An Autumn Dream by Melissa Giorgio Page B

the sidewalk. The sun had set, and a quiet, inky darkness settled around me. This is the part where I get attacked by a demon, I thought as I walked down the block. Then Rafe saves me, we go back inside, have pizza, and make up with Dad.
    F ootsteps echoed behind me, but instead of a demon, it was Rafe. He was holding my coat, which he quickly put around my shoulders, not letting go of the fabric until I had pushed my hands through the sleeves and zipped it up to my chin. Then, without a word, he pulled me into his arms and let me cry against his chest for a good five minutes.
    Somehow, without me even realizing it, he slowly walked me back to the house. When I finally pulled away to wipe my nose, I was surprised to see the porch steps right behind Rafe. “Do you want to go back in?” he asked gently.
    “I should probably clean up everything,” I said. “Sorry I made you bring it all down. I suck.”
    “You don’t.” Rafe tucked a strand of hair behind my ear, his hand lingering against the side of my face. “You don’t suck, and you’re not a bitch. You love your mom, and you want to remember her. There’s nothing wrong with that. I’m sorry your dad reacted that way, but maybe he’ll come around—”
    “No.” I shook my head. “No, I can’t do that to him. I always forget, Rafe, how much this affected him as well. She was his wife. The mother of his two children. She just got up and left one day. He didn’t know how to raise us by himself, while struggling to make enough money to support us. I still don’t know how he did it, how he didn’t lose himself to the grief like me and Chloe did. Throughout it all, he kept it together, but after what just happened…” I pictured Dad’s pale face and my stomach clenched tightly. “He’s still hurting, to this day, and I just went and rubbed all those painful memories in his face, like the insensitive jerk that I am. I need, I need-” I was crying again, my words coming out between gasps as I tried to catch my breath.
    “Shhh,” Rafe said, brushing his thumb across my lips. “Calm down, Gabi. Can you do that for me?” I focused on his eyes, the green almost black in the dark, and nodded. “Good. Here’s what I want you to do. Go inside, find your dad, and talk to him. Tell him your reasons for bringing the decorations downstairs. He’s not mad at you—he’s just hurting. That’s why he reacted the way he did.”
    I hesitated. “Do you think talking to him will help?” It sounded like a good plan, but if it didn’t work and only made Dad angrier, I didn’t know what I would do. Go home with Rafe? Haha, like that would ever happen.
    “Yes, I do,” he said before giving me a quick kiss on the lips. “Go. Talk to him. It’s going to be okay, you’ll see.”
    We went inside, and I paused with my hand on the banister. “Wish me luck.”
    Rafe shook his head. “You don’t need it.”
    I mounted the stairs slowly, my heart thudding painfully in my chest. I felt sick to my stomach and wanted to race down the stairs and bury myself in Rafe’s embrace again, but I had promised I would talk to Dad, and I refused to break that promise.
    The carpeting in the hallway muffled my footsteps, and I knocked on Dad’s open bedroom door before I could lose my nerve. He emerged from the bathroom, his suit and tie replaced by a pale green sweater and worn jeans. The color had returned to his face, but his eyes were wary. “The pizza’s downstairs, Gabi.”
    “I don’t care about pizza right now,” I said. Whoa, there was a sentence I never expected to ever utter in my life. “I want to talk about what happened earlier.”
    He pressed his lips together, clearly unhappy with me. I was probably two seconds away from being grounded for life, but Rafe was right. We needed to talk about this, instead of avoiding it like we had been doing for seven years.
    “I don’t want to fight with you , Dad. I just want to talk.” I gestured toward his bed. “Can I