Chapter 21 (i)

Jayden waited for me to get inside before heading off. Matt was waiting for me on the other side.

“Some guy’s here; he wants to see you,” he said, unimpressed by the turn his afternoon was taking.

It wasn’t the greeting I expected and not something I was prepared to handle. There were occasions my mother’s friends would make special requests to see me. They weren’t very often, and she wasn’t always in the mood to acquiesce, but it seemed she was in a giving mood.

I entered the living room and felt my stomach drop violently. The nausea such a sudden movement caused was enough to make my head spin as I took in the man sitting across the couch from my mother.

…Dad?

My father hopped to his feet the moment I entered, an earnestness setting itself on his face.  He resembled a man who’d been left in the desert for days then offered a drop of water. The relief that radiated from him was enough to