Endless Bonds

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Running away from your problems is the easiest solution. Facing your problems takes a person filled with courage, strength and determination.

My coping mechanism for anything, if I'm being honest, has been running. Allowing my feet and thoughts to take me as far away from the problem as possible, until I land in safe waters. Or until I'm drowning completely and there's no way out of my predicament.

My ex-step father hitting me until my body and mind felt broken. My fall-out with Rose. My years of repressed feelings for Trenton Reynolds. My ex-fiancé acting as a safety net against my own emotions and life dealings. And every other person in between.

Including Quentin's death and missing his funeral.

All I've done is run.

These are all problems and situations that could have been avoided or dealt with smoothly had I just spoken up instead of keeping my words trapped in my throat, my heart, and my mind. Thinking that I'm sparing other people's feelings and protecting my own self in my own foolish way has done me no good.

So day by day, I'm doing my best to be the person who faces everything unflinchingly, who believes in themselves without a doubt and who knows that not all good things must come to an end for them – because sometimes life does work in our favor.

If you harbor happy thoughts, life will always work in your favor.

At twenty, journaling – self-reflection – and making peace with my wrongdoings has slowly made me shed away such a way of living.

After coming back home from Paris with my mom, I felt at ease in a way I never had in my life. I regretted not making peace with myself and those in my surroundings before I drowned under water. I realize, moving forward, this will always be the norm. I never want to feel the way I did when I kept a lid on every dilemma, as if I held my very own Pandora's box.

Facing every day freely and never fighting the tide is the only way to live life with no regrets in my new book.

It's a Sunday afternoon and my mom and I are in the kitchen, preparing potatoes and crepes Suzette. Well, she's preparing and I'm just making mimosas, because who doesn't love a boozy brunch? Mom hums sweetly to a French love song running in the background, the kitchen filling with gentleness and sunlight.

The doorbell rings and my mom cocks a questioning brow at me. "Is Trent coming over for brunch?"

"No. He's busy with Darrell today."

She tells me to go check who's on the other side. I pad down the hallway and open the door without a glimpse in the peephole, because maybe it is Trent coming over to unceremoniously surprise me.

It's not. I'm so wrong.

Standing on our humble porch, with his posture rigid, and a bouquet of blue hydrangeas in his hands is Demetrius Anderson – my father.

My eyes widen and his Adam's apple bobs uncomfortably. It's been seven years since I last saw him, but the words leaving my mouth are fresh, like I've simply mumbled them yesterday, "Hi, Papa..."

Two words. They melt him. Before me, I see the proud man who raised me crumble a little bit, his stoic expression wavering. His smile turns watery. "Hi, little love."

I struggle to keep my own face in place. Little love. He used to call me that all the time because I was a tiny kid. He'd tease me for hiding in small spaces and making fortresses like they were my very own castle. He'd laugh to my mom that he'd lost me in some corner of the house because I was so little. His little love.

It's time to make peace with him.

At forty-three, my dad's coal hair is peppered salt and grey at his temples. He's still staggeringly tall, something I didn't inherit. But his blue eyes, I did. Gazing at him, all I see is me, a part of him. His skin is suntanned and he's got crows feet, hinting that he's been travelling around the world, working and vacationing for too many years. Never stopping. Fighting the tide. Running and running and running.

Something I inherited from both parents.

But I want to be the one to break the cycle.

He's dressed impeccably in chinos and a white polo shirt that hugs him, a complete one-eighty from his usual corporate three piece suits. Demetrius Anderson is always under the spotlight, always featured on a spread like the rest of the Anderson brothers conducting themselves in the business world, so I'm not surprised to see he's kept himself in top shape. On the outside, he's bursting with health and vitality...But on the inside? It's anyone guess how dark it is without a shining light guiding him home.

His eyes journey over me the same way I did to him, an aged, sad smirk on his lips. I can tell there's so much he wants to say, but he doesn't know where to begin. Maybe he's speechless because he didn't think anyone would answer the door – the same door he walked out on when my mom and him had a fight. After she chose my ex-step-father.

I should be bitter that my dad never stayed in touch with me, except for sending monthly checks that let me know he was, in fact, still alive. He missed high school dances and graduation. He missed a lot.

His face says he knows this all too well.

And I know, for another fact, that my mom isn't completely blameless in this situation. I must have been too young to understand what went wrong between them, what kind of ultimatum had lingered in the air, and what they felt towards each other.

It doesn't change what happened, but maybe now things can be different if we just make peace and move on.

"Would you like to come inside?" I ask him tentatively when I realize he's standing there nervously, not sure how to proceed.

"I would like that more than anything," he rasps. "If I am welcome, that is."

"He doesn't live here anymore," I whisper to him, referring to my ex-step piece of shit.

A grim expression crosses his face. "I know."

