Wasted

Chapter 11

I wave a last time to my three new mates before walking through my front door. It's almost six and my dad's baking pancakes. Delicious. Only he can bake them like I want them.

Something is on his mind, since I was a kid he makes pancakes when he's feeling bad or when I am. He has to make something up to me.

"Dad what's wrong?" I ask him.

Great sentence to start a conversation with, I know. He looks up at me and frowns. "Nothing, I'm just baking."

"Yea, why so?"

"Uhm for no reason I guess?" He almost asks and looks a bit confused. Fake confused may I add."Should there be something?"

"No no it's just.. That's your thing when you're down." I say and the frown on his face lowers.

"You know me too well don't you."

"Uhu." I say and a weak smile plays on his aged lips. Well he's 'only' fourthy two. He calls himself: a young soul in a not that young body. Well as young you can call his soul. A soul who doesn't understand the needs of a teenager.

"It's just.." He starts. "I was thinking about your mum." He looks down to his hands and then back to nothing in front of him.

"You still miss her?" I ask, what a stupid question. Of course he misses the love of his life. The woman that changed him in so many ways.

The woman that gave him his only child. The woman that left him with a broken heart.

"Every day more and more." He admits. "People say it gets easier as time passes but nothing is less true than that. It only gets worse."

Tears pop up in his eyes. I only saw my dad crying once, I'm not ready for a second time.

"Dad come on." I almost cry with him and walk towards him to pull his torso against me. The warmth and typical sent of his body makes me feel.. home.

"You look so much like her you know." His low voice cracks in the end and so does my heart. His strong arms are wiped around me and I couldn't wish for more than being in my father's arms like a little girl. I'm his little girl and I'll always be.

"It's almost her third birthday we celebrate without her already." He says. "It seems so much shorter though, like I saw her last night and the sent of her perfume following her footsteps."

"In February it's been four years." I say.

Four years seems so long, but so short at the same time. Like it didn't happen recently but the pain still isn't gone either. I still feel her presence in some way. We still use the same shampoo as we did back then and I still use the comb we sheared when she couldn't find hers. My mother and I are so different but still the same in so many ways. She was unorganized and impulsive like a teenage girl and I was always prepared and responsible, overthinking everything, what became even worse when she died. But we both have green eyes and dark brown curls. I have her smile and my father always stares at me when I watch television, he says that we even do that the same way. We both love my dad unconditionally but our love for chocolate was stronger than what.

I wish I could have her back, even just for one day, to show her how much we miss and still love her. How big the hole still is she left behind and how we still eat her favorite cereal. How her perfume is still on the same place and how we just couldn't get ourself to put her things together, we're still not ready for that. I want her back to tell her that when I'm feeling sad I crawl to her wardrobe just to smell at her scarf because the familiar sent of her skin still calms me down after all these years of growing up. I would hug her and in the end of the day I could say goodbye. Maybe I could let her go then