𝐎𝐛𝐥𝐢𝐯𝐢𝐨𝐮𝐬, 𝐜𝐡𝐫𝐢𝐬 𝐬𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐨𝐥𝐨 (✓)

chapter twenty nine

After a while of convincing, Chris finally left Isla's house.

She didn't find the fact that he wanted to stay for longer there annoying at all, she just wanted some space for a bit.

He had stayed for a night, and the next morning he left after Isla convinced him he still needed to go to school.

She wasn't going to go back to school for the next few days, whether she wanted to or not. Her mom had already decided for her, and said that she wasn't going. Her mom was just looking out for her of course, and wanted to make sure that Isla was able to rest and fully process what happened.

At first, Isla begged her mom to let her go back to school. One of the things she hated most was missing things, and one of the things that gave her the most anxiety was missing multiple assignments at once. If she missed multiple days, she was guaranteed to miss some assignments.

But after a bit of thinking, Isla realized her mom was right. It would be the best for her to stay home, like her mom wanted. Her mom said it'd be better to 'fully process' the whole situation.

Isla didn't really know what she meant by that. How could she ever process the fact that he was really gone? She thought she already had processed it, but she kept forgetting about him being gone, and would look for him in her house to see if he was home. Of course, he would never be there.

She didn't know why she kept looking for him. It was weird. Usually, she would just hope that he wasn't home.

But, Isla had heard many people say, you don't know how much you'll miss somebody until their really gone. You won't know how much you truly loved them, even if you thought that they were a horrible person.

That was what Isla always thought of her step dad as, horrible. She hated the fact that he changed her mom for the worse, she hated the gross smell of alcohol she could smell on his breath whenever she talked to him, she hated how he always ridiculed her, she hated  the way he made he feel like she was worth nothing. But most of all, she hated the way that no matter how many times she thought or even said she hated him, she knew she never could.

As isla laid in her bed as she had been doing for the last day, she heard her phone begin to ring. It was Delilah who was calling, and it was right after when she would have gotten out of school.

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"Hey Isla." Delilah's tone seemed serious.

"Hey."

"I heard what happened." She blurted out after a few seconds of awkward silence.

"Oh."

"Yeah." Delilah replied awkwardly.

"I'm calling because I wanna check in on you. I'm worried about you, and I want to make sure your okay. Do you want me to come over?" Delilah offered.

Isla thought about it for a minute. She was going to say no, but she figured why not have her over? It'd be better to have some company than to lay in bed sulking alone.

"Sure." Isla gave in.

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Once Delilah arrived at Isla's house, she walked into Isla's room to find her on her phone. Isla looked up once she saw Delilah, and motioned her to sit next to her.

The two sat together on her bed.

"Listen, Isla. I'm really sorry about what happened, it's awful. If you need to talk about it, I'm here. But if you don't want to talk about it yet, that's also fine. Take however much time you need." Delilah looked over to Isla.