We arrived back to my house pretty quickly, wanting to change out of our wet clothes into dry ones, I gave Leah a pair of sweats and a hoodie and put on something similar for myself. As we reached the bottom of the stairs, Leah noticed a picture frame hanging on the wall, I internally cursed myself, not really wanting to have this conversation so early on.
"Who's that?", she asked, "my dad", I replied with a small smile avoiding eye contact. "He looks so young", she pointed out, "yea, he did", I whispered, she looked at me sympathetically, not saying anything else knowing I didn't want to talk about it.
I cleared my throat, "I'll make us some hot chocolate", she nodded in response following me into the kitchen and making her way through to the living room and making herself comfy. Once I was finished, I walked into the living room handing her a mug and taking a seat beside her, she thanked me and I asked her "have you ever seen greys anatomy?", "no I haven't", I just smirked at her, "you know I'm gonna make you watch all 19 seasons right?", she just laughed and said, "if it's with you then how could I object", I blushed and turned my head, turning on the tv and putting on the first episode.
After the first episode I looked over to her to gauge her reaction, "well?", I questioned excitedly, "I love it", she smiled brightly over at me. "Good I'm glad cause there's a lot more to watch, I always tried to convince my dad to watch it but he could never get into it, never really had the time either", I smiled sadly. "What happened to him? You don't have to tell me, but if you do I'm here to listen", she said sincerely.
I set my mug down on the table and turned to face her, letting her know I was going to tell her. "I want to tell you, you're going to hear about it eventually so I may as well tell you now, and I trust you", I smiled over at her, she smiled back and nodded, letting me know she's listening.
Flashback:
"Yes dad I remembered dessert okay, vanilla cheesecake, your favourite", I laughed over the phone, driving to my mums house to have dinner with her, my dad and my brother. We don't see each other often, especially with me and my dad working in the police and my brother living in France, it's been hard on my mum so we try plan a dinner once every 6 months to accommodate my brother.
I heard my dad laughing over the phone, "alright sweetie, I gotta go, I have one last call before I'll be heading home, don't start eating that cheesecake without me", he warned, "bye dad, I love you", "love you too". I ended the call just as I was pulling up to my mums house.
"I'm homeeeee", I shouted out as I walked through the front door, "hi honey", my mum said hugging me, "hey mum, where's Y/B/N?", I questioned. "Right here", I heard him say behind me and I quickly ran to give him a hug, "I missed you", "I missed you too", I hadn't seen him in 7 months, it's been too long. I cleared my throat to stop myself from crying. "Food almost ready?", Y/B/N asked my mum, she rolled her eyes and just walked into the kitchen. "Still as annoying as ever I see", Y/B/N laughed and replied, "you know it".
After the food was ready, we were impatiently waiting for my dad to arrive, "this food better not get called, I'm starving", Y/B/N said, me and my mum laughed and not a minute later we heard sirens pull up outside the house. We all shared a knowing look, we knew it wouldn't be good. We made our way to the front door and my mum opened it. It was Jackson, he gave us a sympathetic look. "I'm sorry, but your father was KIA this evening, if any of us can do anything, please let us know". Just that one sentence changed my life, my knees buckled beneath me but Jackson caught me, I pushed him off of me"no! What happened Jackson, you're his partner you're supposed to protect him, what the hell happened!!", I shouted while banging my fists into his chest. "I'm sorry Y/N, we were ambushed", and with that I didn't say another word, I walked out and ignored the calls of my mum and brother.
Flashback over:
I finished the story with tears in my eyes, trying to avoid crying. "I'm so sorry Y/N, that must have been horrible, did you find the person who did it?".
"James Stone, that's the name of the man who killed my father, the man who gunned him down in the street like an animal", Leah reached out and grabbed my hands, calming me down, "he managed to get away, and for 2 years after that I didn't stop trying to find him, I needed to find him, but I dug myself into a hole, constantly had my head in files, it was taking a toil on me, my friends and family noticed and they told me I was destroying myself, so I took a step away once there was no new leads, we never found him", I finished, a tear falling from my eye which Leah stroked away with her thumb. She didn't say anything, she just pulled me into her and I couldn't stop, I cried for what seemed like hours and I eventually fell asleep from exhaustion.
