Her Princess Charming

Cutting it Open Again

'What?? He's fighting for custody over Luke?! MOM!' I yelled at her as she told me why dad was back.

'I didnt know! I would never let that happen!' She said with tears in her eyes. She was shaking violently while Jonathan was hugging her. Luke was already asleep.

'Why did you even let them in the house?' I asked in dismay.

'He's still your father.' She sniffed.

'Wow, mom! I ran away to search for him and you told me to stop and let it go because he already left us for good and now youre telling me that he is still our father! Are you out of your mind??' She didnt answer me. I paced back and forth searching for some sense out of this mess. I ran my way up to my room and slammed the door shut.

-

'You did what??' Juliana asked with wide eyes.

'Yeah. I punched him in the face and dragged his bitch out of the house.' I stared at the tip of the melting icecream on my cup.

'Woah. What did he do?' She asked taking a spoonfull of strawberry icecream into her mouth.

'He was helpless.' I laughed bitterly, replaying the scenes in my head.

'Whaaat?' She looked so confused. 'You punched your father.' She said, emphasizing every word. I laughed again and nodded as she took another spoonfull of strawberry icecream.

'Man, do you love strawberries that much?' I asked taking in a spoonfull of my chocolate flavored one.

'Yeah.' She talked with her mouth full and icecream almost dripped from her mouth. We laughed.

Somehow, being with her and being able to tell her everything made me feel better. She was my sun amidst the blinding darkness. She was the music that made the noise fade. She was everything that made me feel balanced.

'Let's go back.' I stood up abruptly. She looked at me with question in her face. 'To the old house.'

'What are we going to do there?' She placed her cup down slowly and wiped the side of her lips with her sleeves. She looked like an innocent kid.

'I dont know. Let's just go.'  I wanna see it again. I suddenly wanted to go back there since last night happened. It was no use holding back what I felt.

-

I took a deep breath before pushing the rusty gate open. It creaked noisily.

I held her hand as we walked in. It was a bit cloudy all of a sudden. I remembered we didnt bring the car, we just took a cab, because early this morning I went to Juliana's and I didnt tell my mom.

'Hey there old friend.' I tapped the old swing made out of a worn out car tire connected to a chain on the big oak tree about 2 kilometers before the house.

'You sure had memories with this one.' She smiled.

'Oh yeah, like that very huge bruise I got on my knee and another on my arm when Jonathan pushed me a little harder than he should.' I laughed. It was funny thinking about it now but at that time I cried about a bucket of tears.

'What the hell!' She laughed.

'Yeah. And that metal dining set over there, where we ate yesterday, was where we ate breakfast every morning.. Well, we used to.' I pointed at the direction of it.

'I used to climb this oak tree.' I said. 'Sometimes when my mom would play hide and seek with us, I would hide up there and it takes her forever to find me.' I started to climb up like I used to.