Past Convictions H.S/M.C. Sequel to "Convict"

Chapter 5

Harry -

"Dad! We need to talk!"

"I'm in the laundry room!"

"Where?"

"The laundry -oh never mind. Where are you, and I'll come to you instead!" I shout up the stairs.

"Up here!" Is her answer.

No shit. I thought maybe if you were upstairs, you would be up there. But that's just my thinking...

So I climb the stairs, until I've walked into three rooms and not found my daughter yet. Until I walk into my bedroom. Wait.

"Why are you in my room?" I ask, leaning against the doorway. Chloe puts her hands on her hips and rolls her eyes.

"You're the one who told me to clean up. So I thought I'd do in here too. But when cleaning out under your bed-"

"Why are you cleaning under my bed?" This girl and her cleaning habits.

"That's not what's important. What is important is this." She holds up something I haven't even seen for years. A condom packet.

"Chloe! Give me that!" I snatch it out of her hands and shove it in my pocket as she sighs.

"Dad, that thing is so old it wouldn't work if you needed it. How long has it been since you've been laid?" How am I supposed to answer that? Is my sixteen year old daughter honestly asking me when was the last time I had sex?

Yes.

"Chloe, that is-"

"Just tell me, how long has it been?" She insists.

"How old are you?" I ask, crossing my arms, trying to make her drop this subject.

"Sixteen."

"Okay then. Somewhere along those lines." I tell her as I head back downstairs. I'm not seriously having this conversation with my teenage daughter.

"Dad! Seriously? No girlfriends? No one-night-stands? No drunken hookups? No "one last time"? Nothing?" Chloe unfortunately follows me into the laundry room where I go back to sorting the clothes. I'm the housewife around here, don't judge.

"Chloe...I've only ever slept with one person. And it was literally one time."

"What?! You're...you've...one...that's.."

"And you came along after that. And I just never found time for any kind of relationships, and it's not that important. I've been happy. Don't you think I have?" I ask, starting the washing machine.

"I guess. But...did you love her? Mom, I mean?" She asks, fiddling around with her lip piercing.

I lean against the rattling washing machine and push my hair away from my face before even trying to answer the question.

"Yeah, I did."

"Did she love you?" That simple question is one I've asked myself since I found out about Miley giving Chloe away. I thought she loved me, I thought she'd wait for me.

"I don't know. We were going to raise you together, that was always our plan. I promised your mom I'd come back and we'd be together."

"But then you came back and found me before you found her." I've told the whole story to Chloe before. So it's not something she's unfamiliar with.

"Yeah. So-"

"Wonder whatever happened to her. Is she ever met anyone else." Chloe says more to herself than me.

"I can't answer that, baby."

"Maybe we could...try to find her?"

"Whoa, wait...you want to find her? Chloe, she...she gave you up. I-I don't think it'd be such a great idea for us to really, like go and actually try to f-find her. Aren't you, don't you like it here? The way things are?" I'm not practically flying around the laundry room, knocking things over trying to keep calm when Chloe suggest trying to find her mom.

Who she already knows. To a certain degree.

"Why are you freaking out? It's not that big of a deal." Chloe days with a roll of her eyes and she walks out of the room, leaving me with more questions.

Why does she want to find her mom now?

********

We're having dinner when my phone buzzes and I read the text from an unfamiliar number.

"Please just listen to me. I just want to meet Chloe, properly. I'm sorry for everything that's happened in the past, okay? Can't we just meet up sometime and talk? Please?" Miley.

"God!" I slam the stupid phone against the table and Chloe's eyes widen so much I'm afraid her eyes might fall out of her face.

"Dad...are you okay?" She asks, slowly and carefully.

"Yeah, fine." I lie and grab my phone and storm out of the room and upstairs. Dialing the "unfamiliar number".

"Hello? Harry?"

"Miley, look, I'll talk. I'll meet you, and we can talk. But Chloe will not be there."

"Harry, I just want-"

"If it goes okay, I might let you meet her. But I want to make sure that everything is on the level. Got me?"

I can practically hear her nodding.

"Yes. That's fine. Thank you."

Well, here goes everything.