Page 73 of Going for Two

“Can you send me our father’s address?” Silence met me on the other side. For a moment, I thought the call might have dropped.

Finally, she replied, “Are you sure?”

“I have something I need to do,” I told her.

Olivia sighed. “If you’re sure.”

“I am,” I told her. After thinking about it nonstop, I realized that if I wanted to try to move forward with Nolan—if that was still even a possibility—I needed to speak with him. I needed to see him. I hoped that once I finally told him how badly he hurt me, the scars on my heart would start to heal.

The notification for my text messages sounded. “Thank you,” I told her.

“Lottie?”

“Yeah?”

There was a long pause on the other end of the line. “I’ve just been thinking. Dad didn’t make you unlovable and Nolan proves that. Just remember that for me, okay?”

I stayed silent as I mulled over her words. Part of me wondered if she was right. Because I was starting to believe it.

“Talk to you soon?” I could hear everything she wasn’t saying in that sentence.

“I’ll call you later.”

Once I hung the phone up, I tapped into my text messages and stared at the address that was on my screen. Now I knew where he lived. I’d taken the first step and I needed to see this through.

It was comical that all these years he only lived on the other side of my town. I could have run into him a hundred times, but I’d only ever managed to once. The odds had always been stacked against me, but somehow, I’d managed to beat them all for quite some time.

Before I could talk myself out of it, I pulled on all my layers to fight off the cold. The snow had finally let up this week. As I drove across town, my fingers gripped the steering wheel tightly, the color slowly leeching out of them. I had to count my breathing as I inched closer to the address plugged into my GPS system because I was afraid that the second I stopped focusing on it, I would hyperventilate and crash before I even got there.

The building I pulled up to was run-down, but there were signs of warmth within it. Some of the balconies were still decorated with Christmas lights. Front doors had welcome signs and nice entry mats. I spotted the number of the apartment I was looking for and all that work I’d done to count my breathing slipped away from me as the air in my lungs caught in my throat.

What will I say?

Why did I do this?

Do I want to do this?

A million questions raced through my head as I tried to regain the courage that had gotten me here in the first place. Once my mind was quiet, only one thought remained.

I wish I could tell Nolan I was doing this.

I hated that I couldn’t pick up the phone and text him about this because he was right. I needed to do this for myself just like he needed to figure out what he wanted for himself. Maybe then—and only then—would either of us be whole enough for the other, if there was anything left between us when that happened.

The apartment didn’t have a buzzer like mine, only an old-school knocker on the front of it. I reached out, my hand shaking, to hit the knocker against the door. There was a scuffle on the other side, as someone hurried to answer.

For just a moment before the door opened, everything froze in time. I remembered the last time I saw my father at Olivia’sgraduation. How he’d been checking his phone the entire time for updates on his favorite NFL team as the new draftees checked into the team. When he read about his favorite player being cut, he grew so angry that he had to leave the ceremony before Olivia even walked the stage. I didn’t even bother asking him where he was going because I knew he’d end up at a bar somewhere in the city, drinking his sorrows away. My mother had sat next to me, her back stiff as she weathered the curious glances of the parents around us. They had just finalized their divorce and that outing was the first time they’d seen each other since the proceedings.

The door opened and there in front of me stood a man I barely recognized, the same man from the grocery store. It had been almost a decade since I’d last seen him, but he looked like he had aged a lifetime. His hair was a shock of white and there were deep lines around his lips from smoking.

We both stared for a few moments. Both of us realizing that we were standing in front of each other.

My father was the first to speak. “Charlotte?”

I flinched when I heard my full name. I felt like I was ten years old again, being chastised for having not thought to make dinner while he had stayed later than he was supposed to at work when it was my mother’s night to work late.

When I didn’t say anything right away, he spoke again, “Is it really you?”

“Can I come in?” I asked him.