I got home that day, feeling an unexpected weight on my shoulders. I didn't want to leave my dad and Connor on their own. They weren't ready. Maybe I wasn't either. But I knew I needed to do this. I would never be happy here on my own. I needed to go out and live my life in order to heal. For the first time since mums' cancer diagnosis, I was going to feel young, almost careless. I was going to do something for myself.
"Well, how'd it go?" Dad greeted me, "still not going to uni?"
"One B and two C's, no uni this year, but with my special circumstances I got in okay for next year."
"What was the B in?"
"English, Quinn helped me with the revision."
"That's really good kid," Connor smiled up to me from the sofa, "what are you doing for the next year."
"I actually wanted to discuss that."
The two men looked at me, not one bit of worry on their faces because they were never expecting me to go anywhere.
"Go on then," dad sipped his tea as his eyes went back to the TV.
"I'm going to travel with my friends." He almost spit his tea out. "And I know it's a last-minute decision and I know you're probably shocked because I am too and I know it's very soon after mum and you guys-"
"Ivy," he stood up, "calm down."
"I just don't want you guys to think I'm leaving you. If you're not ready, just say the word-"
"Ivy, calm down," he repeated, "don't think about us for a second. Is it what you want?"
"Everything here is just so hard. I can't stay here like this for another year. Not without my friends."
"Then you're going," he nodded, looking like he was holding back tears, "decisions made."
"I was not expecting that," Connor stood up and joined us in the middle of the living room, all staring at each other, not knowing what to say next.
"I'm really sorry," I burst out in tears. I was leaving my family alone to deal with their grief, by themselves. My tears almost stopped to a halt in shock when my dad pulled me in for a hug.
"You have nothing to be sorry about."
"I just feel like I'm abandoning you both. You need me here to be the woman of the house."
"No, Ivy, I've abandoned you as a father if you feel you have to stay here and play the woman of the house role instead of being an eighteen-year-old."
"You didn't abandon me. No one made me be like this."
"Maybe not, but we're not letting you continue like this. It's your turn to just be a kid."
"It's going to be so weird without you round the house," Connor was hugging me now.
"Who's going to do your washing?"
"Maybe Alex will do it for me," he joked back, roughing up my hair.
Maybe my relationship with my family had been emotionally distant. But they were my family. The way I seen it; it was us three against the world. Along with all my friends, of course.
YOU ARE READING
LIVING & GRIEVING
Teen Fiction"You're going to keep living, V." Everyone thought Ivy Archer had the perfect life. Because they had no idea what she was hiding: her mums terminal cancer. When the inevitable happens, Ivy is forced to face her grief for the first time, in front of...
