Where's Daddy?

Nixon's Story

"Um. Excuse me?"

"Ben, you heard him!" Ben started to slouch in his chair. He brought his elbows up to the desk and rubbed his face. I slowly started to sit down, but stopped to grab his phone. "Yes, Ben?" The receptionist answered.

"Oh, I'm sorry. It's Ashlyn."

"Oh, I apologize, Ms. Ashlyn."

"It's okay. Does anyone in the office have time to hang out with Dalilah? I need to talk to Ben in private."

"Oh, yes. I will find someone, Ms. Ashlyn. They will come knock on the door in about five minutes. If not, then I will call back."

"Alright, thank you." I hung up the phone and finally sat back down. I bounced Dalilah in my lap until someone came to the door. Nixon reached for her foot to tickle, but I smacked his hand. "What was that for?" He bugged me. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. Yep. Dalilah was the spitting image of her father. Impatient, whiny, bothersome, needy, lying, but at least I love Dalilah. I did love Nixon, though. I opened my eyes when I heard the knock on the door. Nixon jumped up and tried to grab Dalilah to take her to the door. "No." I snapped. I stood up and walked over to the door. "Why?"

"Because I hate you."

"Watch it. We don't need Dalilah to be talking like that."

"Just shut up already." I saw out of the corner of my eye, he shrugged, sat down, and put his face in his hands. I opened the door to see a smiley blonde standing in the doorway. "Is this Dalilah?" Her high pitch voice was more annoying than Dalilah's.

"Yes." I replied while slapping a giant grin on my face.

"Alright, I'll take her. Hello there little one! Are we gonna have fun?" She bounced Dalilah on her hip and walked away.

"Thank you!" I called after her. I closed the door and slowly turned around. I swayed my hips as I walked over to Nixon. I wrapped my arms around his neck and gave him a hug. He put his hand on my arm and smiled. I smiled and giggled, too. "I knew that you still loved me!" I then whispered in his ear, 

"No. I'm just practicing on how I'm going to kill you!" As I finished the sentence I got louder and stood up. He quickly turned around in his chair and stared at me. I raised my eyebrow and looked back at him. "What happened to my girlfriend? My cute girlfriend with the great attitude who loved her child and everyone around her?"

"Guess what buddy? She grew up. Unlike you. Coward! You left me with a baby to go... to go play... soldier!" I couldn't get the words out of my mouth.

"Can you just let me explain?" He started to stand up, which bothered me. He always thought he was in control because he was taller.

"No!" I yelled pushing him in the chair. I could see in his eyes the fear that he had when I pushed him. "What's wrong? Scared you're gonna fall and die? So you can just abandon me again to raise our daughter alone!"

"That's not what I wanted! Far from actually! I wanted-"

"To kill me? To break my heart? To abandon me and your daughter? To hurt her? She will be scarred for life now! 'Oh yea I watched my Daddy try to kill my Mommy, but they're okay now!' No! That is far from what you planned! And yet, it still happened!"

"Ashlyn-"

"Don't you 'Ashlyn' me! And get me to look into your big brown eyes and fall into your spell! You-"

"Ashlyn! Shut up!" I closed my mouth and tried to calm down. Ben stood up to defend me and raised his finger. "Can someone-"

"Shut up! All of you!" This was the first time Nixon had ever scared me. "If you would stop accusing me of things I didn't do, I could explain to you."

"Sound familiar?" I said to Ben and he chuckled.

"What's so funny?" Nixon snapped.

"Nothing." Ben answered, afraid.

"Alright. A week before you got pregnant, my dad had told me about this company, that helped train soldiers for the military. Since I wanted to join the military after college, I of course checked out the company. They had me sign a contract to join the team and promise that I wouldn't back out because 'We spend a lot of money for you guys to join'. After I found out you were pregnant, I wanted to back out of the program, but they wouldn't let me. So I stayed with them through your pregnancy. Whenever I said I was going to the gym, that's where I went. My dad found out about you being pregnant when you were four months in. He was pissed. So he came to the company and told them an idea. They came to me and said that I would need to go to a moutain with you and get you to 'push' me off. I would stumble to the edge and fall. If you tried to save me, I had to ask you if you loved me. If you said yes then I was supposed to save myself or make it seem like you did. But the loopole was that if I 'lived' they would kill Dalilah. So when you said yes I couldn't let them kill Dalilah. the other option was for them to be at the bottom of the mountain and catch me if you said no, they wouldn't hurt anyone, but I wouldn't be able to see either of you. I said 'How could you?' because I wanted you to be the strong woman you are and pull me up so they wouldn't have to do either. Though, I couldn't help. I dropped off even though you said yes to save Dalilah."

"Why did you agree?" I mumbled through my tears.

"They said they would kill me if I didn't agree. I did that and since I couldn't see you guys they sent me to different countries. I have been to about thirty countries in these -what four?- years. I wanted to see you so bad that after my thirtieth country, I told them how I felt. They said they would let me go. But they let me go four hours away from where you lived. And they left me with nothing. I managed to find my way here, but figuring you moved out of the house, I didn't go home. I just wandered the streets trying to get some money. And today when I saw you, I thought it would be any easy target. A young women, on her own. I asked for a cigarette first to make sure no one was with you. But I didn't check the back seat. They only thing they gave me from the program was a gun and the clothes on my back. I'm sorry, Ashlyn. I didn't mean for any of this to happen. I wish I could take it back." He ended in tears, along with Ben and I, too. Nixon was overwhelmed with the tears and dropped to his knees. He sobbed and I froze. I didn't know what to do. He looked up at me with the tears flowing down his face. "I'm sorry. I-I love you." I broke down and fell on my knees beside him. I wrapped my arms around him and soaked my tears into his back. "I don't know how long it's been since I've heard that, and they meant it." He sniffled and looked up at me. He put his hands around my face and put our foreheads together. "Me, too." and he pressed his lips against mine.

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