Nobody seemed to notice what I had just said.
But I did.
My dad made it.
Not Hollis.
Not my stepdad.
My dad.
Parker shrugged.
“I’d still take the BMW.”
I smiled.
“Did your dad build it?”
“No.”
“Mine built this.”
After school, I rode home and found Hollis in the garage with his head under the hood of Mom’s car.
“Hollis.”
“One second.”
“No. Come here.”
He immediately looked up.
“What happened?”
“At school, someone asked where I got the bike.”
His expression became cautious.
“And?”
“I told them my dad made it.”
Hollis slowly lowered the wrench in his hand.
For a second, he didn’t say anything.
Then he nodded.
“Okay.”
His voice cracked slightly.
It was the same answer he had given me years earlier when I told him he wasn’t my father.
Back then, I thought “okay” meant he didn’t care.
Standing there, I finally understood.
He had simply never planned to force me.
“You okay?” I asked.
“Yep.”
“You look like you’re going to cry.”
“I have grease in my eye.”
“That isn’t how grease works.”
He laughed and wiped his face with his wrist.
I stepped closer.
“Thanks, Dad.”
He went completely still.
Then he pulled me into a hug.
Years later, I don’t remember who at school had the most expensive car that year.
I still remember that yellow bicycle.
I still remember the first time Hollis let go of the seat and I looked back to find him standing in the middle of the road.
For most of my childhood, I had believed letting go meant leaving.
My biological father had taught me that.
Hollis showed me there was another kind.
Sometimes someone lets go because they’ve stayed beside you long enough to know you can keep going on your own.
And when you look back, they’re still there.
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