I Hate Football Players 3 | 18+

Chapter 98: Ellie

A/N: Mature content. 🏃‍♀️🏃‍♀️🏃‍♀️

"Eleanor Grace Harrison!!" My Dad's voice roared out the front of the bar's entrance. Under the bright glow from the neon sign overhead, his light brown eyes were darker and narrowed into thin slits. He pointed one index finger at me. "You are acting like a complete child! Stomping away, screaming -"

"Surprised you even noticed, since Jake's here," I retorted as bitterness crept into my voice. At his wide-eyed look, I emphasized, "You wouldn't have even visited had he not played here."

I hadn't even gotten a full breath of the cool, crisp late-fall air when Dad stormed out of the bar behind me like an enraged bull. At this moment, I stood a breath's distance away from the reason that Jake's anger issues and my previous tendency where I overreacted irrationally in certain circumstances, most of which involved Logan when we first met.

And if you treat me like a child, don't be surprised if I act like one.

"Ellie, that's not -" Dad started when a hardened glare from me silenced him momentarily. "We've - I've always been proud of you."

His words fell on completely deaf ears since none of me believed him.

"Oh come on! You've always favored him, always," my words and sharp tone cut through the air space between us and he gnashed his teeth in response. "Nothing I did ever mattered enough, not school, not picking myself up again on my own, I just -"

A stark, painful realization closed my throat on itself and cut off my words.

All I've wanted from him, the only thing I've ever craved, was his approval... That he looks at me with the same pride in his eyes as he does Jake.

A subsequent thought sobered me into reality.

I might want that, but I don't need his hateful bullshit in my life.

"Wuh-what did you say?" the faint whisper that left Dad's lips, along with the way his face shifted from flushed red to pale and both his eyes and mouth parted wide open, showed I hadn't voiced those thoughts only in my head.

The physical statue-like reaction I presented sharply contrasted the storm of emotions that raged inside me. My blood pulsed in my veins, my silent screams of inadequacy wracked through my mind and toiled with my emotions until all my frustration, anger, and residual irritation festered into a giant knot in my chest. My skin tingled until the hairs on the back of m y neck raised.

As my attention drew inward, my external reactions barely registered. I hadn't realized I'd raised my hands, let alone knotted two fistfuls of hair until stings pinched my scalp. Only the way my tongue dried drew my attention to the fact my mouth had dropped open. Now that I'd thrown the words out in the open, I couldn't have taken them back had I regretted them.

My shoulders drew down, spine stiffened, hands balled at my sides, and chin lifted, I stared my father straight in the eyes. "You heard me. You're judgmental, angry, and just... exhausting. Sometimes I think if I'm better off without you in my life!"

"Ellie..." he gasped out my name as his eyes shone over with tears. The sight of them tore into my chest but I'd gone too far down this road, entrenched myself too deep in repressed anger, displaced resentment, and whatever the hell description fit 'I'm just done,' that I only had one option.

"No Dad!" I clenched my fists so tightly that my nails, which I'd chewed down to stubs during the game, still pressed into my palms. Short, sharp pants of hot air exited me with my last words, "I don't even care if you drop dead at this point!"