Lenny. Not Drusilla or Vampire Girl. That was new.

“You have no idea what it feels like to be me,” she added.

“Do I not?” I stood up, bracing myself on the edge of Uncle Harry’s desk. I was dizzy from all the things that had happened in such a short period of time.

“I lost my mum a week before I got my first period. I had no one to talk to about it. Poppy was so upset, she wouldn’t leave her room for four months afterwards. I arranged toilet paper in my knickers to absorb the blood every month until I found Poppy’s sanitary pads one day. I woke up every morning for a year expecting to see my mum, before remembering she was dead. I secretly hated my father for a while for not being the one to die. He was the one I needed less.”

She swallowed and looked away, blinking at the bare wall where Harry’s painting had once been.

“I stayed here and let my father and sister move away because the day my mother died was the day we stopped being a family and became a man and his two daughters. Nothing seemed to matter anymore. I didn’t feel connected to anything, anyone.”

Arabella sucked her cheeks in. “Sorry,” she muttered.

“Not your fault. I came to All Saints High already saddled with an open beef with Vaughn Spencer.” I refrained from getting into the details. “The black eyeliner, hair, piercings, and wild stories about trips to Brazil were camouflage. Obviously, they didn’t do the trick.”

“Obviously.” She rolled her eyes, and I chuckled.

I needed to get out of here. To find Vaughn and Uncle Harry. To speak to my father. Make sure I hadn’t gotten myself into terrible trouble by spreading those posters everywhere.

I walked toward her, brushing my fingers over her arm. She looked up in surprise, a little gasp escaping her wounded throat.

“I hope it all works out when you get back,” I said grimly, despite everything. “I think we both haven’t had it easy, and I hope we can prevail. I think we can, Arabella. I think the best is yet to come.”

“I hope…” she trailed off, pressing her eyes shut. “I hope you’ll be fine, too, or whatever.”

I laughed, shaking my head. “I’ll take it.”

We both hobbled toward the door at the same time, pouring out of it in different directions.

I spent the next hour looking for Vaughn everywhere. I tried calling his cell. It went straight to voicemail. Exhausted, I crawled up to my room, flinging myself over my bed and closing my eyes.

“Not so fast,” a voice boomed. “We have to talk.”

“Papa?” I whispered.

He stepped out of the shadows, a deep frown etched on his face. He looked so much older than he had before my birthday. Before our falling-out. Before we’d both slinked entirely to our separate corners of the world, ignoring each other’s existence.

I could see now that he didn’t know what had riled me up, and I hadn’t known why he didn’t crawl back to me, begging for forgiveness.

It was a huge misunderstanding, and we could have talked, if it wasn’t for the fact that we didn’t talk. Ever. Not really. Communicating our feelings had never been our strong suit, especially since Mum died, and now we were paying for it.

I felt my bed dipping and held my breath, the weight felt familiar all of a sudden. Flashbacks of hundreds of nights when he’d sat by my side to read me a story or to tell me a Greek legend flooded my mind. My throat went thick with emotion.

“Lenny.”

I pulled my lips into my mouth, trying not to cry.

“I should’ve come sooner, darling.”

I felt the mattress move beneath me as he shook his head. Everything about him was massive, imposing, out of this world—even his sculptures. Maybe that was the problem. My father was always so much bigger than life in my eyes, I’d had to reduce him to nothing before I could look at him as a complex, flawed person. As an equal. Human.

Wordlessly, I began to twist my fingers together, just to do something with my hands.

“I wanted you to know, this thing you said…you talked about…with Miss Garofalo…”

“I got the wrong Garofalo.” I sighed into the dark, feeling my shoulders slump. “I know. She caught me up to speed. A married woman, huh?” But there was no power to my judgment. I felt soggy with despair. Tired.

“Would it matter if I said I was lonely?” he asked.

I could hear the defeat soaked in his voice. I shook my head again, knowing he could feel it in the movement of the mattress underneath us.

“I am devastated over the decision I made.”

Decision, I noticed. Not mistake. The devil was in the details, and my father still believed he needed what happened there to happen—maybe to feel like a man again, and not just an artist.

What he did was awful, but it wasn’t unforgivable. To me, anyway. His daughter. I didn’t have a choice. I wasn’t his wife. He had no wife. It wasn’t me he’d betrayed.

“It’s not the only devastating decision I’ve made since moving to Todos Santos.”

“Oh?” I asked.

He scooted over, pressing his back against my wall. My face heated in the dark when I thought about all the things this bed had seen recently. Vaughn handcuffed. Me and Vaughn having sex. The room was soaked with him, every crack in the wood floor filled with Vaughnness. The undertone of his cool, fresh scent still stuck to the walls. His rare smiles inked to my ceiling. I wondered if Papa could feel that he was here, with us.

“I gave Vaughn the internship, but not because he deserved it, you see. I gave it to him because I knew you didn’t want to fall in love—never wanted to fall in love—thinking it was safer and that you’d be happier. I couldn’t take that chance, seeing you lead a lonely life. I’m lonely, and it’s killing me, Lenny. So I summoned him here.”

I choked on my own breath, coughing. “You…”

“No. Don’t. Please don’t scold me, or ask me why him. There was something about the two of you in a room—any room, at any point of your childhood—that made the air sizzle, seconds before you put your hand to the material and made a masterpiece. There was magic there, and it was tightly woven. I wanted to pull it thread by thread by thread until I unraveled it completely. Your mother noticed it, too, the day Vaughn sneaked you a brownie.”

My mouth fell open. I saw the corners of his mouth lift, even though it was so dim in my room. “She always watched you like a hawk, Lenny.”

“She did,” I whispered. “God, she did.”

“I miss her so much. It was in a moment of weakness that I thought I could drown in someone else to hush the aching, screaming need for her. It was the worst choice I’ve ever made, next to picking Vaughn just so you two could be here together and fall in love. But as it turns out, not all is lost.”

I waited patiently for him to drop the bomb I had no doubt was coming.

“You got the Tate Modern exhibition spot. Vaughn dropped out,” he said.

I couldn’t breathe.

The sensation was foreign, unwelcome. I tried pulling air into my lungs, but I couldn’t accept any oxygen. My body rejected it. It seemed to reject the very idea itself.

“Vaughn told me about your assemblage sculpture, said it was gorgeous and far more deserving than another piece of stone. I tend to agree with him on that point. He packed his belongings and left the premises earlier today. I’m terribly sorry, darling.”