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Chapter 25: Timer struck zero.

Ivory

    We all sit there in silence while someone is still banging on the door. I know who's at the door just by a gut feeling. 

    My mother gets up from the couch and slowly walks to the door. I know she is dreading opening that door. I know if she opens her door she might not be able to keep that guard up she's made for herself because the shield she made is just so brand new and fragile, as if it was glass surrounding her. 

    When she makes it to the door she slowly puts her hand on the knob. The whole house is silent as she turns the knob I can almost hear the creaking of the rusty metal in the door not. I can faintly hear my mothers racing heartbeat. I can feel the warmth and the tightness of Declan's grip around me. His whole body is shielding me from that door. Nothing feels safe except for being right next to him. The smell of him is surrounding me. The taste of the kiss from earlier still lingering on my lips. The warmth from the kiss is still there too. I don't want it to go anywhere but I know as soon as the door opens there will be this heavy coldness to the atmosphere. 

    My mother turning the knob opening the door seem to be the slowest thing I have ever witnessed. I suddenly got this familiar feeling in my stomach. It's the feeling when you reading a book and you know something terrible is going to happen. But with a book you can put it down and pretend that you didn't read it work that it's not going to happen. This, is  life, this is real, as much as I want to, I can't shut this book called my life. The horror story that I don't want to read. The movie I can't stop watching. I can't just close my eyes and it all go away when I open them. It's all this there. 

    My mother has the door fully open now and the person at the door is just who I expected. He's wearing his fancy suit and tie today. He only wears them when he goes to work. I can hear the thing letters of my mother giving him responses to his questions of forgiveness. Hard telling him no that she doesn't want him back and that he is supposed to stay away. I can't just hear him getting angry I can feel him. I can feel it spreading around the room like a terrible virus. The anger that will affect any vulnerable surface it touches. 

    "What are you saying, I can't come into my own house?" 

    "I don't want you here. I thought I made that very clear," my mother's voice is strong and determined she's much stronger than I thought she was. But in her body language that my father can't see is betraying her. 

    "There is someone in the house," he says as a statement not a question I said he already knows who's in there. "You asked me for divorce and there's already a man in our house." 

    "Arthur, get-" before she could finish, he pushed her aside so aggressively she hits the wall with the hard knock. I hear her groan in pain. He takes five big bear steps to see who's in the living room. Seeing his wife with another man makes him less angry than seeing his daughter with her boyfriend. His peach colored skin is no longer peach it's fiery red. Not only seeing me here but that Declan's with me makes him infuriated. 

    "What the hell are you doing here?"

    Neither of us answer because it's none of his business. That just seems to me to even want angry if that's possible. His whole body starts trembling with anger. I have never seen him this angry before. It's his turn to watch his life fall apart before his eyes. It's his turn to realize that he has nothing. Because that's exactly what he did to me. My own father took my childhood away from me and it's his turn his own daughter took his last thing he can control. 

    "You," he states. "You're the reason why she's leaving me! It's the only thing that makes sense! She was the only person left that you could take away for me but you still took her! She was mine! This whole place was mine until you were born! You were a mistake!" What he saying to me right now it's nothing new I've got the speech over 1,000 times. It has no effect on me. What he says to me I am completely in utterly numb.