Fractured from the Fall

Old Habits Die Hard

Lily awoke to the pleasant surprise that she was not hung over. Thanks to the weed, she enjoyed a much needed peaceful night of sleep. After she dressed, she made her way into the kitchen where her father had already eaten breakfast, showered, gotten dressed and no doubt fed the horses.

"I saved some coffee for you sleepy head," he said as she rolled into the kitchen and took a seat at the counter.

"Thanks," Lily replied, grateful for the jolt of caffeine.

"How was your night?" he asked as Lily poured herself a steaming hot cup of coffee and took a seat at the table across from her father.

"It was okay, I guess."

"Did you stay out long?"

"Not really," Lily winced remembering that she had left her father's truck at the party and was nervous about telling him. 

"Stayed for a couple hours and hit the hay pretty early."

"Was that before or after Ford came knocking at your window?"

Lily jolted upright and spit out some of her coffee.

"Here," her father said, handing her a napkin with a smirk on his face. Even though she wasn't a kid anymore it was still embarrassing for her father to know she had a man coming late at night to her window.

"How did you..."

"I'm old, not deaf. I could hear the rocks hitting your window."

"Oh right," Lily realized she was too tipsy last night to have any sort of idea how loud she and Ford had been.

"And my smelling is pretty good too," her father continued, raising his thumb and index finger to his mouth, sucking his lips in and inhaling the air.

Lily was mortified. She didn't like the idea of her father knowing she smoked weed. Even as an adult, she cared what he thought of her.

"Okay, okay, I get it, your senses are all fully functioning and so is your sarcasm." 

She took another sip of coffee. She couldn't tell if a hang over was finally setting in or if it was the embarrassment over her father's knowledge of last night's events, but suddenly she felt a headache coming on. She rubbed her right temple in circles to ease the pain.

"Old habits die hard, eh?"

"I don't have a marajuana habit dad. It's an every once in a while thing."

"I didn't mean the MJ. I meant Ford."

Lily spit her coffee up again and again her father smirked. He was enjoying giving her a hard time. She wiped the coffee from her mouth with the back of her hand.

"Ford was never a habit. He was a...."

"Yes?"

Lily wasn't sure how to finish that sentence so instead she did what she always did best: avoidance.

"Did you know I smoked and drank in high school?" Lily asked, trying to change the subject.

"I'd have to be a damn fool not to."

"Why didn't you ever say anything?"

"There are some lessons kids have to learn on their own. That goes for adults too."

There he went again laying on the seemingly innocent comments laced with a heavy underlying meaning.

"Adulting is exhausting," Lily replied, trying to skirt the issue. 

She couldn't tell if he was insinuating something about her relationship with Ford or her sister, but either way she had no desire to have this conversation with her father. In a couple days she would be out of this town and she wouldn't have to think about her sister or Ford and his brooding demeanor and irresistibly rugged good looks. But even as she thought the words to herself, she knew it wasn't true. She would think about both of them whether she was in Oakley or 800 miles away. Her relationship and the way it had needed with the two of them had tortured her over the years, almost as much as her increasingly painful headache.

"Adulting? It's a verb now?"

"It should be. It's the most action I've gotten in years." 

Her father let out a small chuckle at her pun. It made her happy to see him smile. It didn't happen often, not since everything with her mother. He was a different man after she was gone.

"Well you better go get washed up and dressed. You've got so more 'adulting' to do."

Lily lifted her eyebrow in confusion.

"I told your sister you'd help her sort through some of Grant's things at her house."

"Daaaaad? Come on! I don't want to do that and she doesn't want me to either. She doesn't want my help. Trust me."

"Your sister doesn't know what she wants. Her husband died and she's on auto pilot trying to take care of everyone except herself and she won't listen to me. What she needs is her sister."

"But..."

"Look at it this way, she can give you a ride to Bennie's after." 

Lily cringed at what she knew was coming next. 

"So you can pick up my truck."

Her father gave her a look that made Lily want to crawl under a rock. So he had already noticed his truck was missing. Of course he had noticed. 

Lily knew arguing was futile, so she took one last sip of her coffee, grabbed a piece of toast and reluctantly made her way to the shower. On the way down the hall, she heard the phone ring. She kept the bathroom door ajar, just a crack, to listen to her father's conversation as she munched on the slightly burnt toast.

"Lily? She's indisposed at the moment," he said, thinking she was in the shower. Lily's heart fluttered. Was it Ford on the other end of the phone?

"You'll have to call back later," her father continued, but his voice seemed odd, not the way he would speak if it were Ford.

"What? Yeah, she's here, she's just busy," he replied, growing irritated. 

Lily's heart rate increased, thumping loudly in her chest, but not in the way it had moments earlier when she thought it was Ford on the other end of the call.

"Can I ask who's calling?" her father inquired. "Hello? Hello?"

The line went dead. He hung up the phone and huffed under his breath at the rudeness of the caller.

Lily knew who was on the other end of the line and her heart sank. She had tried to hide, but he had found her.