Shatter [Jonathan Byers] Stranger Things II

LIX: Goodbye

good·bye

noun

an instance of saying "goodbye"; a parting

Gentle waves lapped the edges of the lake, a shore with dark, wet sand that was coarse. The early December weather was surprisingly beautiful, but with a bitter chill that could do damage. Emilia was clad in a big jacket she purchased recently, at Hopper's insistence, and she still felt that cold creeping down the back of her neck. She wondered, though, as she sat in the driver's seat of her car, if it was the chill of something else.

All the heat -the minimal amount that her car managed to pump out- in the little Pinto had dwindled and she knew it was colder inside her car than outside now. There was no wind outside to speak of, a calm before a storm she worried was coming. But of all her worries, this one was one of the lesser ones. Leaning back, Emilia closed her eyes and wondered if he would even show up.

Recalling the conversation she had with Jonathan that morning, she wondered if maybe he should have come with her. But then, it was not for Jonathan to impede on, it wasn't something for him to be involved in.

"You're sure you don't want me to come with you? The last time you saw him, it didn't exactly end well," Jonathan asked nervously. It was clear that he didn't want to go, but he also didn't want Emilia to go on her own.

"To be fair, he was mad at you," Emilia quipped.

Jonathan sighed, placing his hands on Emilia's shoulders. "I'm just worried, you know?"

"He's not going to hurt me or anything." Emilia pulled away from him. "You don't need to worry about me, okay?"

"Okay," Jonathan agreed.

Now Emilia was sitting in the car in a makeshift parking lot at the lake, wondering when the last time she had gone there was. Thinking back on it, she recalled coming there with Jonathan once, way back when she told him about Tommy. Funny, how such a horrible event in her life allowed her to grow so much with Jonathan. This lake was one her and her mother used to go to all the time in the heat of the summers, before Emilia became a teenager and started to see the fall of her parent's relationship clearer, to understand it better.

This lake was a place of clarity, a place where she could remember her mother. There was no plot in a cemetery for her, no headstone with her name, birth and death date. No way to mourn except to remember the good and bad, to look at those photos that her father had long ago given to her, unveiling them as if she suddenly was old enough. Back then things seemed okay with her and her father, it was agreed that they were better off staying away from each other.

But she didn't want to end on the note they did, back at the diner.

Emilia got out of the car and inhaled the sharp, cold air. Walking to the edge of the lake, she stood at the shore and let the tiny waves lap at her boots. They were water proof, warmer than anything she owned living with her father. Standing at the edge of the lake, she had her hands in her pockets, wondering how this would go.

Instead of being brave, Emilia had placed a note on her father's doorstep, telling him to be here by two PM that Sunday afternoon. She waited in a cloud of fear and a bit of excitement, wondering if he would show up with what she asked for.

The crunch of sand behind her told her the answer before she heard her father's voice.

"Hey Emilia," he sounded sober.

"Hey dad," the word didn't roll of her tongue pleasantly. It felt wrong to say that word to anyone; her dad was Hopper, even though she wouldn't use that particular word -he would forever just be Hopper.

She didn't have a mum, and she didn't have a dad.

But she had so much more.

"You sound surprised to see me here." He stood beside her, looking over the glittering lake.

Not once did either of them look at the other.

"Can you blame me?" Emilia asked as she brushed her bangs back.

"Guess not," he replied.

There was a dragging silence between them for a moment, a tension that would never go away. It didn't matter if she never saw him again after this, it didn't matter if he showed up at her graduation with flowers and a sparkle in his eye, with pride. None of it mattered because their relationship was severed, if they even ever had one. But in this moment of calm and serenity, they both accepted it. He would not try to ask her to move back in again, he would not pretend that he wanted his daughter back.

She knew this because he handed her a thick envelope, papers shoved inside. Along the top there were greasy fingerprint stains. She took it from his grasp and pulled out the papers an inch to read them. Seeing what they said, what that thick stack of papers meant, she hugged it to her chest and let her heart beat so fast.

"Thank you," she said at last, finding her voice after it got lost somewhere underneath the colossal wave of excitement.

"You deserve it." He shuffled. "He deserves it."

Before Emilia could say anything in return, her father continued. "I was never meant to have kids, and he was. He lost his, and I lost you in another way. Perhaps it's worse, perhaps not... But all I know is that you're better off with him. Not that you don't know that already, you've been living with him for a year..."

"Last year, when you asked me to pop by every now and then... Why?" Emilia asked.

"Felt like the right thing to say."

"And the diner?"

He sighed, ashamed. "Withdrawal. Guess I needed something."

She nodded, then she knew it was time. "Goodbye."

"Goodbye," he said the words a parent should never say to his child.

Only, she wasn't his child anymore.

She was legally Jim Hopper's.

Sorry this chapter was lame, happy endings make me uncomfortable because you have to wrap up all these things. Like I didn't want to leave it hanging with her dad, and I had to confirm she was adopted by Hopper.

Question of the Day: Is there a person or family who acts as your second family?