From Lukov with Love

by Mariana Zapata

It was easy to take things for granted when you thought you had everything.

I was trying to be more positive. I just wasn’t that good at it yet.

“You really don’t have to stay,” I repeated myself again as exhaustion weighed heavy on my eyes, trying to give him an opening. He sighed, and I sensed him shaking his head. “Nobody else is going to take as good care of you as I will.”

Something warm touched my mouth later, and I’d swear I heard, “Drink it, baby,” whispered to me. And I drank it all. Whatever the hell it was.

“I haven’t told you because it’s none of your business!” “You’re my business! So this is my business!”

I should have done anything other than come to dinner with my family to see my dad.

Looking up at him, up at this man who I had loved and wanted to love me just as much for so long, all I felt was an anger that I hadn’t come to grips with in the twenty-plus years since he’d divorced my mom and left. Left me. Left us. Just left. And I swallowed carefully, accepting that he didn’t know me at all, and he never had. Maybe it was my fault. Maybe it was his.

I hadn’t been enough when he left, and I still wasn’t enough for him now. But I wanted to be. It was all I had ever wanted. I had wanted to be enough for my fucking dad. Even now after all this shit, I still just wanted him to see me. To love me.

I didn’t even want to come. I knew it was going to happen, but I’m stupid, and I hoped maybe this time would be different. Maybe I could shut up and he could pretend I wasn’t there, like he always used to. Maybe this time he wouldn’t criticize me and tell me all the different things I could be doing with my life, but no. It’s my fault. I’m a fucking idiot. I don’t even know why I still bother.

“I love you so much I spend all day with you, and it still isn’t enough for me,” he kept going.

“Because I’m okay with you having ten other people be your favorite. But you’re always going to be my favorite person,” he finished. “Always. No matter what.”