“I wanted to grow old with her, and I wanted to have kids with her. Lots of kids.” His eyebrows shoot up. “As many as she would give me.” I laugh now. “I wanted to hold her hand. I wanted to listen to her tell me stories or just sit by my side saying nothing. Just knowing she was there made everything okay.”

“So what did you do?” He smirks at me.

“What do you mean what did I do?” I ask him. “She told me that she doesn’t do relationships.”

“And?” he asks again.

“And what, Dad?” I say, getting up now. Walking to the railing, I look down, her smile running through my mind. I turn around to see he hasn’t moved.

“So she said she doesn’t do relationship, and you what …?” he asks me, shaking his head.

“You just left?”

“What else was I supposed to do?” I ask, my voice going louder as frustration sets in.

“Well, for one, you fight for her,” he tells me.

“Dad, she doesn’t want me,” I tell him, the pain hurting even more than when she said it. Having it out there in the universe and telling my father just makes it even more real. When I got home that night, I sat in the dark the whole night. I didn’t know what to do, so I just sat there, hoping she would come to me even though I knew she wouldn’t. I wondered what she was doing or if it even affected her. Fuck, for all I knew, she really didn’t care, and I was just another guy.

“She doesn’t want you,” my father says, almost laughing out loud. “Do you know how many times your mother tells me to get out of the house and never come back?” he says, rolling his eyes. “How many times she told me she hated me? At the beginning and even now, more so now.”

“Dad, it’s not the same thing.” I look up at the sky.

“Do you think she loves you?” he asks me, and I look at him.

“I don’t know,” I tell him, and he pffts out.

“You know,” he says, getting up. “You know in your heart.”

“I thought she did,” I tell him the truth.

“So what are you going to do about it?” he asks me.

“I can’t do anything about it,” I tell him and he laughs.

“You’re just going to let her go?” he asks me. “Just like that? So you don’t really love her.”

“I do,” I tell him, running my hands through my hair. “More than I thought was possible.”

“Then you fight,” he tells me. “You make her see what it is to love. You make her believe in love. You make her know that whatever she says, you just aren’t going to go away.”

“But …” I start to say, and he stops me