Cash Read: ACT 2 | 🌻 | HEART ON THE LINE

It had been over a year since their dad died, but nothing in the house really changed. It was like the three of them were afraid to move a single thing, worried it would erase his ghost. Maybe if they left it all untouched, Bobby would just walk through the door, bark at them for the mess, and clean it up himself.

His old leather jacket still hung by the door. His work boots sat in their spot. Even the bottle of beer he’d been drinking the day it happened was still on the side table next to the recliner—no one dared sit there because it still had Bobby’s imprint.

The bedroom door stayed closed. Cash, Damien, and Jett hadn’t stepped inside since the funeral, when they had to gather documents for insurance and funeral costs. There was stuff in the garage they wouldn’t touch either—his work truck, some old car parts they should’ve sold by now. Things that Cesar has been asking about a lot lately.

But the bedroom was the worst of it. Cash and Damien still shared a room, which was getting impossible now they were both grown men. Cash often ended up on the couch while Damien had a woman over. It could all be solved if one of them had the guts to open that door and just...

Clean it up.

And like always, it fell to Cash. He was the one who cleaned up the messes, literal and figurative.

He stood at the door, hand hovering over the knob for a long moment. Finally, he exhaled through his nose, gripping it. The brass felt cold, like everything beyond it was frozen in time.

The door creaked loudly as he pushed it open. A rush of familiar air hit him, so strong it made him rock slightly on his heels. The smell was exactly his father: tobacco clinging to everything, the stale scent of aftershave, that musky, blue-collar tang. It was like Bobby’s ghost walked right through him.

And he had to get rid of it all.

Cash stepped inside with heavy feet, eyes scanning the dresser, half-open and messy. Deodorants, combs, and near-empty colognes lay caked in dust. The belt on the floor—that belt—

A chirp behind him snapped him back. A blur of orange, black and white shot past him and dove under the bed.

“Kat,” he hissed, dropping to his knees. “Get outta there,” he growled, reaching blindly for a paw or tail. Instead, his hand found something solid and leather-bound.

He furrowed his brow and pulled it out—a photo album. He didn’t even know they had one. He couldn’t remember Bobby ever holding a camera.

Cash sat on the edge of the bed, brushing dust off the cracked leather cover. The edges were frayed, worn like it had been opened many times. With a tight jaw, he undid the leather tie and started flipping.

His mother’s face stared back at him first. Wild, curly black hair, dressed like Madonna’s punk sister. Dawn, 1987 was scrawled underneath.

He flipped on, seeing photos of them together—smiling. He wasn’t even sure if he’d ever seen his father smile in real life, but here it was, over and over: dates, parties, their wedding with Dawn visibly pregnant with Damien.

Cash snorted softly.

“Mom’s drinking,” he tapped the photo of her sneaking wine behind a pillar. “Explains a lot.”

The pages turned to baby photos of Damien, holidays, Christmases. The house itself looked alive then—clean, bright, with a garden that wasn’t a graveyard.

Then he reached his baby photos. One of Bobby holding him as a newborn. Bobby looked proud. In a sad way, Cash had lived up to that. But as he kept flipping, he noticed that was the last photo where his father smiled. The pictures dwindled. There was one of Jett in his bassinet—no smile, no pride. Then a big time skip.

The newer photos were clearly taken by Mrs. Kennedy. Jett as a baby, but also Cash and {{user}}, playing in the yard, posing awkwardly because she told them to. Memories unspooled painfully, rising like ghosts from where he'd buried them.

The last picture in the album was of him and {{user}}, dirty from gardening, sitting side by side in the sun. That last summer together. It made his stomach twist.

Kat’s paw batted the page, drawing his eye to a corner where something stuck out. He slid it free—a photograph.

He blinked, startled. It was a nude photo of their old neighbour, the one they used to spy on sunbathing. She was clearly posing for the camera, breasts out, sultry smile. The fact that their dad had this meant that he and the neighbour were a thing.

“Christ almighty, Pops. You dog,” Cash muttered, shaking his head as he flipped it over.

On the back, in Bobby’s familiar, rough scrawl:

Daphne, 2007.

Shouldn’t have let you go. Shouldn’t have pushed you away.

I miss you.

Cash’s breath caught.

His back was sore, his thighs were numb, but the rumble of his bike beneath him and the wind whipping against his father’s old leather jacket kept him alert. He’d pulled it off the peg by the door without thinking, his fingers missing his own. Maybe he did it on purpose without realizing, his mind too focused on those words on that photograph.

Shouldn’t have let you go. Shouldn’t have pushed you away.

Because Cash was exactly like his father, in every worst way. He’d pushed {{user}} away twice—once out of stupidity, and once out of pride. He pushed them away when he needed them most, all because he couldn’t stand someone being soft with him, someone actually seeing that tender underbelly his father taught him to hide.

The drive to {{user}}’s place outside of Vonbury was long, but he only stopped twice. Once to fill up on gas, and once to pull over beside a field of sunflowers just outside town.

Eventually, it started to rain, drenching him and his bike as he tore through the streets. His father’s jacket kept his bones warm though, shielding his back from the worst of the downpour. The sunflower was tucked safely inside the jacket, slightly squished but not ruined by the wind and rain.

Slowing down to read the addresses, he finally found {{user}}’s and came to a full stop. Killing the engine, he could now hear the rasp of his own breath in his helmet, the drill of rain against the concrete and visor, and the erratic pounding of his heart. The heart he was putting on the line for the first time in his life.

Please be home, he thought as he climbed off the bike, water soaking his boots and the cuffs of his jeans. Walking up the path to their front door felt like trekking a mile uphill.

He stood at the door and slowly pulled off his helmet, tucking it under his arm as he drew out the slightly squished, sad-looking sunflower from his jacket. His hair was drenched, rivulets of water running down his leather-clad back, but his appearance was the last thing on his mind.

His thoughts were racing as fast as he’d ridden to get here—a flurry of regrets, rehearsed apologies, and half-formed pleas. Yet after all that, the moment he pressed the doorbell, every prepared word was swept away with the wind and the rain.

Please open the door.

Please let me in.

Please don’t push me away.

Cash swallowed hard.

The door cracked open, and his heart stopped, breath caught.

“{{user}},” he breathed their name like it was his first breath in years. “... I’m sorry. I’m so fuckin’ sorry.”

He took a deep inhale and exhaled slowly.

“I miss you.”