One & Only (Canton) (27 page)

“Daddy,” I whispered, and my voice broke on the last syllable. “Please.”

He turned to me, and I saw from the pain that creased his features how much it cost him to do it. “Go home now, Tess,” he said firmly. “I mean it.”

I turned and ran from the room.

I could hardly see where I was going, but I had almost reached the exit when the automatic doors parted and Dylan and Hannah walked in. Her silky blonde hair was straight and shiny. She had a colorful scarf wrapped around her neck, and the flaps of her expensive white wool coat streamed out like the wings of an angel. They weren’t holding hands or cuddling, but all of Dylan’s attention was on her. I stopped short.

So did Hannah. “What is
she
doing here?” she spat at me. They were the same words our father had used. They were right. What
was
I doing here? Why had I come?

Dylan turned to Hannah. “Go check on your dad. I’ll be right there.”

She swept by me, regal and infuriated, and up to the front desk.

Dylan’s hand was on my elbow. “Come with me.” He led me through the big doors and out to the front receiving area of the hospital, where there was a wide, awning-covered space lined with potted plants and park benches. There he dropped my arm and took two steps back.

I wrapped my arms around myself for warmth, for comfort, for protection, but nothing could guard me from the expression on his face. He was bewildered, angry, lost.

“What the hell, Tess? Have you gone crazy?”

I said nothing.

“I told you to stay home. I was taking a friend to the hospital. That’s all. We weren’t running off together. We weren’t having some hot hookup.” I’d never heard him mad at me. Even in that last email he’d sent, when I’d abandoned him after Cornell. Even when he told me how I’d broken his heart. Even when I’d run from him at the frat party.

“Well?” he prompted.

I made no statement of defense.

“You’d better tell me what you’re thinking right now. You’re really scaring me.”

There was nothing I could say. The lie he believed—that I’d come because I thought he’d reunite with Hannah if I wasn’t there to stop it—was awful. The truth was impossible. There was nothing in between. I hadn’t had a sudden hankering to become a candy striper. I didn’t have a neighbor who’d slipped in the bath and needed transport to the ER.

He was shaking his head in disbelief. “What’s going on, Tess?”

I found my tongue at last. “Did you tell Hannah we saw her father tonight?”

He blinked at me. “No—it didn’t seem…” He trailed off, his expression growing even more confused.

I turned and walked away from the doors, away from the light of the loading dock. Down the path everything was dark and quiet. Safe. There was another bench there, far from the entrance. A stone urn filled with cigarette butts sat at the base. This must be where employees went to smoke.

Dylan caught up with me. I felt his hand on my arm. I looked up into blue eyes burning with questions. He was wearing his glasses. He was mine.

I didn’t take time to think. I didn’t take time to breathe. I spoke before I could stop myself. “Steven Swift is my father.”

I had never spoken those words aloud before. I expected a crack of thunder, a whiff of brimstone, but the Earth remained steady beneath my feet. My heart didn’t stop beating. Then I caught sight of Dylan’s face. He looked so surprised I was afraid his glasses might fall right off his nose.

“He’s my father,” I repeated. “Hannah is my sister. She doesn’t know it, but she is.”

A strangled sound came from Dylan then. I plowed forward anyway.

“That’s why he was at our apartment tonight. To see my mom.”

“Your mom…and Mr. Swift—”

But I wasn’t holding a press conference. I wasn’t here to answer questions. “No one knows about me. No one
can
know.”

Except I’d just told Dylan. I’d just broken every rule there was.

He stared at me for a minute, silent with shock. “You…you knew I was dating your sister?”

I jerked my head up and down in some semblance of a nod.

“Is that—that’s not why you—”

“No!” I cried. “Of course not.” I wanted to say the mantra I’d repeated to myself during that awful week of waiting.
We were together first. We were together first.
But it suddenly sounded hollow in my ears. I stepped forward and placed a hand on his jacketed chest. “Dylan, I love you.”

He reared back as if struck. “You
lied
to me.”

