Taking Flight (32 page)

David shook his head at me, and I dropped it, thankful. “I’m glad you took the time to write your letter to your dad.”

I perked up, eager to have this conversation. I’d been waiting for it for a while now. “Yeah, I did exactly what you said. And I go to church every weekend,
and
do farm work so often that I have an awesome body now because, like, exercise.” I paused. “Oh, and I haven’t been sneaking drugs or alcohol into your house, so there’s that. I’ve kind of been awesome.”

“And if I give my okay for Cammie to go up to New York with you, you don’t think that’ll change?”

I hesitated. “With all due respect… college is college. Cammie won’t be shielded from that stuff no matter where she goes. I’m not gonna hand her a joint and a handle of vodka, if that’s what you’re asking, but she’ll be around people who can get ahold of those things. That’s kind of just what it’s like to be a college kid. Her being in New York will just mean that if she screws up I’ll be the one bailing her out instead of you. And I’ll do that.” I sighed, then forced a laugh. “I don’t know what I have to do to convince you I’d do anything for her.”

“Dad?”

David and I both looked to the doorway, where Cammie stood, looking uncertain.

“I forgot a change of clothes,” she elaborated. “You can trust Lauren. You know that, right?
I
trust her.”

David pressed his lips together tightly, and, after a moment, nodded his head. “I think she could leave here right now and be okay, actually.” He turned to me with a sigh, and I raised both eyebrows in surprise. That meant a lot, coming from him. “I just… only have one daughter.”

“Well…” I said, drawing the word out. “You
could
have two. Maybe. Eventually. Or now, if you wanted. Like an honorary daughter.”

He laughed and stood to leave, patting me on the back. “Alright. Just give me some time to adjust to that idea.”

“We’ll work on it!” I called after him, and heard him laugh as he descended the stairs.

Cammie and I went to bed shortly after that, and with over five and a half months of my time in Collinsville gone and the memory of David and me at the tennis courts together playing back every time I closed my eyes, I knew I’d meant it. Even if things somehow changed between Cammie and me down the road, David would always feel like a second father.

And maybe, one day, like a first father.

Epilogue

I won’t go into detail about the rest of my time in Collinsville up until graduation, because honestly, not much happened, and not much changed. There was no fallout from Wendy, no nuclear blowup from her, and no screaming or crying. That’d come later, eventually, but it didn’t before graduation, because Cammie didn’t come out to her, and I didn’t ask her to.

Cammie never did get a date to Prom. Not officially, anyway. Neither did I. That was okay with Fiona and Nate. Nate didn’t care much anyway, and Fiona, as the weeks went by, seemed to finally begin to get suspicious of the way Cammie and I sat just a little too close to each other at lunchtime.

I didn’t talk to Maddie much anymore, which was okay with me, even though I knew she’d have made a cool friend. Not everything had an easy fix. I’d screwed up, I’d apologized, and now we weren’t really anything, despite Nate continuing to tease me about there still being “sexual tension.” I think what he saw was honestly just regular tension; I don’t know if anyone ever really moves past being used for sex, even if things never actually went that far.

Wendy and Cammie took me dress shopping with them two weeks before Prom. Wendy, obviously, believed Cammie didn’t have a date, but that was okay, because
Wendy
was okay, and that was a nice first step. If she could accept that her daughter was going dateless to Prom, and could accept that her daughter was considering moving to New York for art college, then maybe soon she’d be able to accept if Cammie actually chose New York, and that she’d be moving in with her girlfriend.

Well, maybe not soon. But eventually. I wasn’t going to push. Maybe Cammie’d tell her right after graduation and I’d have to hide behind David in the days that’d follow, or maybe it’d take a couple of years. Either was okay, because there was a good chance I’d never hear from my dad again, so I wanted Cammie to not have to say the same about her mother.
Or
her brother, who I could only hope would warm back up to me eventually. As for the rest of the kids in Collinsville, like Peter and Tiffany, they’d never know, and that was perfectly fine with me.

All in all, my assessment of my time in Collinsville was this: I’d shown up in Collinsville, according to David, for the following reasons: substance abuse, lack of guidance, intimacy issues, depression due to the loss of a loved one, and a lack of school attendance. So: substance abuse? Nonexistent. I wasn’t naïve enough to think I wasn’t going to have some fun in New York, but I had confidence I’d do a better job of respecting my own limits. No more blackouts. No more waking up in bed with anyone other than Cammie.

Lack of guidance? Well, now there was David for that. And Cammie, to an extent, given that she was still more responsible than I’d ever be.

Intimacy issues? Definitely not, thanks to Cammie. My chest consistently warmed over at the sight of her, and if that wasn’t the most embarrassingly mushy feeling I’d ever had, then I wasn’t sure what other feeling could’ve even come close.

Depression? I’d always be sad about my mom, but I don’t think I’d ever been depressed in the first place. When I’d come to live with the Marshalls, only three months had passed since her death. They say time can heal anything. I wasn’t sure who ‘they’ were, but they seemed to know what they were talking about, because when I did think about her now, it never hurt quite as much as it used to.

And lack of school attendance? The diploma I’d earn in May said otherwise.

So, my final assessment: I was unabashedly, irrevocably, and
undoubtedly
…. zombified.

But that was okay. Because when Fiona snuck me and Cammie out of Prom on my birthday and into a deserted section of the parking lot for a private dance to a slow song blasted from her smart phone, and Cammie, having not yet made her final decision about New York, leaned in close, kissed me, and then made that decision clear with a whispered, “I’d go anywhere with you, you know,” zombification felt totally and completely worth it.

About the Author

Siera Maley was born and raised in the Southern Bible Belt. After coming out as a lesbian as a teen, she relocated to a more suburban area and is now living with her girlfriend and very adorable dogs. Her two previous novels,
Time It Right
and
Dating Sarah Cooper
are available on Amazon. You can visit her online at
www.sieramaley.weebly.com
or follow her at
twitter.com/SieraMaley
.