So I extend my hand for him. He looks moved by the gesture and he grasps it with his own callused one. My thumb grazes his skin, remembering it like an old photograph that's worn and curved at the edges, relishing the roughness against the softness of my own.

I drag him inside with glee. I don't care that my mom isn't ready. It's time for her to face her demons, her past, and settle this unease once and for all.

Demetrius's eyes are everywhere as they run over the hallway walls and photographs, his mind registering the things that haven't changed and also soaking in the new life we've breathed into our home. When we enter the kitchen, I drop his hand and move towards my mother who's back is to us as she sings under her breath, making brunch.

But not before I hear him suck in a deep breath.

"Mom," I say. "I'm going to set the table for one more."

"We always have room," she murmurs, before turning around and realizing who's here because it certainly isn't Trent. She gasps theatrically, like she's seen a ghost, and drops her spatula with a cluttering sound.

"Celeste," my dad whispers in the quiet kitchen, tugging at the collar of his shirt. Clutching the flowers a little too tight.

"Dem." My mom recovers quickly, but she's no longer wearing an impassive mask. After her stay at the hospital, she's been more naked with her emotions. "I...What a surprise. What are you doing here?"

"I came to see my daughter." He levels me with a weak smile before his gaze is back on her. Warm and sad but pulsing with aliveness. "And I came to see you, Sonechko."

Sun. His sun.

My mom's defenses break one by one at the endearment. I've heard it echoing oftentimes growing up – he's only ever called her that. I step to the side and let them have their moment. This is, after all, years in the making.

My mom's eyes flutter close and she takes a much needed inhale. "Why now, Dem? Where have you been this whole time?"

"Europe. Asia. The Caribbean. Everywhere but here." His hand scrapes over his stubble and the sound mixes with the sizzling of my mom's cooking. "I would have come sooner, if I knew."

"What stopped you from coming back?"

"The thought that maybe you didn't want me here." He clears his throat, his gaze skyward. "That this is the life you chose and I should just let you live it. Without me."

"And yet...You came back."

My mom is forty one. She's aged in that classic French way, owning every crinkle at the corner of her eyes. But it doesn't matter because my father is looking at her like she's still the most beautiful thing he's seen.

Demetrius lets out a harsh exhale. Gently he places my mom's favorite flowers on the kitchen table. He doesn't advance towards us, looming closest to the threshold because that's where he thinks he belongs. That's where he's been living his life – on the outskirts – while we've been cozy in the walls of our space. "Dean called me when you were in the hospital. I...I thought you were dead. I thought time finally caught up to me and I lost once again. Like I did seven years ago. I couldn't live with myself knowing that I was breathing and you...You were not."

Oh, my God.

I shift, feeling goosebumps rise on my skin. The atmosphere in the room is tight, uncomfortable.

"Dem." My mom's expression shatters and tears well in her eyes. She takes a firm step towards him, before forcefully rooting herself to the same spot. "I'm okay. It was just a little scare."

My dad too takes a step her way. There's still miles separating them. "Dean and Danilo assured me you were fine. But I wasn't. I had to come see with my own eyes. Just one more time that you were breathing, Celeste."

My mom splutters a laugh, trying to lighten the mood but it's futile. The air is suffused with tension and years of heartbreak. "Dem, I'm not seventeen. This wasn't like that time where I nearly–"

"–No. This was worse." His voice is ragged, like it's ripped apart from the soul he keeps hidden behind his expensive act – the rich businessman, the so-called frivolous playboy vacationing every inch the world has to offer him. My heart pounds and something I don't understand passes between my parents. "Because we aren't children anymore."

"What do you want now?" My mom pleads, fingers combing through her blond hair, as if that'll ease her feelings. "You said it yourself; we aren't children anymore."

My dad takes another step forward. "Celeste," he begins softly. "You should know that I left because I thought that's what you wanted. I lived my life and stayed away – from both of you – because I thought you were happy. You chose him. But if I knew years ago that he'd laid hands on my daughter, understand – your choice or not – I would have ended him. If I had it my way, he wouldn't be in jail right now. He'd be six feet beneath the ground."

My mom and I look at him speechlessly.

"I found out years too late what he did to Cher, because of Dean and Danilo, who brought up my daughter's abuse like it was a casual dinner conversation. I dropped everything to be here," he says. "Know that I'm furious. Understand that I hurt here–" he thumps his chest, over his heart, lightly with a fist. "–because he put his hands on our daughter. And no one thought it reasonable to tell me."

"Because we didn't think you'd care," I whisper to my dad. "It's been years since we heard from you papa."

His own brothers could barely get a hang of their little brother. He never showed at any annual holiday function. Always conducting business overseas. But now I understood it was to avoid my mom. To let us live 'happy' and without him.

The logic in there is all twisted, even though it stems from what he thought was the right thing.

