“She stayed in a toxic relationship—”
"Don't you dare compare what your mom had with him to our relationship."
I laughed but it was hollow. "I can't make a comparison but you can? Like father, like daughter, right?"
"Peaches, baby, I should have never said it. I meant what I said in the voice mail—"
"It's fine. I'm fine. It doesn't matter what you said in the voice mail, I didn’t listen to it.”
He grumbled.
I didn’t wait to hear what he had to say. “It’s true, anyway. A part of him is in me. He raised me. So, maybe I'm twisted from that. Maybe seeing them together as the only real relationship I knew for so long, maybe I justified what we had as healthy. But it's not. I have to take what I learned from them and know when something is toxic. We're toxic and unhealthy, Jax. And I have to walk away from something like that even if my mother couldn’t."
He stayed silent for so long, I figured he'd come to terms with what I'd said. His fight to keep us together finally died, and something in me that felt a lot like hope and happiness died along with it.
"Can you just stop going to Margie's too? We don't need to be making this any more complicated than it is, and the kids need people who will stick around."
He grunted and then growled, "They need us. So, I don't plan to go anywhere, Whitfield. Mark my words, I'll always be there."
I knew he wasn't talking about the kids anymore. "Jax, please just let us go."
"No,” he practically yelled. “If what we have is unhealthy, I don't want to be healthy. I'll take the fucking heart attack." His voice cracked. "Inevitable, Peaches. We’re inevitable. Watch the news tomorrow."
Then, he hung up.
That very next day, I stared at the TV in shock. Katie and Rome came over to stare at it in shock with me.
“He did the impossible,” I whispered to them.
Neither of them responded. We just listened to the news anchor go over the millions he must have lost in his latest deal to close down Whitfield Candy Company. The numbers were staggering, yet the feeling of my father stripped of all his power was even more overwhelming.
To me, he’d done what I thought no man could do.
The man on the TV said it had obviously taken Jax years to gain the trust of my father and take over the majority of the stock. They were baffled that someone who'd never faltered and had Stonewood as his name, could’ve made so many mistakes so quickly after taking over that he was forced to close up shop for good.
The hit to his name and bank account would be monumental, they said. Speculation swirled on other channels too. They said he’d slotted everything into place for that app launch, that money was flooding in from it. No one really believed he’d lost his investing touch after all the right moves he’d made with that, and so this was a calculated plan to purposefully take a loss and shut down the company. They speculated he’d done everything for me.
For once, I believed the media.
“I think you should call him,” Katie blurted.
I put my head in my hands, “To say what?”
“Everything you ever wanted to say,” Rome answered.
“This doesn’t erase how crazy we are together, you guys.”
“Better to be crazy together, than nothing at all apart,” Rome said matter-of-factly as he got up. “Kate-Bait, talk some sense into your friend.”
Then he walked out of my apartment.
I blew a raspberry and looked at Katie. “I’m getting through this the best way I know how. Talking to him won’t help.”
She patted my thigh. “It’s not the best way. It’s your safe way. Time to buck up, bitch, and fight for that creep of yours.”
“Katie, I can’t call him.”
“Then, he’ll find you. He always does.”