Page 28 of After the Snap

I squeeze my eyes shut, willing the thoughts to slow long enough for me to hold on to one of them. My room blurs behind the tears gathering in my eyes. My purse still lies turned inside out across the comforter, and the empty place on my finger weighs impossibly heavy.

Dad never rushes in to untangle the mess for me. He patiently waits on the other end of the phone, letting me find my way through it. “Bug. I need you to take one slow breath for me.”

I drag in a breath because he asked me to, but it catches halfway down, trembling out of me before it ever reaches my lungs. “I can’t.”

Another shaky breath leaves me, and frustration burns hotter than the tears already stinging my eyes. I’ve spent years believing that if I planned carefully enough, there wasn’t a problem I couldn’t solve. Now I can’t even manage something as simple as breathing when my dad asks me to.

“That’s okay,” he says, never raising his voice above the same steady calm he’s carried through this entire conversation. “You don’t have to get it right the first time. Just stay with me.”

I press my free hand against my chest, trying to match the slow rhythm of his breathing instead of the frantic one trapped inside my body, and after a few shaky attempts, the tightness around my ribs finally eases.

“There you go, Bug,” Dad says quietly, the words carrying the smallest hint of a smile.

Another tear slips free, and I wipe it away before it has the chance to fall.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper again, the apology finding me as naturally as breathing once had.

“We’re done apologizing, Bug. You’re not going to apologize to me for needing your dad.”

The steady tone of his voice slowly eases my panic, reaching places inside me that are still clenched tight. I draw in another careful breath, and this time it reaches all the way to the bottom of my lungs before I do it again.

“Good,” Dad says, as though that single breath is all he needed from me. “Now, I want you to listen for a minute, okay?”

“Okay.”

“The movers will be there this afternoon.”

I frown, my thoughts still moving slowly enough that it takes a second for the words to make sense. “What movers?”

“The ones I hired last week.” My brow furrows even deeper, but before I can say anything else, he continues speaking. “I already knew everything in that apartment wouldn’t fit in your car, Bug, and that little storage unit you rented wouldn’t solve the problem for more than a few weeks. They were always part of the plan.”

I stare through my bedroom door at the boxes stacked neatly against the living room wall because I’d been so determined to prove I could manage this move by myself. I’d measured the furniture and mapped out exactly how I planned on putting each item in the storage unit, all while he’d quietly solved the problem I hadn’t wanted to admit I couldn’t.

“I should’ve been able to handle this myself,” I huff, the words carrying the same shame that’s followed me since my test scores arrived. “You’ve already done so much, and now I’m making you deal with this.”

“Calliope.”

I sit up straight at the sound of my name. He rarely uses it, saving it for moments when he really needs me to hear what he is saying.

“You aren’t making me do anything. I’m your father, and taking care of you has never been an inconvenience.”

Fresh tears burn in my eyes as I look around the apartment at all the things I’d been so determined to handle without him.

“You’re having a hard day, and needing support isn’t something you should be ashamed of,” he says, and before I can find another reason to argue, I hear the familiar click of computer keys through the phone. “I’m booking your flight now.”

“Dad, you don’t have to do that. I can drive.”

“I know you can.”

“It’s only⁠—”

“Bug, you’ve been carrying today by yourself since the minute you woke up, and I’m not asking you to do it for one more hour.”

Driving home had become the last thing I could still do for myself, one last box I could check before I walked through the front door in Charlotte and admitted I wasn’t nearly as okay as I’d wanted everyone to believe.

“And before you tell me I don’t need to spend my miles on you, remember they say to save them for the people you love. It seems to me this is exactly what they’re for.”

“I don’t know what I’d do without you.” The knot in my throat is manageable enough now that I can speak around it.