The ball, metaphorically speaking, dropped the next week after we'd fallen into a sweet and comfortable routine. 

Kalen would walk me to class if he was nearby at the time, would text me incessantly in between breaks, and would call me every night before bed until Franny had to use her sound machine to block out the sound of my laughter at one in the morning. 

He was never not touching me if we were near one another, and his close possessiveness was highlighted by the fact that I was always tugged tightly into his side the moment Colby was around. 

It was the most I'd smiled in my entire life. 

I should've known it was never meant to last. 

We were lounging in the library, his fingers gently playing with the ends of my hair as I read and then re-read the same sentence three times, far too distracted with his soft touches as he accidentally brushed up against the bare skin of my neck. 

His cologne had turned musky in that late-afternoon way that it tended to do on warmer days, and I'd found myself subconsciously leaning into his side all the same. 

"Are you paying attention, Gracie?"

"Hmm?"

He knew damn well I'd abandoned the notion of finishing my essay three weeks early in favor of leaning into his touch, soaking up any and all attention that he'd give me as the afternoon sunlight filtered through the high windows of the library. 

"Hm?  Well.  If I'm not that distracting yet, I guess I need to step it up."

And then his hands were in my hair up towards the scalp, tugging at the strands as a soft sigh fell off my lips, making it known that I was clearly paying more attention to his ministrations than the actual schoolwork in front of me. 

"Kalen..."

"Hmm?"

His mockingly teasing tone brought a smile to my lips as I rested my head on his shoulder as he angled his chair ever closer to mine, so much so that I was basically in his lap at that point but there was absolutely no part of me that could find a single care to give in that moment. 

Not as his lips trailed a delicate, searing path up my neck and behind my ear.  Not as his wandering fingers of the hand that wasn't currently tugging on my hair reached around my waist and slid up underneath the fabric of my shirt at my side, lightly brushing the skin of my hip in maddening circles until it felt like my lower half was pulsing and throbbing with a need he hadn't tended to since the week before. 

"Maybe I should stop...you do need to study, after all..."

"No—"

He chuckled against my ear and a shiver crawled down my spine at the sound, his hand splayed against my hip squeezing me tightly before he began kneading circles and patterns into my skin that had my brain scrambling for any coherent thought that wasn't tainted by this surging, burning need for him. 

I'd only just angled my head to place my lips against his when my phone started ringing, loudly. 

Shit. 

I jumped to answer it instead of silencing it, not bothering to see who it was that had called me when the voice on the other end sent ice water through my veins, effectively cutting off the warm and fleeting rendezvous in the library. 

"Hey Sweetheart."

"Dad...you—you have phone privileges now?"

Kalen's hand immediately ceased its movements against my skin and he withdrew slowly, keeping his warmth surrounding me but making it clear the atmosphere of the previous moment was well and truly over considering who I was on the phone with. 

"Nah, it would've been weeks before I got those.  No, I'm out now."

"Out?  What do you mean out?"

Something was roiling inside of me, something that was telling me I needed to call Franny's parents immediately and find out what was going on. 

My father had more than two months left in the rehab center, but he had been admitted voluntarily this time.  He could've checked himself out whenever he wanted. 

It seemed like that time was now. 

"I had to get out of that place, it's not like they can really do anything for me anyway.  It was all bullshit anyway, really.  Now I can come visit you and the other kiddos, see how you're all doing with what happened with your mother, make sure you're doing alright."

Kalen was rubbing circles on my back, but the roaring in my ears kept me from hearing my father right. 

He was coming here?  To my safe place?  To where nothing he did could hurt or embarrass me? 

Oh god, he was going to ruin everything, just like he always did. 

"No."

My father's gruff breathing on the other end of the line seemed to stop for a moment before he cleared his throat. 

"No?  What do you mean, no?  Don't you want me to come and visit you?  I know I'm not always that fun to be around, but we can go do something together, you can show me around your school, introduce me to your new friends you've made.  Jared talked with me the other day, says Franny told them you've got yourself a new boyfriend.  I'll need to come and meet him, make sure he's up to my standards for my baby girl."

"No, Dad, you need to stay, you need to check yourself back in.  There's no point in you coming here, not if you didn't finish treatment."

"Aw, come on Gracie, you know those programs are full of shit.  I've gone through plenty of them and I've always gone right back to it, you know?  So I just figure, what the hell, I'll just be...California Sober.  You know, just everything in moderation?  I can make that work."

"Yeah, until you're back in the hospital getting your fucking stomach pumped again and I have to deal with your hospital bills.  How much am I going to have to take out of my scholarship money to pay for this trip you just decided to walk out of?"

"Gracie, I—"

"No.  No I'm not doing this.  You can either walk back in there, or you can stay out and walk right out of my life instead.  It should be easy for you, you watched mom do it."

"Fuck, Gracie.  I can't—I can't go back in there.  Not again."

"Then find somewhere else, Dad.  Find somewhere else, and stay there, or you can do all of this on your own.  No more of me picking up after you, paying for your hospital bills, taking care of everything because you're not responsible enough to do it yourself.  I'm done."

I was up and out of my seat by then, pacing back and forth in the library between the tables, eyes unfocused, barely aware of Kalen's presence behind me like some kind of guard making sure that I was okay, but I wasn't. 

I wasn't okay. 

I hadn't been okay in years, and nothing my father could do short of pulling off a miracle could make that change. 

I thought that this past week with Kalen and school and my internship and Franny all being there for me was what it could be like—was what it would feel like to be happy. 

Maybe I was wrong, though, because one phone call from my father sent me right back there, spiraling into some kind of dark abyss filled with sky high walls that I'd torn down just so he could take a sword to the sensitive parts I'd been trying to keep guarded the whole time, all of it in fucking vain. 

"Gracie.  You're not—you don't...I don't know if I can do that.  I don't know if I'm strong enough to do that.  Not for me."

"Then you don't do it for yourself.  You do it for me."

I hung up the phone in a raw numbness that flowed through my veins, a desperation to escape pouring over my body like molten metal filling me up and turning my bones to iron. 

"Gracie?  Are you okay?"

"Did you hear all of that?"

His eyes flicked down, a sharp nod ruffling his hair atop his head. 

"Then you know.  I'm really not fucking okay, not after that one."

I'd never given my father an ultimatum before—change, or get out of my life. 

Would it even change anything?

After everything, I'd only enabled him to this point, letting him back in after try and try again of rehab, of broken promises, of nothing ever happening the way he always said it would. 

"He always said he'd try to get better, but he never did.  He used my mom leaving as an excuse, and then I had to grow up for the both of us.  It was always on me, but now, after getting out?  I don't have to make sure he eats dinner, to pay the light bill, to make sure he fucking bathes himself when he's in the middle of a particularly bad period.  I feel free for the first time in my life, and I know it probably makes me sound so fucking selfish, but—"

"It doesn't, Gracie, it really doesn't."

He enveloped me in his arms as the tears sprung unbidden from my eyes, but I wanted nothing more than to hide myself back behind those walls, built up sky high, stronger than they were before and reinforced with fucking steel. 

I wanted to hide away and melt into nothingness but I stayed strong and held onto him like my life depended on it. 

 Maybe I could find a way to build a gate for those walls, and give Kalen the key.

***

Author's Note:

What did you all think of this chapter?

What do you think will happen next?

What do you WANT to happen next?

Until next time my lovely readers,
Kristen :)