My hand dropped uselessly to my side.

“You’ve been lying this whole time. Every time I talked about Hannah, every time I talked about her family…” A shudder seemed to pass through him. “You lied to me like it was nothing.”

I was cold and hot all at once. A giant lump of hot lead seemed to have taken up residence in my lungs, scalding my breath, scorching my throat, bleeding from my eyes. “I
had
to.”

“I have never lied to you,” he replied. “Never.”

“You don’t understand—”

“You never gave me the chance to!” His eyes were like ice, so frigid and distant I could have been looking at a glacier. “You just let me believe… Fuck, Tess. You’re
sisters
. That’s—”

“What?” I croaked. “
Against the rules?
”

“Yeah, usually,” he replied, as if that should be obvious. “I have no idea what to think. No one has ever lied to me like this. I don’t know what to believe.”

“I just told you everything.”

“Have you? You’ve just been lying about who you are—”

“No!” I said, my heart shattering. “You have always known who I am.” His lab partner, his first lover, the girl he thought of for two years… I wasn’t just Steven Swift’s dirty little secret. I wasn’t just the product of my parents’ long lies.

But all of that was gone now. I could see it on his face.

He cast a long glance back at the hospital doors. “I think you should go home now. Mr.—” He stumbled for a second, as if deciding whether or not to call him my father. “Mr. Swift’s injuries aren’t that bad. Hannah says they told her on the phone that they’ll release him in the morning.”

“Dylan—”

“You should let your mother know, too, I guess,” he went on. “I can’t believe I’m saying that. I—I should probably get back to Hannah.”

“Please,” I said. “You can’t tell her. You can’t tell anyone.”

He glared at me, so long and so hard I thought I’d melt under the intensity of his gaze. The glasses were there, but he was no longer mine. “Yes, Tess,” he said at last. “You’ve made a liar out of me, too.”

And that, I realized, was the worst thing of all.

TWENTY-THREE

My father did come home from the hospital the following day, but due to his broken arm, it would be a while before he’d be able to drive himself to our apartment. My mother managed to meet him for lunch but I didn’t see him at all, a fact that I think we were all okay with.

“Is he very mad?” I asked her.

She shrugged.

“Does that mean yes?”

Again, she shrugged. “Your father and I disagree on this matter. He was in the hospital. Of course you wanted to see him.”

Except he hadn’t visited me when I was eight and had my appendix out. To Dad, trips to the hospital were no excuse to break the rules. I didn’t point this out to Mom, though. I was just glad she’d taken my side for once. I’d actually never seen her disagree with him before.

Which made me wonder how angry he’d be about Dylan, once the drugs wore off.

I didn’t see Dylan, either. Classes were over for the semester—we were well into reading period, where we spent our days studying for the upcoming exams. When Sylvia texted, asking if I had shifts this week, I told her to redistribute my hours to some of the other servers. She seemed excited about the idea, and I needed to study. I knew Dylan was deep in his books, too, but still… He didn’t call; he didn’t email.

Though to be fair, I didn’t either. I wasn’t sure what I could say. The few times I’d opened the Compose box on my email, the only thing I could think to type was something I was far too terrified to put into words.

Are we broken up?

I wondered if this was how Dylan had felt, after Cornell, when he’d sent me text after text, email after email, and I’d never responded. Maybe Dylan figured turnabout was fair play. No contact meant it was over. And I was totally capable of getting the message more quickly than he had back then.

Except…that was never the way Dylan had been. I was the one who lied, the one who thought silence was better than speech.

The symposium was held two days after the hospital. When I woke up in the morning, there was a message from Dylan waiting.

Tess,

Sorry I didn’t get back to you yesterday. I’d had a long night. I’ve been over all our notes for the public presentation. I hope you’ve done the same. Unfortunately, my morning’s pretty booked up with study groups, but if you want to rehearse before tonight, I can meet you in Lab C at Bio-E at 2.

