Page 45 of For the Record
I looked over at Adam. Kind, patient, yet broody Adam, who had never once lied to me. Never tricked me or played me. Never said a word that hurt me. If there was someone I could trust with this information, it would be him.
My arms stretched to set my barely touched ice cream on my coffee table as I walked to my now office. Instantly reaching what I was searching for, I grabbed a bag and walked back to the living room where Adam looked at me, puzzled.
“This is why.” I dropped the bag in his lap and took a seat next to him, our legs brushing against one another.
Adam’s brows scrunched, the lines in his forehead appearing as his lips twisted. He turned the bag full of broken vinyl back and forth, eyeing it curiously.
“It’s David Bowie’s Prettiest Star album. Pretty rare and an absolute beauty.” I sighed at the memory of when I opened it. “Dad got it for me when I was in high school, paid a fortune for it at Sip ’n’ Spin. The original owner said he actually had two copies. He gave it to me for Christmas, and I cried for probably a week.”
I wanted to laugh when I thought back on how I wore the thing out each day.
“It’s not like David Bowie was my favorite artist at the time, it just…it was the principal, you know? That even though he could barely pay the bills, he set aside that money so he could buy that, knowing how important it was to me.”
Adam eyed the smashed remnants of the record and twisted the bag to face me. “How did it break?”
“Mom was able to handle the diagnosis at first, she stayed with him while she worked and they got enough disability money from him to make ends meet. But as time moved on, Dad got worse. Paying the same bill twice, ordering things he didn’t need but thought he did, falling for random scams. One time he even was fully convinced someone was trying to break in at night and bought a crazy expensive alarm system. Mom got sick of it and eventually gave up. She left just like my sister did. She ran off to California, and Dad became solely my responsibility. She served him papers, and I was forced to witness.”
“The day she actually left, we got into a big fight. I told her she was incredibly selfish.” I scoffed a laugh. “I think I actually used every cuss word out there. She knew I was right. Knew it was wrong to leave a twenty-year-old in charge of her early onset dementia father, but she couldn’t face the truth. She got so mad at me she reached for the first thing she could find.” I reached over to tap on the broken record pieces. “And shattered it against the wall. Leaving in dramatic style, as always.”
Probably where I got my sense of drama from. She was also probably the reason I stored up treasures and liked to shop anytime I felt a pinch of stress. But if those were the only traits I’d gotten from the evil wench, then I would say I made it out okay.
Adam nodded, his fingers twisting the edges of the Ziploc bag. “So you figured that, by working there, searching all the new inventory, you could…”
“Find the other copy of it. Yeah.” I let out a humorless laugh. “Now that I say it out loud, that’s ridiculous. After so long, I kind of gave up. I have been through all of the inventory probably five times, and there’s no hint of it being there. I fell in love with working there and then…just left that dream to die. Gosh, it really is stupid.”
But at the time, it felt right. It felt like the only option for me, considering there was no way I could finish college. And if I was going to work a cashier job, it might as well be somewhere where I could possibly find the twin of my most valued possession.
“It’s not.” He shook his head. “Not even a little bit. It shows how much you care for the people around you. There is nothing ridiculous or stupid about that.”
A tear dropped to my cheek, and I immediately wiped it away. I hadn’t even realized I was beginning to tear up. If it was a valuable record, I would have let it go, but it was more so what it meant. My dad worked hard every day so I could have a happy and healthy life. Now it was my turn to do the same for him.
I shrugged, avoiding his gaze. “Doesn’t matter anyway. He’s going to sell, and I’ll have to go work an office job. Or maybe I could go work with you?”
My imagination ran to the thought of following Adam like a lost puppy, doing whatever lifesaving things he did. He’d get so annoyed with me. The smallest smile lifted at my lips.
Adam let out a laugh. A real barking laugh that bounced off my apartment walls and left him with this giant smile that I wanted to frame and put on my nightstand. He needed to do that more. I wanted to make him do it more.
“Yeah. Stick you in my pocket all day.”
I leaned my head against his shoulder, and he rested a friendly arm around my waist. “You’d always have music playing and snacks to eat.”
“Sounds better than my normal days.”
My laugh turned into a sigh. “Adam, seriously, what am I gonna do?”
“You’re not going to worry about it. You’re going to…have faith.”
Faith was one of those things I’d never been able to fully understand. Faith meant giving up control, and that wasn’t a luxury I could afford.
“How is a girl supposed to have faith when everything around her is falling?”
The only steady thing in my life was sitting next to me, rubbing slow, gentle circles on my hip. And even he would have to go one day. He’d eventually find a girl to wife up. One who didn’t like the whole girl best friend thing. I couldn’t even blame her. And I would be entirely alone. Again.
His throat rumbled. “That’s why it’s called faith. It’s…peace that makes no sense. Fly-fight-win.”
“What does that mean?” I tilted my head up at him, leaving our faces only inches apart. Instincts had my eyes dropping to his lips, the full, very soft lips that I remembered vivid details about and may or may not have had some lucid dreams of.
If he noticed me checking him out, he didn’t say anything. “It’s pretty much exactly what it sounds like. Adapt and overcome, and before you know it, everything just becomes…easier.”