Chapter 8-The missing father

POV: Nichole 

I saw him before I knew it.

He was standing at the far end of the hallway, near the wall, like he wasn't sure he had the right to be there.

I stopped walking.

Xavier walked into my back and called but I didn't answer.

My father was standing twenty feet away from me.

My father, who was claimed dead and had been dead since I was seven years old, according to what my mother told me.

I stopped asking for so long that I forgot I ever wanted to.

And now he was here.

He looks thinner than I imagined. His sweater was too big, hanging off his shoulders and his trousers were patched at the knee. His shoes were falling apart at the soles. He looked like someone who had been losing for years and had made peace with it.

He lifted his head.

Our eyes met.

My stomach fell straight through the floor.

His face was fragile and looks older, tired in and worn out. But his eyes were soft. A kind that threw a long time of feeling bad about something.

I felt my chest pulling tight and my fingers went numb.

“Father?” I whispered.

He took one step toward me and leaned on the wall behind me.

"Nichole…. My little girl."

"No." 

"No, father. You're dead and you're supposed to be…"

My voice broke, pressed my lips hard and looked away from his face because looking at it was doing something to me I couldn't control.

He swallowed, he couldn't speak, and his throat moved slowly. Like he had rehearsed this moment a hundred times and now that it was here, nothing he prepared for was enough.

"She lied to me. For my whole life, my mother lied to me." I felt a knot in my stomach.

My father didn't deny it, he just stood there and let me say it, as he bowed his head in shame.

"You left us." I looked back at him and my eyes burned. "You left me. You didn't come back. You didn't even try…."

His whole body flinched as he watched me speak, his hands curled at his sides like every word had landed exactly where it was aimed and he had decided to feel all of it.

"I deserved that," he said. His eyes were wet now and he didn't try to hide it. "I deserved worse than that from you my daughter."

He breathed in slowly.

"But there was not one day, Nichole. Not one day I had

stopped thinking about you."

My knees wobbled in pains as I staggered back.

Xavier's arm caught me from behind, wrapping it firmly around my waist. I grabbed onto him with both hands and held on. I didn't think about it, my body just did it because that was what I needed now.

My father watched us. His hand lifted slightly immediately I staggered like something in him wanted to be the one to catch me. Then he stopped himself. His hand came back down slowly and he looked at the floor.

He knew he had lost that right a long time ago.

"I didn't come here for forgiveness," he said. 

"I came because I couldn't carry the secret anymore. You deserved to know I'm alive." He paused. "Even if I don't deserve a place in your life."

I felt my blood boil.

I was shaking now. Xavier turned to my father. “Sir please you have to leave now. She is not in a good state to talk with you for now. Please you may have to leave.”

My father's body noticed his presence was doing so much harm. He felt sorry for it, but still stayed.

“Please leave sir.” Xavier said calmly again.

My father still stood watching me and I felt him broken while staring at me as tears of regrets welled in his own eyes.

Immediately Xavier beckoned on one of his body guards.

Two of Xavier's security guards took the hallway in one second.

"Sir." He looked at Xavier. "Is there a problem here?"

“Please escort  him out” My father still stood and let them come to him.

The guard put a hand on his arm.

"You need to come with us sir please. You're upsetting her."

I still laid on Xavier's arm and couldn't stop the situation either because his presence kept doing worse to me.

My father didn't argue and didn't pull away. He turned with them like a man who had already decided, long before tonight, that he had no right to fight for anything.

At the corner, he looked back at me.

His face wasn't desperate. "I'm sorry, Nichole." He said. “For everything."

They turned the corner and then he was gone.

The hallway was completely silent.

A nurse stood frozen nearby a clipboard at her side as Xavier held me tighter and I turned into his chest and the tears came completely out of my control.

I cried for the seven-year-old of myself who stopped asking questions, for every year I spent building a life on top of a lie.

I cried because my father was alive and I didn't know if that made everything better or so much worse.

Xavier's hand moved slowly up my back, saying nothing.

And I stood in the middle of that hallway and let myself fall apart because for the first time in a long time, there was someone there to hold the pieces.