Dylan

The lump of lead where my heart once lived clanged, reading his note. I fingered the T around my neck.
Did
I want to meet him? Would we really be rehearsing? Would he be breaking up with me? Could I bear to go into the symposium with this question hanging over my head? Could I even do a presentation at his side if he told me we were through?

Dylan,

I’d like to meet beforehand, but not to rehearse.

Tess

Yeah, no way I could send that. What if he thought I was propositioning him? I pressed Delete and started typing again.

No, I think I’m ready for whatever comes my way tonight.

There. I hit Send. Now, if only it were true.

***

I arrived at the symposium that evening with my mother. I was dressed in a smart gray suit for the presentation, and I’d pulled my hair back into a French twist that I thought made me look older and intellectual and my mom said made me look like I was going for “sexy librarian.” But when I went to pull the pins out, she stopped me.

“Sexy librarian might help with the judges,” she pointed out.

That was my mom. Never let months of hard work and scientific rigor get in the way of good old-fashioned sex appeal.

Dylan was already waiting in the auditorium, in a suit that fit him so well I knew Hannah must have originally picked it out and a tie that brought out the scary gorgeous levels of blue in his eyes. My heart dropped to my stomach as I approached, afraid of what I might see in his expression, but he met me with a smooth, confident smile, then greeted my mother.

“Mrs. McMann,” he said and shook her hand. “I’m so glad you could come out tonight to be with us. My parents would have come if they lived closer.”

“Of course,” she said. “Though I’ll warn you in advance, I can’t promise I’ll comprehend anything you say.”

He laughed. “Just clap when we say, ‘Thank you.’”

She found her seat, and Dylan went back to staring resolutely out at the crowd. There had to be over a hundred people here tonight, plus all the students waiting to give their podium presentations.

I shuffled my notecards and cleared my throat. “All ready?”

“I see your father didn’t bother showing up to see you win tonight.”

I whirled to face him, but he still wasn’t looking at me. “Is that supposed to be some kind of joke?”

He turned to me and beneath the polished exterior, I noticed nervousness behind his eyes. “No, Tess, I promise you I’d never joke about something like that.”

Before I could think of an adequate response, the presentations began. I watched each with careful eyes, comparing their science to the work Dylan and I had done. The style of the presentations ran the gamut from high-school level science fair, complete with amateurish posters, to hipster cutesy cat-gif brigades. Dylan and I had chosen a straightforward, professional-style PowerPoint presentation, and when it was our turn we took to the auditorium stage, notes and pointers in hand.

I began by introducing us and stating the subject and background of our experiment. To go along with this portion of our presentation, we’d compiled an array of short videos and photos about similar algae-related experiments and the potential for implementation in the renewable energy field. Our particular experiment examined the potential for small-scale changes to microstructure fluid flow and its applications for increasing efficiency in algae production for biofuel.

Dylan took over the talk portion and began discussing the parameters of our project, and I stole a glance at the screen behind us. My jaw dropped.

Where we’d arranged for simple, clean-lined graphs to chart our subjects’ progress throughout the experiments, there were now detailed 3-D images like wavy lines of seaweed that snaked their way up and down the number lines in time with Dylan’s words. I turned to him, gobsmacked.

He flashed me a glance and kept talking. Our upgraded presentation continued as he spoke about breakthroughs and setbacks throughout our weeks ofwork and how we’d built upon the study we’d performed back at Cornell.

Once again it was my turn and, swallowing my surprise, I began to tell the assembly about the places where our findings matched and diverged from the expected results. A quick check on the screen showed animated images that matched my explanations. The crowd was riveted—not so much by the super-exciting world of algae growth, but by the TED-level graphics we’d brought along for the ride.

“And that concludes the presentation,” Dylan said at last. “Thank you very much.”

Out in the audience somewhere, my mother heard her cue to clap. But everyone else was clapping, too, and I couldn’t help but smile, if only in relief that it was over.

As we came down the steps from the stage, I shook my head at him. “What the hell was that?”