Her Road|Book 2|

Day 1|IV

What is love and how does it relate to my decision? I can't tell you. What I can tell you is that there was something wrong. It was a slight problem that I wasn't worried, nor insecure or slightly jealous. Why didn't it bother me that my boyfriend was seen drinking with a girl I didn't trust? Could it be because of the impending decision that weighed on my mind that time? Possibly but I wasn't that convinced.

Célia decided to go home seeing that our usual weekend plans had taken a bad turn. That was okay because to be honest I wasn't in the mood to deal with my friend.

The sun collapsed below my window pane. Harsh shades of red flooded the room, something about it familiar as if I knew it. As if it was someone's eyes-

"Can I come in?" My dad stood midway through the doorway. He was already in but I guess it was the thought that count. I nodded.

"I see it's hitting you hard, huh?" He uncrossed his arms and moved to the window in question. His presence filled the room even though it wasn't so.

"I guess it's the Zayne thing." I lied. It wasn't just the Zayne thing, it was about my friends too. "Zayne has always been there. I mean he's the older brother."

"And you're worried how life will be with him not there? Even though technically it was gonna happen one day?" He effectively summed up. His eyes pierced me, drawing out what was the real issue here.

"Dad-" I tried to stop him but it was too late.

"Is it your friends?" He finished. Leave it to my dad effectively pull stuff out of my freaking soul. "You don't want to leave them or..."

"I guess it's the fact that it doesn't bother me." I quickly ran a hand through my hair, tucking a strand behind my ear. I suppose this is how those my father prosecuted felt.

"Ooo, I see." He lost his vigor and returned to the door, seemingly trying to figure out what to say. "It's never straight forward, Alice. Maybe it's okay now but then you spend a few days away from them, you miss them."

A sort of awkward silence loomed over us. I suppose it's because I've told myself that very thing a couple of hundred times in the past hours but somehow it hasn't made the situation better. Not one bit.

"By the way, what I was saying earlier," I raised an eyebrow, wondering what he was on about. ", I was gonna suggest you don't come."

"What?" I sat up straighter. I thought my father would want me, his little princess, to come with them yet it seemed like it was the opposite.

"Come on, Alice. Think about it. A demand for a lawyer to fix a town's issue of a massive backlog of cases?" He waited patiently for me to figure things out. When it was clear I wasn't gonna, he continued. "It must mean that the amount of cases coming in must exceed the amount going out. The crime rate in Ridgeway is through the roof. I'd prefer that your mother and, more importantly, you wouldn't come."