29

By the time we left grandma’s, I felt like I had aged ten years. Dad had tried everything he could to get me to tell him about Jake but I couldn’t. In all my years of pining after Jake, I never stopped to think about all these parts and how hard it would be to keep it from dad. They were best friends, it was vastly difficult.

As soon as we got home, dad offered for us to watch a movie but I reluctantly denied. I didn’t want to give him the chance to pester me with questions. I felt guilty the moment I said no because his face fell. We hadn’t watched movies together in a while with everything going on and I immediately wanted to take back my refusal but I couldn’t so I ran up the stairs until I was safely in my room.

Only after locking my door did I call Jake. He picked up on the second ring. “I’m working right now, baby girl, but if you want us to finish what we started earlier then-”

“Dad is asking about the flowers,” I cut him off and he went silent. “I didn’t realize how hard it wo