SOMEONE'S DAUGHTER || t.s.

05. i watched it begin again

A/N: hey y'all, sorry for the late update. i spent my normal writing time yesterday talking to my best friend—she's going through a lot right now, but as of this afternoon, the worst stuff has resolved, so i'm feeling a lot less worried about her. not sure how updates are going to go with school and stuff this next month or so, but i'll do my best to keep them consistent. love you guys and thank you for reading!!

. ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁ ⟡ ݁ . ⊹ ₊ ݁. brighton brielle . ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁ ⟡ ݁ . ⊹ ₊ ݁.

Friday came around far too soon for her liking.

It wasn't that she was dreading meeting Taylor. No, she'd never do that to Travis. After all that he had done for her since her mother's passing, it wouldn't be fair to get annoyed or upset about him introducing his girlfriend to her. She knew that her parents had never been engaged or married; they'd dated for eight months before her mother had found out she was pregnant, and after that, Travis had been nothing but a thing of their past.

Well, now he was part of her present and future, too, and she wasn't sure how much she liked that fact. In all honesty, he'd been nothing but good to her since she'd moved in with him, but she wasn't sure how long that was going to last. He had a huge career than came with an even bigger fan base, and keeping up with being in the spotlight definitely couldn't have been an easy task on its own. And now he had her to care for? She figured it was too good to be true.

Not that it was "good." It was horrible. When she woke up in the hospital after two days with the news that her mom had passed, she wasn't sure who she would go to. Her grandparents were both deemed unfit to care for a child, and her mom didn't have any siblings; her only cousins were Wyatt, Elliotte, and Bennett, whom she only saw because her mom wanted her to have some connection to Travis' family. She didn't mind, though; they were cute and she liked her Aunt Kylie and Uncle Jason enough to spend the occasional holiday dinner with them.

But Travis himself was another story. She'd never seen him as her father; she knew that was his relation to her, but it had never been his title in her mind. After all, how could it have been? He'd chosen not to be involved in her life from the beginning; he probably never would have gotten involved if her mother didn't pass away. As much as she understood the fact that she shared half of his DNA, and that meant she was also related by blood to all of his blood relatives, it didn't mean that her relationship with him had to be the same as it was with all of them. She found herself enjoying the company of Travis' family on occasion, but when it came to Travis himself... well, she'd much rather be anywhere else.

She heard the doorbell ring, and then the sound of the front door opening. She braced herself for the sound of Travis' voice yelling for her to come downstairs, and she knew that at this point, she didn't really have another choice. At this point, all that she could hope for was that the evening would pass by quickly, and that in the blink of an eye, she'd be back to the comfort of her own isolation from the rest of the world, sitting behind the closed door of her bedroom. Of course, it still didn't feel like home, and it didn't feel like her room, but it was better than being in Travis' line of sight.

"Brin?" Travis' voice floated up the stairs. She grimaced at the sound of her nickname in his voice. Pretty much everyone she was close to had referred to her by the shortened version of her name, but Travis wasn't close to her. And she wasn't close to Travis. There was no reason for him to call her anything other than her legal name. "Can you come downstairs, please?"

She didn't feel the need to say anything in return; since the death of her mom, she'd become a girl of very few words—if any at all. Grumbling to herself in her head, she pushed herself off of the bed and slowly started down the hallway in the direction of the staircase, her footsteps quiet and timid, much like every other movement she made nowadays. It seemed to represent how small she felt after the only person who'd ever seem to understood her had pretty much left her to fend for herself on Earth.