Dan The Dad (Phan)

17

I promptly woke her up for school and got her dressed and gave her some fruit and cereal for breakfast before the evil favors nanny showed up to get her.

"I'll see you tomorrow daddy." She said with her voice still sleepy as she took her nanny's hand.

"See you then." I crouched down and gave her a smile while looking in those sleepy brown eyes and knowing I would probably be taking her today.

"I love you." She said and ripped away from her nanny to throw her arms around my neck.

"I love you too." I told her meaning every word. She returned to her nanny and we traded goodbyes and she gave me a small wave before she left.

I didn't know if I could go back to sleep, I didn't want to miss the call I was supposed to get. I got on my laptop and got on tumblr and decided to go through girls outfits. Honestly having a child opened up so many awesome things I could do, she was kind of like a little doll I could dress up. I felt a sense of pride like she just deserved everything, I could get her pretty things, I could get her all the toys she wanted, and she'd never have to have a angry old lady to watch her ever again. I began to wonder if Phil would go for the idea of us now sharing a room so she could have her own, we always just sleep in his bed together anyway.

As I now looked through expensive children's shoes my phone started to go off with an unknown number.

This had to be it.

"Hello?" I answered.

"Is this Mr. Daniel Howell?" The lady asked.

"Yes?" I answered.

"Hi, I'm calling with the results of the paternity test you took." She said with a    voice so sweet she had to be smiling on the other end of the phone.

"Yeah." I said.

"The results say that you're 98% not the biological father of Megan Harper." Her words stunned me. There was no way, she looked exactly like me, even my family thought so. Megan could of actually passed off as my clone.

"There's a mistake." I stated.

"I assure you there's no mistake Mr. Howell." Her to tone was still sweet and I began to find it sickening in a way.

"No, there is. Is there some way you could do it again?" I asked.

"Sir, we always run the test three times for legal purposes and they all came back the exact same. I'm very sorry." She stated. I was quiet a moment as this all registered to me.

"Okay" I said quietly as I swallowed down the knot in my throat. "Thank you."

"You have a nice day Mr. Howell." She said.

"Yeah." I answered with a shaky voice before hanging up. I dropped my phone onto my lap and put my face in my hands and started to cry.
I had wanted this so badly, I loved this child. I was supposed to get the results back as positive, get her from school, and call the police and a lawyer, but now what could I do? She wasn't really my daughter. I was so sure, everyone was sure she was mine. Did her mother actually know?

"Dan?" I heard Phil but didn't look up, I just continued to cry. "What's wrong, what happened?" He asked with concern as I felt the couch sink in beside me and his hand on my back.

"She's not mine." I bawled into my hands. "I don't know what to do." My words were muffled.

"Oh. Oh no." Phil's voice sank as low as I felt. "You can't let her go home since you can't just get her now, I mean you have no proof you're her father." He said.

"I know." I sniffled and rubbed the tears out of my eyes.

"But you can't let her go home either." Phil said.

"I can take care of this, there's only one thing I can think of doing." I said and picked my phone up out of my lap. I looked up a the number to her school and called. I told them what was going on and they transferred me to the school counselor.

"Mrs. Bennette speaking." The counselor picked up.

"Hi my name is Dan Howell and I wanted to report a case of abuse for one of the children that go to your school." I told her.

"Alright Mr.Howell, which student might that be and who is the accused abuser?" She asked.

"Megan Rose Harper, she's four. I witnessed her mother hurting her arm the other day and it left bruises. She also has massive bruises all over her back that she said her mother did as well, she's also admitted to me that her mother pulls her hair."

"And who are you to Megan?" She asked making me pause.

"I'm her sitter." I finally said feeling as though it physically broke my heart to not say I was her dad.

"Thank you Mr. Howell, we'll be looking into that today and if your story matches up we'll be filing it with child protective services." She said.

"Thank you so much." I said with relief that they would look into this as soon as possible.

"You're welcome, Have a nice day." She said I hung up. Phil still sat there with me and I just stare off into space and sighed.

"I can't believe I said I was just her sitter." I said sadly. "But that's all that I am now, isn't it?" I asked "She's not mine." My voice trailed off as sadness took over my voice.

"No, she's not." Phil said. "But you still feel like her dad, don't you?"

"Yeah." My voice almost came out as a squeak.

"That means she's not yours by blood but you've formed a bond with her that only dads have with their children, it doesn't matter if she's biologically yours, she still calls you daddy and I think she would even if she knew."
Phil said.

"Oh god. I have to tell her now, don't I?" Dread followed by realization hit me. "No, I'm never even going to get to see her again." I felt tears coming on again "She's going to end up in some awful children's home possibly until she's an adult because they never adopt out the children and they wouldn't let two unmarried gay men with no real jobs have her." I now cried at the unfairness of life itself.

"We'll do what we can, it'll be alright." He tried to console me.

"No, no it won't." I cried. "I don't know what I'm supposed to do." I said.

"Stop with that. You know what to do. What would you're mum say to do?" He  asked me.

"Who cares?" I replied not seeing where his was going right now due to the sadness and despair clouding and clogging my brain.

"No, tell me what you think your mum would say about all this." He said sticking with his question.

"She'd probably tell me that it'll work itself out and it'll fall into place." I replied.

"And do you believe that?" He asked.

"No." I answered him.

"Has she given you any advice recently that's been right?" He asked.

"Yes. With you. She said you'd be back." I admitted and looked at him.

"I figured you'd go to her about us, and I figured she'd say that. You're mum is normally right you know. You'll get your chance to get her, just wait." He said.

But he was wrong.
I had called and called Allie only to get voicemail every time. She didn't reply to any of my texts asking where my daughter was or why she hadn't brought her over in the past few days. At least I can say I didn't stop trying, not for a whole week. I cried on and off, I missed Megan pretty bad and I would of done anything to see her. I tried calling her school three days into the week to see if she'd been or what happened with what I had told them only to get the reply "We can't give out that information."
I felt lost and helpless.

It was exactly a week when I got a knock on my door.