There are about twenty people mingling around our yard – some by the bonfire, others at the tables on the deck, some sitting over in the gazebo playing acoustic instruments and singing. I find my dad standing at the monstrous grill built into the stone patio, turning steaks and hamburgers over.

“Hey, kiddo, you hungry?” he asks when he sees me.

“Nah, maybe later.”

“There’s salad.” He gestures over to the table where assorted fruits and salads are spread out in serving bowls.

“I’ll grab some later. I’m not really hungry.”

He blinks at me for a few seconds. “You feel okay?” His face takes on that I have no idea what to do with a female teenager who might not feel good or might be in a mood expression.

Smiling, I touch his arm and lean close to kiss his cheek. “I’m fine, Daddy. I had ice cream on the way home from school.”

He backs away from the heat of the grill and pushes his long wavy brown hair out of his face. “With that kid, Jason? On a motorcycle?”

Damn Toren and his big mouth. “Yeah. It was just from school, though. It’s not that far. And what the hell? Tor has to tell you every thing I do?”

“No, only the dumb things,” he grins at me. “He’s right, though. Stay off the bike. We don’t want anything to happen to you.”

We. I’m being raised by everyone and no one.

My Dad’s not with Toren. He’s one million percent committed and in love with his wife. My mother – his teen sweetheart. But she’s gone now, and my father is a thirty-two-year-old rock star with a seventeen-year-old daughter trying to act like he’s not broken and lost and on the verge of losing the very definition of his shit. But I know better. He’s afraid something’s going to happen to me too. That I’ll be here one moment and gone the next. And I don’t blame him for feeling that way at all because I feel it, too.

Once you’ve lost someone you love with no explanation, no closure, no end – you’re stuck in a torturous limbo. You don’t know if you should hang on to that ray of hope that they might come back or give in to your grief and accept that they’re gone. So you teeter between both until you slowly go insane.

I let out a breath. I can’t think or talk about my mom much without having a meltdown myself, so I put myself in denial and don’t face any of it. She’s just away. Like a long vacation with no cell phone access. It’s easier that way.

“Okay. No more bikes, Dad. I promise.” I don’t mind calming his over-protectiveness because he doesn’t deserve to have any more stress in his life.

His broad shoulders relax again and he gives me a smile that lights up his face and softens his eyes. It’s the smile that’s reserved for me and my mother, and it makes my heart melt. My father is an incredibly beautiful man, possessing the kind of good looks where women will actually stop and stare at him, eyes wide, mouth parted, heart pitter-pattering. Some even ask to touch his long hair, or his tattooed arms, while others just want him to look at them so they can catch a glimpse of his soulful eyes. You don’t just see his beauty, you can feel it, like a warm breeze that caresses your soul. At least that’s how a journalist described him after doing an interview with him.

I fill a small dish with fruit to make him happy and then spy Tor sitting on the edge of the pool by himself. I cross the yard, stopping at one of the coolers to grab a beer on the way. One of the guitarists from another local band is sitting on a lawn chair right next to the cooler. Probably so he doesn’t have to get up to get another drink. So lazy.

“What’s up, Finn?” I shake the ice off the bottle.

He tips his drink at me in reply. “Kensington.”

“Are you guarding the beer?” I tease.

“I might be. You’re not drinking that, are ya?” he eyes me suspiciously. “Last time I checked you weren’t twenty-one, little girl.”

“No, it’s for Toren.”

A smirk crosses his lips. “Well, if you’re playing waitress, I’ll take a steak, rare, with some fries.”

“Nice try, Finn.”

He laughs and throws a potato chip at me as I walk away.

Toren is still sitting on the ground staring into the pool when I sit next to him, tucking my legs beneath me. The pool is heated, but no one’s gone in yet. It’s still early spring, so the air is a bit too cold for most people to want to swim. A few stray leaves are floating along the surface, and I like how peaceful they look, not going under the water, and not blowing away either. Just floating, weightless and effortless. I want to be a leaf.