He's a family man {A Million Girls #2}

Chapter 5

***Trigger Warning*** - brief mention of self harm and abuse --- DM's are always open if you need a safe place to chat / rant x 

Monday morning. Nobody had since talked about what had been discussed just nights before; nobody wanted to. After all, enough people had been hurt and upset by the events that had taken place right under their noses without any of them even noticing it. 

The guilt that Billie and yourself felt was incredibly overwhelming. After Amelia had gone to bed that night and you were certain that she was asleep, You and Billie sat together, trying to figure out where you had gone wrong. 

"I don't get it, babe." Billie had said, pouring the both of you a drink. "Where did we go wrong?" You welcomed the drink and took a rather large sip before you looked back at him. His hand had been placed on your knee, so you placed your free hand on top of his hand. "I don't know." You replied, honestly. You watched as Billie put his drink down and sat for ages staring at the same place of the living room. He remained silent for a little bit longer before he started sobbing. You put your drink down and moved closer to him on the sofa. "Baby, don't blame yourself." You kissed his forehead as he continued to cry. Your fingers were running through his hair. "You weren't to know. We weren't to know." 

"That's our daughter, we should have known." He stated. 

"I know." You replied, quietly. "But we didn't. Amelia is exactly like you in the sense that she won't ask for help. because she is stubbornly independent." Billie gave a small chuckle as you wiped a tear off of his cheek. "She thought that she could handle it, she believed that she had it all under control." You gave a small laugh then too. "She was trying to protect us." This made you laugh because it was ironic. She was trying to protect you, but you should have been the ones protecting her. 

"We should have been the ones who protected her," Billie said, echoing your thoughts. "Not the other way around."

"I know it's hard, Billie, but we know now. We can still put a stop to all of this." You explained, feeling a strange sense of power. "We can stop Declan once and for all." Billie nodded before kissing you. 

You were so overwhelmed with guilt about being so hard on Amelia for the way that she was treating everyone else when under the surface she was fighting something unimaginable, not that this excused her behaviour and she understood this. You just wished, more than anything, that Amelia had come to talk to the both you, before it had gotten out of hand. But like you and Billie had agreed, you knew now, and that was what was most important. Now you had the opportunity to prevent this from happening to someone else. 

Amelia was the first one up this morning, a long time before anybody else. She was pacing around the kitchen. "Dad, I'm scared." She said, biting her nails out of fear.

"Baby, listen to me." He said, calmly, taking her hands into his. "You have got nothing to be scared off." He reassured her. "He will not come anywhere near you because if he does, I'll beat up his dumb ass." Amelia gave a small laugh, which in turn made Billie smile. 

"Dad-" Amelia began but Billie cut her off because he could see her getting herself worked up again.  "Your mom and I are taking you to school and we've arranged a meeting with the principal." He explained. "I promise you, it's going to be okay. Have I ever lied to you before?"

"No, you haven't." Amelia sighed, "But what if--" She was getting stressed again. Billie placed his hands at the side of her head. "Calm down. It's going to be fine." Billie kissed the top of her head as you came into the kitchen and poured yourself a cup of coffee. As you did, Billie turned to you and wrapped his arms around you. "I'm going to go and get the rest of them out bed." You kissed him, making him smile. "What?" You asked, laughing.