3

As I watched the traffic lights slowly pass us by, my mind started reminiscing back to earlier days of my life again. Days when things had been better. Before I became a teenager and my daddy still liked me. I remember how close we used to be. Those nights spent snuggling on the couch were once cherished memories of mine. I would look forward to them eagerly, almost every day.

A buried memory surfaced as we drove. I tried to push it away, but it was persistent. Turning my head, I looked over at my dad, staring at his profile. His hair was dark brown, peppered with gray. His gray was spread so evenly, it almost looked intentional. Admittedly, it looked good on him. His face had a thin layer of hair that was trimmed perfectly. I liked his beard. Oddly, the gray had not touched the hair on his face. The passing lights on the side of the road kept lighting up his head, creating a glowing nimbus around him. For a minute, I was mesmerized by it.

His eyes flicked toward me and I yanked my head away, looking back out of my window. My cheeks started heating up and I hoped to god he couldn't see that from his vantage. My thoughts returned to that buried memory that I had tried so desperately to erase. It was very possibly the most sacred, well kept secret in my entire life. Something I had never revealed to anyone else, not even my closest, bestest friends. Hell, I hadn't even written about it in my diary I used to keep during my early teenage years.

When I was ten, I had developed a secret crush on my father. A crush that had never fully diminished, despite his ever-present abhorrence of me. His coldness toward me made my secret even worse. Like a slap in the face. Rejection without having confessed my love for him. Stuck permanently in the "friend zone", except... except...

We weren't even friends.

I felt like crying suddenly, but I managed to stifle it, sniffling a little. He didn't say anything or ask if I was ok, so I assumed he either didn't notice or didn't care.

When we finally got home, I immediately opened my door and hopped out before my dad had even put the car in park. Over my shoulder, I said quietly, "I'm sorry I inconvenienced you to have to come pick me up."

He grunted and said, "It's ok."

Staring at him, I started to fume. Wouldn't the polite thing to say have been "It's no trouble"? My eyes narrowed and I growled, "Clearly it's not."

My dad sighed, looking frustrated. Then he said quietly, "Let's not argue, ok?"

Holding his gaze for a count of ten, I felt anger rising in me. Why did he detest me so? What had I ever done to deserve it? And, buried beneath all of that was that fluttering emotion of despair that contained my anguished knowledge of the fact that he would never feel for me the way I felt for him.

"Fine," I said, turning away as I fought back the tears that threatened to overwhelm me.

To my surprise, I heard the trunk open a few seconds later and then the unmistakable sound of my suitcase being pulled out. When I looked toward him with my eyes wide in shock, he was already heading into the house. I grabbed the handle on my luggage and towed it along behind him. As soon as I got inside, I immediately headed down to the basement where my bedroom was. I was in no condition to confront my sisters just yet, being on the verge of crying as I was. Once I made it to my bedroom, I closed the door and locked it.

This was definitely going to be a miserable summer.

[Ch 03. Restless.]

Perhaps my one saving grace for my summer of hell was my bedroom. It was actually pretty cool. Our house had always had a pseudo-apartment downstairs, but nobody used it until I turned twelve. By that time, my sisters were old enough that my dad decided to let them each have their own bedrooms instead of sharing. Monica was eight at the time, and little Ally was four. My dad bought a bed for me and we moved my stuff down there. In hindsight, that was probably the first time I had started to feel the distance set in between me and my dad. I was no longer even on the same floor as anyone else.

Admittedly, I was excited to move down there at the time. I loved the layout. Right at the bottom of the stairs was a semi-large room with a big couch that had these cushions that you would just sink right into. There was a super old tv down there, but I rarely used it. I did almost everything on my phone, including watching movies. Past that was a tiny bathroom that just had a toilet and a sink, no bath. I had to use the main bathroom upstairs to shower. Then there was my bedroom. It was small, with only one tiny little window that barely opened. The nice thing was, it was one of the warmest rooms in the house during the winter. Unfortunately, it was also one of the warmest rooms in the summer. Because of that, I typically slept naked no matter what time of year. The room did have a small closet where I somehow managed to stuff most of my clothes.

After unpacking my clothes, I shoved the empty suitcase to the back of the closet and then ventured out of my room to use the bathroom before getting into bed. I felt a little bad for not going up to say hi to my sisters, but I figured they wouldn't be too upset as long as I gave them lots of hugs and kisses in the morning. I just wasn't in the mood. My dad had totally killed my mood with her standoffishness. And it had been pretty poor to begin with.

Stripping out of my clothes, I crawled into bed, hoping to fall asleep fast. But as I lay there for the next half hour, sleep seemed to elude me. I wasn't used to that. During school, I was so busy all the time that when I got in bed, I was practically asleep before my head hit the pillow each night. And of course, that had given me a nice little barrier in my own mind against letting thoughts from my past creep into the present. But with my return home, and especially seeing my dad again, it was like all the defenses I had erected over the past year had shattered in a single evening.

An unbidden memory started to invade my thoughts. Tossing in my bed to try to steer my mind away from it, I couldn't shake it. The memory took place a long time ago, when I was young. It was before everything had changed between my father and me. Unable to resist it, the vision danced through my head as I lay still, trying to find peace for the night. My dad was the main subject, of course. It was the fated day when I had accidentally caught a glimpse of my father in the shower. Naked.

Up until last year, I had completely forgotten the memory, despite having carried it with me through most of my early teenage years. But the end of last year was when I lost my virginity to a college boy one night at a frat party. That cursed memory had resurfaced that night. What was frustrating was that it had taken me two months after having sex to rid myself of it, and now it was wedged in my brain again. Seeing my father today had brought it all back, along with a host of other emotions I felt myself battling with.

My mind continued to race, and I growled in frustration. I was frustrated with my dad, but mainly at myself. What had I done wrong all those years ago? It was a point of insanity for me, whenever I tried to figure it out. Trying to figure it out was like desperately wanting to rush into a burning building to rescue a loved one but knowing I could never reach them. I knew the answer must be obtainable, but it eluded me.