Heart Bones

by Colleen Hoover

It’s the luck of the draw, I guess. Most kids get the kind of parents who’ll be missed after they die. The rest of us get the kind of parents who make better parents after they’re dead. The nicest thing my mother has ever done for me is die.

People like me are extremely skilled at pretending we’re just fine.

Maybe so. Or maybe not. Sometimes I believe personalities are shaped more by damage than by kindness. Kindness doesn’t sink as deep into your skin as damage does. Damage stains your soul so bad, you can’t scrub it off. It stays there forever, and I feel like people can see all my damage just by looking at me.

I pause. I look at his legs. Both of them. I graduated from high school just two weeks ago, and while I certainly didn’t expect him to show up to my graduation, I kind of held out a small sliver of hope that he would. But a week before I graduated, he left me a message at work and told me he broke his leg and couldn’t make the flight out to Kentucky. Neither of his legs look broken from here. I’m immediately grateful that I am impenetrable because this lie is probably something that would have otherwise damaged me.

I already regret coming here and he hasn’t even laid eyes on me yet.

But I’ll cope. It’s what I do.

There’s a nervousness to him and I kind of like that. I want him to be intimidated by his lack of involvement in my life. I want the upper hand this summer. I can’t imagine living with a man who thinks he’ll be able to make up for lost time by over-parenting me. I’d actually prefer it if we just coexisted in his home and didn’t speak until it was time for me to leave for college in August.

We awkwardly nod at each other and it’s obvious we’re strangers who share nothing but a dismal last name and some DNA.

The lie comes out of my mouth immediately. Sometimes I impress myself with how easily fabrications come to me. Another coping mechanism I learned living with Janean.

Even though pieces of me resemble pieces of them, I’ve never felt like I’ve belonged to either one of them. It’s as if I adopted myself when I was a kid and have been on my own since then. This visit with my father feels like just that: a visit. I don’t feel like I’m coming home. I don’t even feel like I just left home. Home still feels like a mythical place I’ve been searching for my whole life.

Damaged people recognize other damaged people. It’s like a club you don’t want a membership to.

“Because most of the time, the fun you have that leads to the pain is worth the pain.”