Flicker | ✔️

Chapter 45: Cale

"What are you doing up?"

I turn around to find my father behind me, yawning and rubbing his eyes.

"I could ask you the same."

"Well the glass you broke woke me up." He says pointing towards the mug on the floor.

The broken pieces left on the floor surprise me and then the pain starts to seep in as I feel the cut starting to burn in my foot.

I take a quick step back, still slightly surprised that I dropped my mug on the floor.

Did I daydream?

Then I remember once again that my father is standing behind me and I turn to glare at him.

"I'll help you with that." He tells me but I don't want his help. What is his help useful for now? I wanted his help when I was a kid wanting support for my games. I wanted help when my mother used to say no to ice creams and I needed a father to tell her it was alright and that I could get one. I needed fatherly love. Not help to clean up a broken mug.

"Never mind, I'll do it myself." I reply harshly.

He starts towards the cupboard.

"It's fine, I can-"

"No, you can't! I don't want you to!" I yell at him and he takes a step back.

"Cale, what's wrong?"

"You walk around here as if enough were different, as if you had always been a dad to me, as if u now held that position! No! You can't rewind time. You can't make up for those childhood years without you. You can't just barge in here and decide because your last whore was becoming boring that you'll just come here to go for another round with Elise! I know you told me that she didn't want you seeing me, but you obviously didn't try that hard either?! I mean, if you really wanted to see me you would've taken this to court, you would've tried. You just didn't care so don't pretend you care now because you made it pretty clear that you didn't want me in your life!"

"Cale... I didn't want to disturb you and your mother... Elise was convinced it wouldn't be helpful for me to see you..."

"I wanted to be disturbed. I wanted to have my dad magically appear before me as a surprise visit. You just never came. Elise didn't want you here for another reason."

"Which is?"

"Ask her yourself! Thanks to you my life sucked and it still does! Because you left I had to carry on all your responsibilities! So trust me, cleaning the floor won't be much of a problem for me. I hope you teach Jack before your next departure!" I spit in disgust.

I hate him and nothing he will say will never change that.

He turns and leaves but then stops in his tracks and looks back at me.

"I never meant to hurt you."

I don't know why these words mean more to me than I thought they would. I don't know why I simply feel like crying, like giving myself away, like losing myself again, like drowning myself in alcohol. So I just let the tears roll as I clean up the mess before heading out, a bottle of vodka in one hand, a bottle of tequila in another.

I need to breathe.