The Detective and Her Bachelor

Chapter 38

Taste is a funny thing. It can affect your emotions almost as much as your emotions can affect the way things taste. It's this weird relationship of power grab, where one makes the other taste bitter or beautiful. We eat our feelings to shove down the bad things we don't want to face. We eat to celebrate the beautiful things so we can stay in the happiness for a moment longer, and we can go from content to hungry at the drop of a hat when the smell of garlic bread makes us want to shove an entire bowl of pasta in our mouth. 

Your favorite food can taste like magic when you want it, and like sludge when you don't. It feels like a cruel trick to go from loving something to hating something in a matter of moments. That is what my life felt like. A bite of food that could either be beautiful or bitter from moment to moment, and as I stared at Allie, both of us sharing a look of fear, all potential food was ash in our mouths.

As I heard Misty at the front door, there was no doubt in my mind that I had stumbled into the worst flavor imaginable. So horrid, so unsettling that it threatened to gag me with overwhelming emotional acid reflux. And throwing up was the last thing I could afford to do. The mess I was about to face would be bad enough without me adding stress upchuck to the mix. 

Allie moved for the door, all thought of cleaning up the shattered glass gone from her mind. I saw fire in her eyes as I scrambled past her, blocking her from the door. 

"Don't," I warned. 

Allie's eyes flashed. She looked murderous, ready to rip the world apart. "I'm gonna—"

"Don't!" I hissed. 

She glared past me, eyes on the doorway, calculating how long it would take her to get to the door. "Why not?"

"Because Misty is here and she doesn't need that, Allie," I murmured. 

Some of the fight in Allie vanished at the mention of our fifteen year old little sister, her eyes clearing, shoulders slumping slightly. "Don't... don't let me hit him," she said, turning to me. "Don't let me get close... I don't think..." She swore. "Just don't let me hit him."

I swallowed, watching her brow furrow, fighting her own determination. She had a reputation for being a hot head. A reputation that had landed her in juvie for trying to protect me. "I'm trying to be better," she said, showcasing a rare moment of vulnerability. "I just don't know if I can right now." 

I nodded. 

"Keep an eye on Misty," I warned as we walked out of the kitchen, each of us threatening to unravel as we walked into the living room. And there he was. Our father. Standing in the doorway to our home, standing in the last place we ever saw him.

I was stepping into my worst nightmare, suddenly seventeen again. Remembering my final moment with him. A memory that was warped and ugly. A moment he had promised something that he had no intention of fulfilling.  A lie I had instantly caught, because I had always caught liars, even before I had gotten paid to do it. 

The truth of what he had done nearly destroyed me, the echoes of the pain nearly breaking me in two, so I had fabricated a truth I could swallow. He had died. Because in my heart he had. He was dead to me.

"Dad?" Misty breathed again, eyes wide.

The single word shattered all the calm I had managed to scrounge together. That single word was undeserved when it came to that man. And everything vanished from my vision but Misty's reaction to him. I could see every detail, burned into my brain like my own personal very deserved hell. The confusion, the shock, the anger, and worst of all, the hope. There were no longer cameras, or spectators. All that was left was a little sister and the monster who smiled at us like he hadn't walked out the door seven years ago. And at that moment, that monster needed to be dealt with. Because I was a dragon, and a more dangerous creature than I was threatening the treasure, the beautiful girl I had protected for years.