This changes everything

Chapter 28: Moving on from it

I got out of my car, at a house.  One I hadn't visited in a few months.  One that was owned by someone I hadn't talked to in a few months. 

I forced myself up the front steps, with a bag full of clothes hung on my shoulder.  I forced my hand to knock on the door, there was a part of me that didn't want to do it, but I had to. 

The door I had just knocked on opened rather quickly.  A man stood in the doorway in disbelief, and I heard a woman's voice in the background asking who was there. 

"Hey dad" 

"Abi, what's going on" 

The bag full of clothes fell off my shoulder and dropped to the ground. the tears started pouring out of my eyes.  The only thing I felt in this moment was the tight grip of my dad's arms around me. 

---- 

I laid in bed that night, in my room at my dad's house.  I didn't want to talk to Leslie, to tell her she was right in the end, and that my life was in pieces.  I couldn't give her that satisfaction.  But I knew she probably knew, so she already got it in the end. 

When I first walked in my dad's house, her kids were there, her two sons, from a first look, they seem to be doing well for themselves, which seemed like my arrival was perfect timing.  My disheveled self walking past that smug lady and her two perfect sons. 

I let it bother me too much, but right now everything did.  I was highly sensitive to everything happening in the world around me, and I really just wanted all of this pain to go away, but it still was there, no matter how much I tried. 

So instead of sitting at that dinner table with them, in which I probably would end up crying the entire time, I opted in lay in my bed and cry there instead.  Away from Leslie, away from her perfect sons, and away from my dad. Until I finally fell asleep, for the first time in a while. 

---- 

I woke up early the next morning, and couldn't fall back asleep, but it was the first time in a while since i had a good five hours of uninterrupted sleep. 

I heard two voices coming from the kitchen, it sounded like my dad and Leslie.  As much as I wanted to, I couldn't hide in that room forever, so I decided to make an appearance for breakfast. 

I didn't say good morning to either of them, but as soon as they took notice to my body entering that room, they both went silent.  I went to pour myself a cup of coffee right away, still not saying anything. 

"Do you want anything to eat" 

My dad asked me, trying to break the silence. 

I shook my head, not wanting to say anything without breaking into tears again, but I still just wasn't hungry.  

"You know what, I need to get to work, I'll leave you and your dad alone" 

Leslie left the house, so it was just my dad and I, alone.  

"What's going on Abi?" 

I looked down at the ground, I couldn't bring myself to look at him while I told him what happened. 

It went against my ego, but I could only bring myself to say three words. 

"Leslie was right" 

In that moment he knew exactly why I showed up at his house unannounced the night before.  and we both sat on the couch for the rest of the day watching the television together, not saying a single world. 

---- 

"It's time to get out of this house" 

A few days later Leslie stormed into my room.  I had spent the past few days continuing my rot, not talking to anyone, but would be found watching television with my dad, or laying in bed playing games on my phone.