What Was Lost // (Harry Styles FanFic)

Chapter 11

Lilly's POV

    A parent's love is the kind of love that has no beginning and no end. It has no limit, and no explanation. If someone ever asks you to explain why you love your child so much, there will never be enough words or ways to explain it, because you don't even understand it yourself.

     I know all of this personally, because that's the way I loved my little girl. She wasn't even able to tell me she loved me back, and I hardly got any sleep for those three months, but I loved her beyond words and beyond imagination. And they were the best three months of my life.

    But my parents have never loved me that way, especially my dad. I can remember being four years old, and overhearing my father tell my mother he never wanted a child in the first place, he just wanted her to stop nagging about wanting to be a mother. She loved me, but she would always love him more, and she would never stick up to him. I wasn't worth the fight it would cause.

The first time he laid his hands on me I think I was ten or eleven. We were walking to the dinner table to eat, and I accidentally stepped on his work shoes. I turned around to say sorry, and he gripped me by my arms and through me against the wall, then told me to use my eyes better. I laid there crying and trying to catch my breath from having the wind knocked out of me, and I could hear my parents cutlery scraping across their plates while they were eating without me.

That hurt me so bad, but made me feel like if I could work myself so hard and do so much good that he would have no choice but to love me and be proud of me. He would have no reason to hit me anymore. I made straight A's all throughout school. I always used my manners, and was good to everyone. I busted my ass at every sport I could possibly play, trying to be the MVP, so that if maybe everyone thought I was the best, he would too.

But none of that mattered. He would always find something to be mad at me about. 'I went in your room this morning and your bed wasn't made, stop being so damn lazy.'

I could bring him home a report card of a 3.9 GPA and his response would be 'If only you were fucking smart enough to stay out of the way.'

When people were around though it was a different story. I remember Sutter's mom asking him one time why he never came to my games, so the next one he showed up to and screamed and cheered for me louder than anyone else in the stands. I remember feeling pure joy, that he finally was happy and proud of me. Something had finally broke through to him and he would stop acting like he hated me.

We got in the car that night to drive home from my game, and I asked him if he was going to be at my next one. His response? 'Hell no. I wasted three hours of my fucking time to be here, and now I'm way behind work. The work that helps pay for all these sports you want to play. So you tell me Lilly, what's more important to you, having family for this money or me being there?"

I told him the answer was money, but in my mind I was thinking I would trade all the money in the world for a father who truly loved me.

Sutter and our treehouse were my escape and happy place when I was younger. And then as we got older and were a couple, his kisses and reassurance were what kept me going. Him telling me he loved me was always the best part of my day, because I never heard it from anyone else.

I never had the guts to tell Sutter and his family what my dad did to me. People don't understand the fear that eats inside you, at the possibility of people knowing. You never know if something would be done about it, and then my life would only get worse if he found out I told but he didn't get in trouble. And then there's the worry that no ones going to believe you. It's a kids word over an adults, an adult with power in this town at that.