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David: Jess are you ok?
Me: NO!
I drop to my knees and lose it.
What am I going to do? Where will we go? I guess the dogs and I could get a hotel room. Do hotels allow pets?
Knock, knock.
“Go away.” I don’t want to see either one of them. They’ve both basically abandoned me. My heart is shredded.
“Jess, can I come in, please?” my dad asks.
“Why? You didn’t help me when I needed you most, so what more do you want to do to me now?” What could he possibly want now? To deliver a message from her saying I had ten minutes to pack eighteen years worth of shit into my car?
Despite my decline of his request, he comes in anyway.
“Jess, I don’t know what to say,” he begins.
“Seemed to me like you didn’t have anything to say at all. Suddenly find your words?” I’m past the point of caring. Hurt has turned to anger.
“It was best I stayed out of it. I was just as hurt as you were by her words.”
“Hurt, how did any of that hurt you? Everything was directed at me as usual, not at you.” My voice escalates with each word, tears streaming down my face. “And you let me down. You let her say those cruel words and the entire time you knew where I was and who I was with.”
“I’m hurt that my little girl is now a woman, and I don’t know how to deal with it.” He begins to cry.
So he let me take the fall because of that? I don’t know what to do or say or do. I’ve never seen my father cry, but the fact he allowed this to happen fucking guts me. Ugh, watching him cry is the worst.
“Dad,” I sit beside him, “I’m almost nineteen and David and I are in love. I’m sorry if my choices hurt you, but I’m a responsible adult and I know what I’m doing.” That’s a lie. I have no idea how to be in a healthy relationship, or any of the adulting rules. But I do know one thing—I’m happiest when I’m with David.
“I don’t want you to leave, Jess,” the words burst out in between sobs.
“But she does.”
“Let me talk to her.”
No good will come of that and at this point, does it really matter? Her words are confirmation it doesn’t. “Honestly, Dad, I’m done being under the same roof with her. I have a lot of decisions to make and they don’t include living here.”
He nods, understanding the dilemma, and kisses the top of my head. “I love you, Jess.”
“I love you, too, Dad.”
While we are talking, my phone nearly vibrates off the nightstand with the massive amount of incoming texts. Instead of sifting threw them, I call David back and fill him in on what went down. He says, “Pack your bags and load up the dogs. It’s time they saw their new home.” And that I do, not saying a word to my parents. It’s high time to leave this twisted, toxic environment behind.
As I near David’s house, my nerves shoot into overdrive, worried I won’t be able to control the dogs if what David said holds true. Fuck. I sit in my car for a few minutes devising a plan to thwart potential issues. It’s still too light outside for David to come out, so I gather our things and make sure I have a death grip on their leashes before we go inside.
Dash walks a few paces ahead of Vi and sniffs around. Vi is glued to me as my protector. Within seconds, their hackles shoot up and they growl. A low, menacing warning that I’ve never heard from them before. Dash immediately takes a protective stance at my side so I now have a dog poised in guard mode on either side of me. This is so not gonna go well.
David meets us in the foyer and stands still, like a piece of art on display. His stance is hypnotic, though the dogs aren’t having it. I kneel beside them, running a soothing hand along their fur in the hopes it will have a calming effect.
“Move toward me, slowly, but keep a firm grip on their leashes so they know you are in control,” David says.
Gradually, we migrate toward David, their hackles are still up, and a low growl still present.
We cut the distance in half, but the dogs aren’t backing down. I look to David for direction. He drops down on bended knee at their level, no longer hovering over them like a threat. He extends a hand, palm up, and calls them to him. Hesitantly, they creep forward while growling. A foot away, they come to a stop. David holds his hand out to sniff, they extend their heads toward it but move nothing else. The growls stop, but trust is still not given as they return to my side.
“Well, it’s a start, but I don’t want to make any sudden moves that would spook them. I’ll let them come to me when they’re ready,” David says. That is a bit hairy but at least I don’t have to pull any radical moves to separate them. This is the first time I’ve seen them this alarmed.
