Chapter 12

"Dad?"

"Nana! What are you doing? Didn't I tell you to study? Your final test is coming up, so why are you wasting your time here?"

"Dad, I can explain..."

Before she could finish her words, he slapped her.

"Nana, you went to the cinema and you wanted to tell me you can explain? I'm disappointed in you. I raised you to be a girl that works in a huge company, lives in a huge house, has a handsome and rich husband, and yet..." He took a glance at me. "You hang out with this boy? No, don't tell me he's your boyfriend?"

"If he was then what? He is not perfect. He is not the most handsome man. Yet, he is the man that gave me the happiness to live. The happiness that you fail to give for years."

"Enough! You don't have the right to talk to me like that!"

As soon as he raised his hands, I grabbed his arm and stopped that swing.

"What now? Are you gonna stop me from doing what a father should do? Are you gonna tell me how I should raise my daughter?"

I stared into his eyes." Do you honestly think this is how to teach your daughter? This 17-year-old boy know about it better than you if you thought so."

Her father stood silent. He took a glance at his daughter.

Nana was also staring at her. However, her eyes were full of hatred and resentment.

"Now I know why mom left you."

That sentence just now made his father teared up a little bit.

When I thought about it, she didn't talk much about her mother.

Probably what happened was her mother left her family for whatever reason.

Then Nana ran away from there.

His father looked confused.

He was like wanting to catch up to her, but when he does, what would he wanted to say?

What should he say?

I walked up to him. "Sir, you should catch up to her. You are the only one she needs right now."

"Yeah, I should."

"So why aren't you moving?"

"She has a habit where when she is feeling sad, she goes to sit under a tree. That's what she always does. It's not when only she is sad, but also when she is happy, and when she is nervous. That is how she always has been."

"..."

"I'm sorry. I just thought that I should tell you about it. She was right though. I'm a horrible person. I'm a horrible father and a husband. We used to live a poor life. That's why my wife left me. One day she was tired of living in a small dirty house and live with another man with huge money in his bank. That's when I got promoted and getting a large sum of money, Iwa getting greedy and scared. I'm afraid one day I'm gonna lose everything and went back to the old house. I'm afraid that Nana will eventually leave me because of our family being poor.

He looked around. There was a happy family. A child holding his mother's and father's hand.

He was smiling when he looked at him.

"But just now I just realized, I had lost her from the very beginning."

"Sir, she still loves you. I'm sure she didn't mean what she said just now. Deep inside I know she is desperate for you to come back to her."

He smiled at me. "Thank you. Now I know why my daughter fell in love with you."

He ran towards Nana just went.

**********

After all that, I walked home.

My home was like 12 minutes from here so it's fine just to walk.

I waited for the light to turn green so I can walk across the road.

Suddenly, a woman screamed.

"Watch out!"

A car was speeding towards me.

BAM!