rory is something I would never take back. You must understand that, Finn,” Abram pleads.
“You’re sure?” Those doubts ever present again.
“You two are everything to me,” he concedes, a throaty noise locking in his lungs. “I’d like to say that as your father I’ve taught you a lot of things, but bravery is something you learned on your own.”
He’s not wrong. Finn may be juvenile sometimes but he’s also gutsy.
“What you said to me in the office after you told me about your scholarship was brave, and even though I was upset about it in the moment I was also the proudest I have ever been at the same time.”
Finn’s airway grows choppy, and I know his shoulders have gone slack. “Dad?”
“Yes, son?”
The eased gravity of those simple words settles between them like hot stones. It’s like neither can say it enough.
“…There’s something else.”
I know then, and my stomach falls to my feet. He’s going to tell him. I try to control my breathing by biting the inside of my cheek, waiting in anticipation.
“There’s something you should know about the accident.”
He’s really going to do it.
I swore he hadn’t noticed while we were in the car. The adrenaline of everything else making him oblivious, or that’d been my hope.
Sure, he could be unaware at times, but I knew better than to underestimate him when it really matters.
The air in the room shifts once again and I know Abram is now as on edge as he is.
“Go on,” he encourages even if he’s puzzled.
I never would’ve brought it up. I never planned to. We don’t get a choice in who our parents are, so it’s not fair to blame him for another person’s actions.
We all have our handicaps, ours are disguised in our parents’ faults.
I’m dreading this as much as he is, having to tell his father the real reason we crashed. I may have been driving but it wasn’t my recklessness that caused us to slam into the pole of a power line.
“You already know Cole and I were in an accident,” he starts and my airways lock. They hold the longer he makes both Abram and I wait to hear how he’s going to explain this.
“The doctor told me he’d been going too fast and overcorrected.”
