“This is so fucked up.” She presses her fingers into her eyes. I wonder where Jag is, but I don’t ask.
“I know.” I bite my lip before I look up to her and she shakes her head. I realize that her anger isn’t just at me, but also with her dead father.
“He didn’t know.” She looks up at me, her eyes locked on me.
“No, I came to tell him. I didn’t realize I was until I was around 12 weeks. It took me a month to get the courage to go tell him, and when I got there…” I pause having to fight back to tears that threaten to fall from my eyes. The memory pulling at my heart, at the pieces of it I had hidden away and didn’t want to deal with. I just wish Ro was here. “He was very hesitant to even let me come in and I could tell that something was wrong, so I asked him. He had just found out about everything—”
“And you didn’t want that to weigh on him while he was dealing with it.”
I nod my head telling her that she’s right as I see the tears starting to form in her eyes as well. “I called him a few times. To check on him and every time I wanted to say something to him, but I couldn’t put that on him. The last time I called, he told me that he didn’t think it would be much longer…” Ella lets a single tear come out as she looks at me. “And I asked him if I could come see him, that I needed to talk to him. We made plans for me to come a few days later and I brought Linc when I did, I wanted him to meet him… to see him at least once.” I sigh deeply as I sit down, and she comes up sitting next to me.
“How did he react?” She asks me and I laugh out loud.
A few more tears slip out. “That’s the thing, I drove out that morning, I was so fucking nervous the whole way. I just played over ever scenario that could go wrong in my head. The whole time, I hoped that it would be bittersweet for him. Like sad because he wouldn’t get to see him grow up, but a little happy because it’s just something else that lets him live on.” She exhales deeply and nods her head. “I had to stop and throw up when I got into town because I was so nervous. Even after playing through all those scenarios, I still didn’t even come close to what actually happened.” Not able to say the last part in anything more than a whisper. “As I pulled up, I saw all the cars in the driveway, I knew that wasn’t a good sign. I parked across the street.” I exhale again. “I watched Fury come out with the nurse.” I feel Ella place her hand on mine and grip it. “I watched them roll him out and take him away.”
“Oh my god.” She whispers, pulling me into her as I let out a sob, crying about the whole situation for the first time since I drove off that day. My breath is shaky as I exhale. “You were in love with him.” Slowly, I nod my head. “Shit…” She whispers causing me to look back up at her. I force myself to pull myself back together and sit back.
“It’s probably best that I didn’t make it beforehand…” I trail but can still see her looking over at me. “We had an amazing conversation that last time.” I smile looking back over at her and remembering it. “It was like nothing had happened. Like he wasn’t so furious with me when he broke up with me.”
“Wait, you guys were like together, together.” It makes me laugh and I nod my head again. “How long were you together?”
“Almost 2 years.”
Her mouth falls open as shock fills her face. “I’ve never seen him date anyone. Why did he break up with you?”
“Because,” I nervously laugh out, “he was in the process of moving back when we met.” I air quote met since we had already met through Ella beforehand.
“How did you meet?” Seeing that she understood what I meant.
“I drove past your house and stopped because there was actually a car in the driveway,and I was wondering where you were because I was worried about you. He pulled a gun on me.” Ella laughs out loudly this time causing me to laugh as well.
I park my car, getting out, and seeing the door open. It’s been a while since Ella answered her phone. I know that for a while she has been hanging out with Axe so much that I’ve barely seen her. I can’t really go to the police because just being like ‘hey I haven’t seen my friend in some time’ I’m sure that they would fucking laugh me out of the station. So, I’ve waited a year and a half… really, I waited until I drove past her house and seen a car in the driveway and today happened to be that day.
I knock on the door, but it only manages to open up wider. “Hello.” I call out as I step inside the house that I spent so much of my sophomore through senior years of high school, in.
Starting down the hallway back to where her room was, I hear the hammer of a gun pull back causing me to freeze as the low rumble starts. “You have 5 seconds to explain why the fuck are you in my house?” His voice along still has to capability to make me squirmy
“I was coming by to make sure everything was all right.” I nearly shout at him. “I know Ella and I hadn’t seen her around in a while. Today was the first day that I saw a car in the driveway.” I tell him, downplaying Ella and I’s relationship. Slowly, I turn around, look at him, and he sighs, lowering the gun. I see him standing in front of me with only a pair of jeans, hanging low on his hips, somehow he still manages to have those line. He’s shirtless, and I have to force myself not to completely just stare at him. I had seen Oz a few times, but never like this, and never this close.
“She’s gone.” He whispers out as he moves into the living room, sitting down on the couch. “I’m her father, Oz.” He sounds defeated.
“Sadie.” I tell him, introducing myself. As if we’ve never met. I’m not really that surprised he doesn’t remember me, he was rarely around back then. “Where’d she go?”
“Idaho…” He trails off.
“Ew,” It falls out of my mouth before I realize that I’m saying and it causing him to laugh out loud. “Sorry, just, why there?”
“I don’t know… she won’t answer her phone. She’s pretty pissed off at me.” He shrugs. “I’m sure that she went there so no one would find her.”
“Yeah, but you did.”
“We did, but she doesn’t want to be found. I want her to come home because she wants to come home not because I go up there and force her home.”
I sit down next to him on the couch, reaching over touching his arm. “She will, when she’s ready.” He nods his head.
“That’s what I keep telling myself, but it’s been a year and a half, and my daughter is still gone. And it’s my fucking fault.”
“How is it your fault?”
