4 Chapter 4

I fell in love with the idea of romance at the age of twelve. The mere thought of being loved despite your shamed flaws and so unconditionally, filled my heart with the hope of normality that was taken away from me as a young girl.

Before he left us, my mother wasn't an alcoholic or depressed woman who couldn't get out of bed. She was happy with her only daughter and what she thought was the person who loved her just as much as she loved him. She too, believed in happy endings and a forever, but he didn't. My father left and disappeared. He didn't say a word that day. He didn't even say goodbye.

I was the one left to care for my mother. I took away as much pain as I could. I watched her fall into depression and alcohol. I was the only one who stayed with her through the bad days in bed, while he just left... I was only eleven and I was scared.

She spent years like this, and all that time I couldn't do anything. I was only a small girl who hid the bottles of vodka in the yard or tipped them out in the sink. She could barely take care of me after she nearly overdosed a few years back. Everything was so dark for a while and it didn't seem to get better, until she met Mark.

Mark was a close co-worker of my mom's and he began coming around more often. He cared for my mother more than I ever could. He slowly guided her to get up from bed in the mornings. He taught her a way out of the alcohol. She began to forgive even though it meant letting go of all the memories and promises.

After a few hard months, Mark was able to completely take away the bad things in our life, and replace them with better ones. He made jokes, and even when they were terrible, he made us laugh. He became like a second father to me after many days of driving me to school, making me breakfast and helping me out with homework even though he never graduated high school.

My mother found sobriety and when she realised what she had done, she apologised to me. She knew words were never enough to compensate for the things that happened, but at least she was able to focus on my future and be there for me.

For my first birthday without my father, my mother didn't know what to get me. I wasn't a happy girl with lots of friends. I was alone and forgotten in a town that never really loved us. So my mother rummaged through old boxes to see if she could give me anything from my father, and that was when my plans for a real future and hopes surfaced.

Since my first romance novel I was trapped between a world of dreams and the narrow path of my own life story. My mother took my love for reading and expanded it by scavenging any little savings from that month to buy me another dream, another hope, and the pages of turning literature. My collection only grew from there and so did my plans. I had drawn out a future to get into a good college followed by a good job. Then when the time was right, I'd find my own forever after and build a family full of love.

After eight long years of moving on and forgetting, he was here in Berkeley and he wanted to talk to me. The blood pounded in my ears and I could barely notice that inside my chest was a heart that beat faster with each breath I took.

"I- what am I supposed to say to him? I can't talk to him..." I was mumbling out words, words that even I didn't know were coming out of my mouth.

"I know, I know." She tried to ease me through the phone, but it wasn't helping in the way she wanted it to. After all, how can one person help another when both are hurting from the same pain?

"Why is he here? After all this time, why would he be back?"

I remember that one phone call a few years ago. It was a quiet night when the phone rang. We found out that he had a child with a woman he met. A boy. I never met him, even though I wanted to, but he never contacted us after that.

"Honey, he's waiting for your call. He says he won't leave it alone until he speaks to you." I didn't know what to think about all of this. College was supposed to be a new beginning, and a new place where hours of driving could distance the old town to me.

"If I talk to him, would he go away?" I was hopeful and expectant that after talking to him, he'd disappear again. That was what I was hoping for. I had enough disappointment for a lifetime. I didn't need anymore from him.

"I don't know," she takes a deep breath and pushes it back out into the line.

"Okay." My voice cracks as I move over to sit on a nearby bench.

Now I was away from students who hung with their friends and studied in the warm sun. Here, I wished I were one of them. They had no family issues. They had endless arguments where they spent every holiday fighting about ugly sweaters or who got the most presents. A life I could only dream of.

My mother ended the call and sent me a message with nine digits. I stare at them with a shaky finger and muffle all the rushing thoughts in my head that tell me to not call.

The loud noise of the ringing echoed through my brain, overpowering every other sense of need and hurt I built my life on.

I fight over the words in my head and wonder what I would say to him. How I would speak. Would I yell at him? Would I cry?

