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I’m a hundred pounds soaking wet, whereas Dad is at least 6'3" and built like a brick shithouse. His words, not mine. To me, he looks more like a lumberjack, thanks to his thick beard and burly frame.
Hot dad alert
I stopped believing in Santa when I was nine years old, and I feel like I’m gonna stop believing in my dad one day too.
That's a heartbreaking sentence
“Okay, do you want me to scare him, maybe rough him up a little?”
Yes
Dad grins. “And when the world ends, we won’t let Blake in here.”
“I know, but just because he’s terrible doesn’t mean you need to be.”
I call them Nomes—stands for no memories.
I’d call it a zombie apocalypse if it weren’t for the Nomes. Those I can’t make sense of.
“Never let someone bigger than you pin you to the ground. The longer you’re pinned, the more strength you give up. Act quickly and violently. Strike their most vulnerable places. Eyes. Nose. Throat. Groin. Give ’em hell, girl.”
I’m sure Nate’s coming up with a plan in his head, one that will end in him rising to the occasion as my knight in shining armor. It looks like he’s about to charge at the burner staggering toward him, but he doesn’t. Instead, Nate runs . . . right out the front door. The man I’ve been with for more than two years, who asked me to marry him two and a half months ago, who told me he loved me just a few minutes ago . . . gone in an instant. Fucking great. I knew he wasn’t cut out for an apocalypse.
I expect to find Nate standing there, leaned up against his car, maybe even jokingly quoting Twilight with a “Where have you been, loca?” But he’s not, and I can’t believe my own eyes. Not only is Nate not here, but the garage door is wide open, and his Porsche is gone too.
home is exactly where I’m headed. Turns out it only took an apocalypse to bring me back.
“No need to thank me, Casey. I’m your father. My job is to take care of you.” “I’m twenty-nine, Dad.” “I don’t care if you’re fifty. You’ll always be my daughter, so I’ll always take care of you.”
Blake’s an asshole, but he’s my asshole.
“There’s no one else in the world I’d rather spend the end of the world with than you, Pookie.”
“We hooked up one time, okay?” He drops his head in his hands. “How was I supposed to know the world was gonna end the next day?”
Lowering his mouth to my ear, he whispers, “Maybe next time.”
“Casey?” “Yeah.” “How come . . . how come you never came back to visit?”
Oh god 😭
His texts to me were always diary-length, and I barely even read them. I was just so angry at him, and I wanted my old life completely separated from the new one I had created. Actually, I didn’t want anything to do with my old life. I was ashamed of it, and I was ashamed of him—but now, I’m only ashamed of myself.
Now, seeing what our work has done for these two, what my dad’s unrelenting perseverance has done to keep a family whole, I can’t help but see him as less of the villain and more of the hero.
I enter behind my father, finding two people, a man and a woman with their backs to us, dressed in denim tuxedos, polishing guns at a table in the center of the room.
Denim tuxedos??
Funerals are for the living because the dead don’t give a damn.
“You’re right, Nate. I am a cunt.” I’ve never understood why that word was ever considered an insult. To me, it’s a compliment. It’s one of the strongest organs there is. It creates life, it makes men stupid, and it bleeds every month—yet it doesn’t die.
“Clever girl.”
