You don't even want me

2.

[Camille]

I was sitting in the car behind the empty passenger seat, pretending to be busy when I was actually doing nothing on my phone; opening a few apps just to close them again a few seconds later bored me quite quickly.

The sound of the rain hitting the car windows kind of calmed me down, it was a relaxing sound to my ears. The windshield wipers made a squeaking noise as they slid over the windshield. I looked outside: it was already dark and raining pretty hard.

I gasped in surprise as the sudden light of a lightning bolt flashed in my view, dissapearing just as fast as it'd appeared. I kept looking at the place where the lighting had been barely 2 seconds ago, beeing interested in it and scared of it at the same time.

"Honey, it's okay." The low voice of the man behind the wheel filled my ears and immediately had a relaxing effect on me.

I sighed and rolled my eyes. "I know, Dad, it didn't scare me" I quickly explained, lying a little bit as it had slightly scared me. But it was a little embarrasing that a 14-year-old girl was scared by something as stupid as lightning.

He chuckled, looking at me with his blue eyes through the rearview mirror. "You sure? 'Cause you looked quite-" I didn't let him finish, getting a bit irrirated by now. "Dad, I wasn't scared" I stated loud and clear, frowning slightly as I felt a little hurt by him laughing at my fears, crossing my arms in front of my chest.

A short silence fell over us, his smile was now gone and made place for a more serious and concerned look in his eyes; he sighed and searched eye contact with me in the little mirror again.

"Sweetie, we're all scared sometimes" he began, his voice sounding even lower and more relaxing than before. "And that's okay." I looked down at my lap, biting my lip softly.

"You know what makes brave people brave?" he asked after another short silence, and I didn't have to look at him to know he'd raised his eyebrows. I sighed and tucked a curl behind my ear.

"It's not that they're not scared of anything, it's the fact that they face their fears, and conquer them."

I fiddled with my fingers while I let the information process. Brave people had fears as well but he was right, they faced them, and that's what real bravery was all about.

"Remember when you were too scared to sleep with the lights off?" I looked up and chuckled as I surely remembered that. I'd just seen a horror movie that was way too scary for me, and I was worried there was going to be something lurking from the dark. Looking back, it was stupid and childish since there was, of course, nothing to be scared of.

"Now you know that there was nothing, but... I could't be prouder when you decided to turn the lights off anyway."

I tried to hold back a smile, and he was smiling back in the little rectangular mirror. It'd always been one of my favourite things to hear: that my father was proud of me. I just felt like I'd achieved something huge in my life and it was the best feeling ever.