From across the hallway

Part 34

"S-Scott? W-What are you doing here?" uttered Missy, her face full of shock, her heart pounding inside her ribcage.

This couldn't be happening. He couldn't be here.

Scott. The man she had loved, what felt like a lifetime ago.

The man who had left her and his own daughter because they weren't good enough for him. Because they weren't perfect enough.

Scott, who had dark hair and the most piercing blue eyes, stared up at her smirking.

He leaned up against the doorframe, almost holding himself up.

He was drunk. Really drunk.

His eyes were slightly glazed, and even from here Missy could smell the overpowering scent of whiskey on his breath.

He moved his weight from foot to foot, trying to focus on her.

"I see you've moved on," he uttered in a low, slurred voice, letting out a cocky smirk. "I would say this looks like a nice place, but-"

He trailed off as his eyes took in the less-than modern shared hallway, with it's red threadbare carpet and peeling walls.

Missy swallowed, trying to keep herself from bursting into tears.

"What are you doing here, Scott?" she repeated.

After all this time what was he doing here? And in this state too?

"I just saw you around," he said with a shrug, blinking at her a couple of times, that smug-smile still there. "Thought we should...catch up..."

He looked over her shoulder and into her apartment.

"... really though, I'm surprised this was all you could manage. Thought you'd have tried to make something of yourself after all this time?" he said snidely. "Or did me leaving you, really hit you that hard?"

He let out a cruel laugh that cut through Missy like a knife.

His sour, stale breath wafted over her as he lowered his blue eyes so that they bored into hers.

Missy began to tremble. But she wasn't going to be that easy to take down.

"You left us Scott," snapped Missy loudly, finding her voice. "Me and Emily. You told us you didn't want us anymore. W-What did you expect would happen? T-That I would go off and find myself a billionaire husband and move to a mansion in Beverley Hills?"

But Scott barely reacted to her outburst, merely giving her another sneering, dismissive look.

He licked his lips.

"And yet instead, you you find yourself some fucking lowlife piece of trash to fuck instead..." he spat, swaying about slightly on the spot.

Even after this time she could feel Scott getting under her skin, provoking her, taunting her. And it was working, whatever this little game of his was.

Missy felt all that confidence, all that pride and ferociousness she had built up over this past couple of years, come crashing down around her.

"...letting him look after our daughter?" Scott continued, shaking his head disapprovingly.

But at this, Missy's eyes snapped up towards his.

She gave a growl.

"Our daughter?" she said suddenly. "Our daughter?! She's my daughter, Scott! You never wanted her, you have nothing to do with her. Wade's more of a father to her than you've ever been. Don't you dare even talk about her!"