Misery bleeds into his face and combined with the tears in his eyes? The sight rips at me. "I have always loved you, little love. I left and stopped showing it, and that's my biggest mistake. I'm sorry I wasn't what you needed me to be. I would have broken down every door to get to you if I knew you were in harm's way. Nobody hurts my daughter."

"You hurt me, papa," I say, eyes fixed on my feet. "By never coming back. By letting your problems with maman get in the way of you and I."

"You asked me why I'm here. I'm here because I had to see with my own eyes that my daughter and–" He shoots a look of pure longing at my mother, "–my once wife are okay, breathing. I'm here because I want to apologize. I want forgiveness and I want the chance to be in your lives. If you'll have me."

I look over at my mom. It's written all over her. The way her shoulders sag. But the way she's clutching the material of her blue sundress is like it'll give her power to brave through this encounter. She's making peace. And it's okay.

"There is always room for you, papa."

The sunlight filtering through the kitchen blinds casts the room in an almost ethereal like shine. Three severed souls finding each other in a divine being's favored time. Three once connected souls standing in their once happy home, enclosed with a maelstrom of emotions. No longer running away. No longer fighting the tide. Shedding an old way of living for this new one.

"I never chose him, Dem." My mom takes a step his way until the miles between them disappear. "And I didn't live these last seven years entirely happy."

My dad's chest bows with another stuttering inhale and he seems to understand what she should have said in more words but is saying in so few. "Me neither, Sonechko."

We eat brunch together in companionable silence that's broken up with soft questions that slowly bring us back to safe waters.

Rome wasn't built in a day.

Neither would be our new relationship.

But this is what moving forward looks like.

* * *

Trent told me he promised Quentin we would live life to the fullest. All remaining seven of us. So that's this year's motto. And every year's motto moving forward.

Which means we don't have time to entertain bad vibes if we want to fulfill Quent's request.

That's why when I bump into Lance Campa on campus, I don't even bothering yelling bloody murder. He's not worth it. He looks sick and extremely guilt ridden. Trent told me in detail what he did – switching vials during the drug test – and while it was wrong, I don't care. Lance deserved to get kicked off the team. Karma is a bitch and she took a bite out of him. Lance Campa made his bed and now he has to lay down in it.

A few days later, my friends and I go by the lake where Quentin's accident happened. Not to cry but to celebrate his life. Because no matter how short it was, we knew it was well-lived. Quentin grew up surrounded by people he loved and people who loved him. People who cherished him and who he cherished until the very end.

It's not about how many years you live. It's about the life in your years.

And Quentin lived every minute of his life the way he wanted – happy, carefree, and a little reckless.

He died doing what he did best – living his life.

So we sat at night in a circle, surrounded by bonfire, good conversation and the best company we could find. Jared brought out his Nikon and Oliver his guitar. Trent attempted to teach Tara how to throw a football, and Teagan and I remained huddled in a blanket, warming marshmallow sticks.

This is what growth looks like.

* * *

It's Quentin's birthday.

Natalie flew in for the weekend to spend time with us and celebrate what would have been his 23rd year on this earth.

She's in her old bedroom, getting ready in the en-suite bathroom. Her door is ajar so I know it's safe to enter. "Hey."

"Hey," she mumbles back, applying what looks to be mascara. Unfortunately, I know this because Tara gave me a crash course on makeup when I was a teen for the sole purpose of torturing me.

I cross my arms over my chest and lean against her doorframe. I can't remember the last time we did this, me entering her domain and watching her do mundane shit because I was bored. "Why are you wearing six-inch heels? It's just breakfast."

"It's just breakfast," she mocks back, chuckling. "Leave my Louboutin heels alone."

"Okaaaay, Natty," I shoot back and she glares at me murderously, before diving for lip gloss. "Remind me again why you don't want to hitch a ride with me and Cher?"

The plan is to have breakfast at Marnie's Shack, one of Quentin's favorite places to brunch after a night of drinking. Then we're going to head over to the cemetery and pay our respects.

She shrugs. "Just want to give you lovebirds some privacy."

Nat always tenses up when she's lying, like right now. I don't call her out on her bullshit.

"So who's picking you up?"

It takes her ten seconds to answer. She takes her time brushing her pin-straight brown hair, as if contemplating. "Jared."

"What?" I do a double take. "Are you... serious? Why not with Teagan and Tara?"

"Hmm. Tara is always in a mood on Quentin's birthday. Oli is by his grandparents' and our house is the complete opposite direction. Teagan is at Elsie's which is practically walking distance to Marnie's Shack. So Jared."

I don't ask too many questions. I'm guessing this is them acting like grown ups and putting their differences aside. Maybe this is a good thing. There hasn't been bad blood between them in awhile and this is a huge step in fixing what went wrong between them. Friends, right?

"So Jared," I confirm.

Nat doesn't meet my gaze.

* * *