Double Digit by Annabel Monaghan Read Free Book Online

her great- grandmother was in the hospital, so she went down to Virginia instead. We had a family dinner in Cambridge that first night, and I’m pretty sure I never stopped talking. My dad was happier than I’d ever seen him, like some lifelong dream was finally materializing before his eyes. My mom fussed over my hair (roots!), my room, and the below-seventy-degrees weather.
    My dad kept his arm around me for the whole walk back to the Marriott, forcing me to walk as slowly as he wanted me to. “You’re okay?”
    “I like to think so.”
    “I mean about the John thing. You’re really over it? I was concerned that the breakup would ruin your freshman year.”
    The great thing about MIT was that no one really knew John, and no one ever asked about him. Over time I was able to sort of shut him out of my mind because there was so much else going on. But my dad’s overall dadness cracked me a bit, and it felt good to start crying. We walked very slowly.
    “It’s fine. I mean obviously not fine. But he’s right that maybe it was too intense, and that it’s hard to be in college having a relationship with someone who’s not. I just can’t believe we’d go from being that close to not even talking at all. He’s just totally dropped out of my life.”
    “But aren’t you the one who told him not to contact you?”
    “How do you know that?”
    “Mr. Bennett called. He was very upset, wanted to know what his idiot son had done this time, to quote.” See, my dad could totally do that, without relying on air quotes.
    “He called me childish. But I was a little hard on him.”
    “I can imagine. Poor guy.”
    “Why do I feel like you’re on his side?”
    “I’m always on your side. You know that. It’s just that I kind of feel like I owe him.”
    “What? For saving my life? Seriously? Are we going to keep giving him points for that? If I just send him a thank-you note, can we call it even?”
    Dad laughed and tightened his grip around my shoulder. “Sure, it’s nice that he saved your life. But I feel like I owe him for loving you in the right way.” I didn’t say anything because I was pretty sure I was going to start to cry again. “I always dreaded meeting your first boyfriend. I wondered who would ever be good enough for my daughter. And this summer I was sitting in the yard with John, and he started telling me how worried he was about ruining your time at MIT. He said he always wanted to be adding something to your life and was afraid he’d be taking something away from you in college. I didn’t have an answer for him, but I thought to myself:
This must be what ‘good enough for my daughter’ looks like.
”
    “Boy, is this not helping.”
    “I know. But I’m not sure it’s fair for you to be acting like he ended it.”
    Sometimes I’m not so crazy about people being honest with me. “I miss him so much, Dad.”
    Dad squeezed my shoulder. “Life is long, sweetheart. You never know. In the meantime, you have all this freedom so that you can make the most of your time here.”
    “Isn’t freedom just another word for nothing left to lose?” I was quoting one of his favorite old songs.
    “Oh, you’ve got a lot left to lose, sweetheart.”
     
    Danny and I left my parents at the Marriott and went back to my dorm.
    “How many people die from hypothermia here every year?” Danny was rubbing his hands together and banging on the radiator, a trick to spontaneously produce heat that he’d seen in a movie.
    “I know, right? It’s fifty degrees, and I feel like I’ll never get warm again. January’s going to be ugly.”
    Danny walked around my room, picking up everything in his path and examining it. “I still can’t believe you’re in college. And that you live so far away. I’m assuming you like it because you didn’t shut up at dinner.”
    Could he possibly be trying to tell me he missed me? I hadn’t really thought about him alone in the house with Mom and Dad, table for three every