Watching Her

Chapter 12: this is no bar

It was not hard for me to find a cab, it was hard for me to find a bar. I was new to this country, I had not travelled outside of America before, because of my parents. 

The cab driver looked at me weirdly when I first got into the car, but after seeing the purse I had with me, he was sure of getting paid properly. 

The roads we crossed all seemed a tad bit too quiet for me, but peaceful as well. There was not as much traffic as there was in America, there was not as much stress in the atmosphere. The moonlight somehow managed to cast a graceful glance onto the tall trees. Yet, I still felt stressed. I clearly did not think this through, but was not impulsiveness a good thing sometimes?

Maybe not.

 But I had not chosen impulsiveness for a very long time, it was time to do something that was not planned, something that I could not see the end of. I needed some fun after all this running around, after all this. I was tired of being thrown around like some kind of toy, but there was nothing I could do precisely against that. I could only escape this for a second, be my own person. And I knew exactly how. 

And then my mind went to Mateo Bane again. Would he look for me? Or did he forget about my arrival. What would he do once he found out about my quick "escape"? The driver surely had told him, but there were no missed phone calls as I watched the screen. 

My bag was full of nonsense. 

Cigarette packets, half full, at least one of them empty, two lighter. An eye shadow palette for me to fix my eye makeup. A portable charger, a pair of headphones, a pack of gum. Lots and lots of freely flying around bits of paper that used to be notes I never looked at again. And a pocket knife. Small, yet there. 

Wondering how I got through security with this one, I shoved it back down as soon as I recognized it while holding it in my hand. 

Still, no messages. No missed calls. I checked my phone twice to make sure it was not on "Do no Disturb" or "Airplane Mode", but nothing. Maybe, it was too early to check. They would come flooding soon enough, I was sure of that. 

I put my phone back into my bag as I got blinded by a few street lights. The pec of wind hushing into the car left me sitting on the back leather seat a bit too cold for my liking. Why was it so cold tonight? Had summer not reached Italy, or was it my nervosity? 

Why was it so hard for me to do something that was not expected of me? I did things like this all the time, mostly without the knowing of my parents. Maybe that was the changing factor. After all, Bane had a perfectly good reason to send me back to America... Into the cruel arms of my father. 

That was where the coldness came from. Every time I thought about him, I realized that the image of him would forever haunt my mind. His hands, what they did to me repeatedly, how they would always have that power, that ability. the shiver was not form the winds, it was form him. But unlike the shiver would get from being outside with the wrong clothes, this shiver would never leave you.

It would follow you, sometimes you would not notice, sometimes you saw it, but were too tired to escape it. And sometimes, in your happiest moments, you thought you lost it, but as soon as you were all alone again, dark, at night, in your room with nobody to laugh with, it was there. Standing by the door, letting itself come in. Letting my father come back in.

Into my life. Letting him invade and destroy everything I loved. Because, nothing was worth loving if the man supposed to be closest to you all your childhood, would kick and scream at the things you loved. I would always hate him for that, but it felt so wrong at the same time. 

Was it okay to hate my own father?

I was not sure of it, I had no objective outer opinion from anybody. Nobody knew, it was embarrassing to even ask myself that.