As soon as the sun rises over the Cascade mountaintops, I climb out of bed and throw on jeans, an old T-shirt with a rabid-looking unicorn, and a plain black hoodie. I sweep my boring brown hair back into a ponytail as I head out into the backyard to get the pony.

She’ll be gone in a couple of days, and I’ve spent this whole time wishing she’d disappear. So I might as well give her one nice morning. I’ll take her to the park down the street and let her eat all the grass she can for the next hour or so, until I have to drag my weary butt to school.

I swing open the door to the shed, and the pony bursts out.

I crinkle my nose as I step into the shed to find the rope halter Ann made for her.

I sure hope that the poop magically disappears at the same time as the pony. So gross.

I slip the rope onto the pony and wrestle around with it until it vaguely resembles something that will keep her from running away. I guess that’s ironic since I’ve spent this whole time wishing she would run away.

I let her take little snatches and bites of grass as we drift to the gate and cross in front of the house.

We don’t get anywhere near the park, though, because there’s a car in the driveway.

A voice drifts over me. Someone is standing on the front porch. “Kayla.”

Even after all these years, all this time, I know exactly who it is. I don’t have to turn and look.

I stand there, one hand gripping the rope, twisting it around, as I stare at the dew-covered grass.

I take in a few slow, calming breaths and then turn to face him. His dark hair has started to gray, so that it’s salt-and-pepper, which catches me off guard so much I can’t stop staring at it, thinking that he’s old now, that he’s aged. It’s been seven years, and yet he seems so much older.

He’s wearing dark, crisp blue jeans with a light sweater and a sports jacket and some kind of fancy leather loafers with tassels. He looks like a total yuppie.

“Hi, sweetheart,” he says, his Italian accent more pronounced than ever. He smiles at me. It makes a few crow’s-feet appear around his eyes. Laugh lines. I want to know who he’s been laughing with.

“Dad,” I say, my voice shaky, unsure. I hate it. I want to be nonchalant, confident, unaffected by him being here. Instead I feel myself spinning around and around inside. Am I happy he’s here? Excited to see him? Or do I want him to leave? And why is it so hard for me to know which one I want?

I study his steel-gray eyes. I don’t know what I want to see there. Answers, maybe. Yes, I want answers. But I’m not sure there’s an answer in the world that would ever make it okay to do what he did.

“I realized I missed your sixteenth birthday.”

I nod.

“And I know I’ve always said I’d get you a car when you got your license.”

I guess he did say that. Maybe. But I don’t like the way he says always said, as if he’s always around to say something at all, let alone that he’d get me my own car. I only talk to him on special occasions, and the last one was almost a year ago.

I feel anger build a little bit, somewhere deep inside me. “Why are you here?”

He shifts his weight, looks a little bit uncomfortable. I feel oddly triumphant. “I told you. To get you a car.”

“No.”

“What?”

“No. I don’t want your stupid car.”

“Oh,” he says, shrugging, looking a little confused and lost.

That’s it? Oh?

I expected something more. I expected apologies, guilt, some kind of speech.

And even though I already expected it, his lack of true, deep emotion is a confirmation that he is a wish, that he’s not here entirely of his own volition. Because if you go to all that effort because you have the idea to make some grandiose gesture, wouldn’t you have a thing or two to say about it?

I wonder how long it took him to get here, how much time he spent driven by something he didn’t understand. Hours sitting on planes, hundreds of dollars, thousands of miles.

And here he is, staring at me, the one thing I wanted more than anything else, and it only makes me feel empty.

I remember all those birthdays I stared at the phone, all those times I would be apprehensive of opening the Christmas card, because I was afraid it would simply say Dad, when I wanted so much for it to say Love, Dad.

I think of all those stupid times I’d watch other people’s dads. All those times Nicole rolled her eyes about her dad, and I secretly wished I could do that, but I had no reason to. For my dad to be annoying he had to be around, and he wasn’t.

His absence seemed so much bigger than anyone else’s presence. He missed everything. He never bought Chase the BB gun like he promised, never taught me to ride a motorcycle, never helped me study for a test or watched me get ready for a school dance. Not that I’ve gone to many.

But the point is, he never got to be part of anything, and he doesn’t even care.

I guess I knew I must have wished for this at some point. Must have closed my eyes as tight as I could and wished he would come back, then blew out the candles, hoping it would really happen. I must have believed that if I wanted it bad enough, he’d appear, just like in all my dreams and fantasies.

And here he is and yet it means nothing. Because I didn’t want him here physically, I wanted him here emotionally, and that’s one thing I’ll never have. He’s never going to be that kind of dad.

And I don’t need to be that kind of daughter.

Not anymore.

“Did you want something?” I pull on the pony’s lead rope, and she steps forward.

“Um, no.” He pauses, chews on his lips. “I love you,” he says, the words sounding like a question.

The moment is awkward. I breathe slowly, listening to the silence as the words die around me.

And then I look up at him and shake my head. “No.”

I pull harder on the rope and start across the yard, the pony following me. I stop at the edge and give him another look. It might resemble pity. Maybe disgust. I don’t know what I look like, because I can’t put a finger on what I feel. But it’s not regret, and it’s not pain, and I can’t ask for anything other than that. “No, you don’t. If you love me—if you loved any of us, you would’ve showed it by now.” He just stands there on the porch, staring at me. “And you know what? It doesn’t matter anymore. I don’t need you.”

“Kayla—”

“No. You don’t deserve my time, and I won’t let you buy it with a car.”

I step onto the sidewalk and head down the street, the pony happily trotting after me.

It starts to sprinkle as the house disappears from my view. Maybe I didn’t wish for him to show up and say “I love you.” Maybe I wished for me to not need him, to not care about him anymore. I can’t be sure, I can’t go back and listen to myself make that wish, but the truth is, it doesn’t matter.

Because not needing him is the best thing that’s come of this, the best realization of all. It doesn’t matter if Ann and the pony and Ken and everything else disappears on Monday, after I receive the last wish.

Because this feeling of independence, of total freedom, won’t vanish. That much I’m sure of.

My happiness doesn’t rely on other people. It doesn’t depend on them needing me, wanting me, approving of me.

It’s inside me, just where it was when I was little and My Little Pony reigned supreme, before life got twisted and turned upside down, before everyone else moved on and left me behind. Somehow I lost the power to be happy, but I’m taking it back.

Starting today. Today, I choose me.