When they meet in the middle of the hallway, my dad and Dean, I realize that they’re both exactly the same height as well.
How did that happen? And how did I not know this before?
They both stand in front of each other for a few seconds. I can’t see the expression on my dad’s face but I do see Dean.
I see the respect in his eyes for my dad. Not to mention the love and nostalgia. His brown eyes are brimming with it.
But that’s his only tell.
With my mother, Dean was more open and affectionate. But with my dad, he’s reserved. His features barely show that he’s seeing my dad after two whole years.
“Simon,” Dean greets him with a short nod while offering my dad his hand.
I wait with bated breath for Dad to take it.
Take it, Dad.
My dad doesn’t. He doesn’t take Dean’s hand.
He does one better.
He steps up and gives Dean a hug, which Dean immediately returns. In fact, he even closes his eyes and clenches his jaw in that typical way of his, when he’s overcome by emotions. And I realize that he was waiting my dad to make the first move.
For some reason, Dean was waiting for my dad to welcome him back into our family.
It’s stupid, right? He’s always been family.
“It’s good to see you,” Dad says and I can sense that his eyes are closed as well, and he’s hugging Dean as tightly as he was hugging me.
“It’s good to be back,” Dean says.
I try to control it but a huge smile stretches across my lips.
I’m so engrossed in watching them together that I have no idea when both Mom and Brendan sidle up to me.
I grab onto Mom’s arm. “Everything is going to be okay, right?”
She kisses the side of my forehead. “Yes.”
Feeling happy, I wind my arm around Brendan’s neck and kiss his cheek; I have to get up on my tiptoes to do that though. “You’ve got a big mouth, don’t you? I’ll stuff it with dirt if you don’t keep it shut.”
He grins, winding his own arm around my neck and hugging me to his side. “I’d like to see you try, Tiny.”
After their meeting in the hallway, Dad and Dean, along with all of us, go into the living room. We spend a couple of hours talking and hanging out and eating all the Christmas cookies that Mom made.
As delicious as they are, I have to admit that I’ll enjoy them more once Dean has his talk with Dad. As it is, I sit there nibbling on things with half a heart that’s beating with a power of two.
The only time I get distracted from the impending conversation is when Mom mentions that there’s going to be a get-together on Christmas Eve—tomorrow—and her friends from Heartstone and a couple of other people are coming.
“So you mean, Aunt Renn and Uncle Tristan and Aunt Penny?” I ask, referring to my mom’s friends.
“Yes.” My mom beams.
“What about Auntie Vi and Uncle Graham?”
“Of course. Everyone’s coming.”
“Like their kids too? Rosie?” My innocence knows no bounds here. “Is Rosie coming?”
Mom’s irritated but she answers anyway, “Yes, Fallon. All the kids are going to be here, including Rosie.”
I shrug, so proud of myself for maintaining my smooth façade. “I was just asking.”
Dean gives me a weird look and so does my dad, but I ignore them both.
My entire focus is on a fourteen-year-old boy called Brendan Blackwood, a.k.a. my brother.
Brendan perked up at the mention of Auntie Vi’s—I only call her auntie because I’m closest to her—and Uncle Graham’s sweet and shy twelve-year-old daughter, Rose Edwards. Everyone calls her Rosie though. I totally get it; she’s super pretty and delicate like a flower.
Completely opposite to how my brother is, loud and playful and brash.
But then, opposites attract, right?
At least I hope so. Because Brendan has a huge crush on her.
Oh, he tries to deny it and act cool and composed when she’s around. But I know him. I know the tips of his ears blush when he’s in extreme distress. And that’s what happens when he sees her.
It’s hilarious actually.
I widen my eyes at him, and he secretly gives me the bird finger from the armchair that he’s sprawled in.
I want to laugh but I don’t.
Tomorrow’s going to be so exciting. Well, once the big talk is done and over with.
Thirty minutes later when we’re in the kitchen though, I regret it. I should’ve laughed right then because I don’t think I’m ever going to laugh again. A very familiar feeling for me but God, this time it feels so real.
So, so real. More real than the illness I have.
Because Dean and my dad are in his study right now and they’re talking. While I’m out here with my mom and my brother in the kitchen.
As soon as they left to go talk, Mom dragged me into the kitchen and gave me some stuff to do—I honestly don’t know what—to keep my mind off it.
“It’s going to be okay. Let them talk,” she told me sternly.
But I can’t focus on anything other than what’s happening inside my dad’s study. I’m running through multiple scenarios in my head.
I’m picturing how it will happen. How they will break the news to us that everything’s okay now. That Dad doesn’t mind if I date Dean.
Will they walk into the kitchen together? Will my dad ask me to see them in his office? Will he have questions? I bet he will.
I imagine and imagine and yet nothing prepares me for it at all.
Nothing prepares me for what Dean says when minutes later, he comes into the kitchen.
Alone.
We have this huge island in the middle, made of white marble, and I’m standing on one side of it and Dean on the other. We’re right opposite to each other.
Technically, the very first thing he should see as he enters the room is me. I’m right there, right where his eyes should land.
But he doesn’t. He doesn’t look at me.
He only looks at Mom, who smiles at him. I was doing the same, smiling at him, but at the expression on his face, my smile dies down.
Dean appears grim. And tight. Strained.
I grab the edge of the island to keep myself steady.
“Smells nice in here,” he says to Mom, his voice deep and deceptively unaffected by whatever’s causing him to look like that, so withdrawn. “But I’m afraid I’ll have to pass on dinner. Thanks for everything, Willow.”
And just like that, he turns around and leaves.
I hear his footsteps walking down the hallway, the hallway where I crashed into my dad, the hallway where my dad embraced him like a son.
That was like, two hours ago, right? Dad and Dean hugged each other two hours ago and now Dean’s leaving.
How’s that possible?
The sound of the door shutting behind him wakes me up and I run after him.
I know Dad said no running inside the house, but I don’t care. No one stops me either. I don’t hear my mom calling out for me. I don’t hear my brother.