fundamentals of love ; james sirius potter

26. do you listen to adele or go out on fridays?

I moved back into my childhood bedroom on a Sunday.

When I was sitting on my bed, eyes closed, window open, a breeze and the sun hitting me in a delicious way, I was a little kid again. There was a song playing from downstairs, it was one my dad played all the time when we drove too fast in his 1970 baby blue Camaro, something about Crocodiles and Rock. I could hear our dog, Bjork, barking and my dad was calling the local Chinese restaurant telling them I'm home and that means he needs our usual order, which is telling them to send over the whole menu. He began asking the owner how the kids were doing, if his oldest daughter was enjoying engineering and if the youngest was still so young. And he talked for a long time, he talked more than he probably should have, there were most likely customers waiting but the owner has always been too nice so he kept on the line answering all my dad's questions. 

My dad never raised his voice at me when I was younger, even when he was angry or upset he never yelled. He'd give me a disappointed expression with a moment of silence before he'd start talking. He was a good parent not because he was kind, but because he was always fair. There's always been this level of idolisation that I've always known borders on being unhealthy but I could never help it because he was always so good. 

Some people spend their entire lives trying to be good but there's this tiny amount of people that simply are . . . good. 

He's good, he's always been good, and he is so good, but then there's some part that isn't. Because the next morning, it was a Monday, and I feel that's important because aren't Mondays always the downfall of everything? Well, my dad betrayed me.

I was about to round the corner when I heard him.

"No, I don't think I'll ever be selling Carina . . . you think I'd change her name? Of course, not. You were the person that got to experience her during her best days, we took her everywhere, the names just a part of her by now. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you never did understand cars." My dad laughed and it was a rumble from his chest, he was genuinely happy. "Well I'm doing well, thanks for checking up on me, Holls."

After that, I stopped listening. I stood there in complete shock. For all I knew, my parents weren't on speaking terms since their divorce seven years ago. Neither of them ever mentioned the other, acted coy and pretended they didn't know anything. There was nothing left behind for me to ever have thought that they might've been still in contact after all this time.

How could he have done that to me? How could my father keep such a large secret from me and . . . well still talk to that woman when she'd put us through so much hell over the years. It was a breach of our father-daughter-friendship, he did this behind my back and never mentioned it because he knew how much it would upset me. And, I hated him even more for that because he'd spent his entire life being honest to me except for now.

So, I entered the kitchen and he looked up with a smile. "I'm about to grab us some take out, should we order sushi or . . . " he read my expression and realised something was wrong. "Are you okay? Did something happen?"

I wanted to say it with composure, to be mature about it, but I couldn't.

"Were you talking to mum?"

Dad froze, he paused for a moment, thinking out what his next words would be. It was the lawyer in him that always overpowered any confrontation or fight we'd ever have, maybe he didn't try to do it, but it was always like he was trying to win in some sense because he acted like we were inside a courtroom.

Always say what you know is true, was his biggest rule when it came to law. "I was," he nodded, then cleared his throat. "This isn't an ideal way for you to find out and that sounds so shitty. This one's all on me. I just genuinely can't believe it was happening so I didn't even know how to tell you, but now that you know, we can talk about it. You can ask me anything--"