Karma ||H.S||

Chapter 35

The way I'm feeling when we drive back onto land off the ferry, is clear on my face. Dad's sitting next to me in the driver's seat, nudging my arm, trying to tell me that everything will be fine. I know that he's right. I was in the Vancouver area for four months after I finally ran away from Ryan. He didn't know where Dad lived anymore because we moved, and there was no way anything bad was going to happen. Nothing bad happened in that four months before I left for college, so why would anything bad happen now?

I'm just being paranoid.

It was hard to leave Harry back in Victoria. But knowing that I would see him again in just a few days, definitely made the goodbye a little easier. He had come to the ferry to bid me goodbye, where Dad, who had a big change of heart about Harry, snapped a picture of us kissing under a mistletoe in the port lobby. Why this damn mistletoe was still there a day after Christmas, I will never know. But Harry took advantage of it, and apparently, so did my weird dad.

The drive from the ferry to our house isn't long, but I'm happy we don't have to drive through the city to get to it. When I finally came clean to Dad about Ryan, in the smallest of details at first, I told him that the only way I could come home to him and stay, is if he moved out of the city. Luckily for me, Dad was quick to find a new place to live, just outside of Vancouver, in Burnaby, at the end of a quiet street, lost in the world surrounded by large trees. It was only then that I was able to free myself from belonging to someone who I'm sure has the devil living inside of him.

Dad is one of the biggest Lawyer's in British Columbia. He owns a few law firms throughout the province and on Vancouver Island, and money has never been an issue for our family. The three houses we have lived in have been big, honoring that of Dad's high wages. Although he always settles for the nicest of homes, they have never been too big for our liking. They all still held a great deal of comfort among our riches, because as many of the nicest homes I have been in, in my life, the walls around us, always, no matter where we lived, absorbed more love than I think I ever deserved. This one was no different.

Being in my bedroom, only brings back a lot of painful memories. Although I was finally done with Ryan when I lived here, his phone calls and texts only started dying down a month before I left for California. I never told Dad that he was still harassing me, but I think he knew there was still something going on. Dr. Swanson told him not to pressure me into talking about anything or pry for what I might not want to talk about, and therefore he never questioned me directly, when I knew that he wanted to. Being a lawyer, he was very good with his manipulating ways, but despite what I had just gone through, I was still smart and could see right through him.

As I'm about to turn the tv on, there's a knock at my bedroom door, and Dad steps in. "Can we talk?" He looks around the room as if it's the first time he's ever been in here, before positioning himself at the end of my bed and his grey eyes lock with mine. "I think it's time," he finally says, sternly.

I don't need to ask him what he means, because I know quite well what he's talking about. He has been wanting to put Ryan away this whole time. To lock him up and throw away the key. He still has no idea what Ryan's name is. He doesn't know where he lives, what he does for a living, who his friends are or what he looks like. But he knows what he did to me and what I went through, and he has never shied away from expressing his feelings about what he wants to do to him. 

"We can't," I reply. It's always the same answer and Dad always asks the same question after it.

"Why are you trying to protect him, Paisley?" he asks. "Just tell me who he is."

"I'm not trying to protect him, Dad," I raise my voice. We've had this same conversation more times than I can count, and my answer never changes. "I'm trying to protect you. He has friends. If he gets locked up for what he did to me, his friends would find you. They would find us. They would know you're my Dad and I can't lose you."