"Hello, Samuel Adams speaking," I pulled the phone from my ear as tears sprung to my eyes and fell against my skin onto the bench I had sat on. Hearing him talk again, he sounded the same. Like eight years hadn't affected him in the slightest. "Hello?" He calls out again as I put the phone back to my ear.

"H-hi." I feel my bottom lip tremble and more tears strip down, only to be swatted away by the back of my hand.

"Hello, may I ask who this is?"

"Sorry- I... this is Emma speaking." Not even a breath was heard through the line after I muttered my name. Not even mine.

"Emmiline? My Emmie?" I heard him sniff and shuffle around while I prepared to word out my next sentence. He had no right to call me his.

"Yes... Emmiline, your daughter." I started to well up with more tears as I tried to remain in my most neutral tone.

"I never thought I'd speak to you again." He sniffs again, but this time it sounded more like a cry. "I've missed you so, so much Emma. How are you? Your mother told me you started college? How is that?" He began to tear through questions about my life, answers I couldn't convince myself to respond to.

"Today is my first day," I tried to make my voice loud but it came as a raspy whisper. "But it's okay so far."

"I'm so sorry for not contacting you earlier, you have no idea how much I've wanted to. All these years." He showed eagerness through his tone but I didn't believe he was telling the truth.

I really wished I could give him the answers he was looking for: that I missed him, and that I was sorry he left. But how could I miss someone who didn't care about me? How could I miss someone that because of his selfish reasons, caused my everything around me to fall apart.

He was my favourite person once, my hero and my idol, but now he was just a faded memory of a girl who wanted to forget.

Somewhere inside me I found the confidence to speak. "Why didn't you? After all those years, why didn't you call?" My tone was angrier, frustrated with all the things that had happened since his last hug.

"I was afraid of causing more damage than I had." I dig my nails into my palm and try to calm myself, but it didn't do much for me.

"You have no right to call me and tell me you've missed me. You left! You! No one else!" Slowly I break apart, hurting not only him but also myself for closing off my feelings into a bottle with no lid.

"I know..." He breathes out, trying to contain himself from tears. "Please, just let me talk to you, meet you somewhere. I'm not going anywhere, not this time... I promise you."

Between my indifference and hurt, I couldn't bring myself to discuss my life with him. I couldn't have a talk with him and pretend everything was okay when it wasn't.

"I can't. I have class, I need to go." I sniff once more but before I end the call I wait for his answer. I wanted to see if he would say goodbye this time.

"Emma, please. One coffee, one conversation just please let me explain. I owe you a lifetime of apologies but most of all, I owe you the father figure I never gave you. One coffee and after you'll be free of me... if you still want me to go."

He doesn't deserve a chance. He doesn't deserve to have a conversation with me, but he's my father. He is someone who I am supposed to forgive no matter what, because he's my family.

"I don't know..." I wipe away another loose tear and look around campus. Still, students were laughing with their group; noses deep in books while others ate and made jokes.

"Think it over. I won't be going anywhere and you have my number. Call me when you are ready... please." His tone was sad and deprived as he ended his sentence with a pause. "I love you, Emmiline."

It seemed like a lifetime after he pressed the button and ended the call. I had to put myself together and head into my next class quicker than I could let myself cry again.

I pulled my bag over my arms and shoved my phone deep into my pocket as if somehow it would disappear.

I scurried my feet along the big campus to my writing and cultures class where I found a seat at the back. I didn't feel like sitting at the front right now. I wanted to disappear along with my phone and not think about anything.

The rest of the day went quicker than I had thought it would. My apartment door shut behind me and I laid in my bed facing the roof, thinking about my father: what he would look like today. His blue eyes like mine, his wrinkles, all of his features.

My phone sounded next to my head on the pillow. The screen was lit up by Will's name sending me an invitation to coffee sometime. With the first smile after this morning, I text Will back letting him know how delighted I was to see his invitation, and I agreed. We set a date for this week and I placed my phone back down.

The roof seemed a good place to think, so I played some of my favourite piano music and decided that sleep was a good way to move on from today.