The habit of always serving himself last came long before his tendency to stand in doorways or the unwavering way he would always jostle his left leg just before he stood up. These were the sort of things that only Jess noticed. She loved the solidarity of it. Of knowing these things about him, that he never would realize. She loved that he often smiled at just his own thoughts, and she was often the only one who would see him doing it. She often wondered what it would be like to steal him away, she wanted badly to take him from his sober and delicate life.
Her father, of course, enjoyed the warmth of routine, though. He had little to no idea as to what high regard in which his daughter held him. He wanted to understand her in the way that fathers often hope to, but never do.
Success, he had once told her, isn't always about succeeding. It had been the night before she dropped out of college, the night she had called home far too late and far too drunk. The night he answered the phone even though it never rang.
