the road to truth

-new beginnings

*author's note at end xo*

"I'm glad you called," he said as I sat myself down at a torn seat near gate 8A.

"Yeah, well...I need to see you, I'm kind of a mess right now." I say and take a deep breath, waiting for his response.

"Tell me when you get in, I'll pick you up." he replied and I heard the phone click off, the call had ended.

I scrolled through my history and the last time I called my father, I was ten. It was by accident.

My father, now a man of very few words, divorced my mother when I was seven, and took off to Washington, so far away from us he had said, that he needed to think. My mother, explaining to my brothers and me not to talk to him, never to believe a word he said. She never told us what made her so mad at him, what caused him to fleed the east coast. It was the toughest on me because he was my best friend. Growing up, we did everything together. We went on early morning runs, I went to work with him and he came to my meets. It was as if we never got tired of each other. But after the divorce, he never showed up in our lives agian. It was as if he just disappeared. His pictures on our walls were replaced, the things that he left behind were shoved into the far wall of the attic and the cards that he would try to send were ripped out of our hands by my mother and burned in the fireplace.

That's why I didn't tell my mother, where I was going. It was in a letter that I said I was staying with an aunt in New Jersey for a couple of weeks. That will hold her over for a few minutes until she realizes that there is no aunt in New Jersey and then she'll send the police of the CIA out to track me down. I put my hair in a sloppy bun and took a deep breath. I needed this, I needed to be away from everything, and to start a new beginning that will have a different end to the one my story line has set for me now.

***

He was dressed in a plaid flannel shirt, his beard scruffy and there were deep purple bags underneath his eyes... he looked exactly the same as I remembered him. I walked cautiously over to where he was standing, holding my duffel in one hand and my phone in the other.

"Olivia," he said softly. "Long time, no see," he said and took the bag from my hands.

There was no hug, no careful embrace, nothing worth a smile or a crowd of people to go ‘aww’ in the background. It's not that I expected that, of course. When I was younger he would cradle me and hug me. But now, I feel like I barely know him.

My father wasn't the kind of person to long for love, or show his affection for others. Maybe that's why he and my mother split; they were too different of people. After the divorce, I spent countless hours trying to decipher the meaning for their decision. Why they bid their love to someone else, tearing their own heart outs with the simple words of, 'I hate you'? The slamming doors, the raging fights, the way I, Ashton and Jason would get in the middle of them like a tug of war game, the first one to let go wins, the last one falls into a pile of arguments.

The day my dad left we had to choose sides. Go on an adventure with my father and break my mother’s fragile heart or forget everything about our father and stay in the safety of Boston with my mother. In the end we all chose my mother. Mine was chosen for me, since I couldn't get a grasp on the situation. Now, after all those years, I wonder if, if I had chosen my father, what I would be like. Would I be like him: soft spoken and distant to the world around him? Or careful and loud like my mother? 

I slid into his old pick-up, the tattered leather squishing, as I sat down.

"Sorry, this baby is a little old," he said as he put the key into the ignition and the truck revved up.

I just nodded and turned towards the window, watching my new surroundings melt behind me as we traveled 52 miles, to where he lived and resided in a little town called Drexel off of Seattle. 

I don’t know what I was hoping, seeing him after all of these years. Especially at a time like this. I didn’t know whether we’d just pick up where we left off, the way I remembered him; making pancakes in his raggedy pajamas and listening to jazz when he was angry, the same careful rhythms slowly repeated itself. Or did I expect him to change? Almost eight years is a long time to go without seeing a person. A person that you shared so much of your early life with, a person that tucked you in at night and chased away the scary monsters in the closet of your nightmares. But I’m not eight anymore and there aren’t any monsters to chase away. I turned to look at him, his hands clenched on the steering wheel, his eyes fixed on the road. His left ring finger was bare and I sighed. What was I hoping for? Him to get remarried and for that to be the reason of his non-existance?

“Olivia?” he asked taking a sideward glance at my face.

 Maybe this was the time that he was going to start talking. Like really talking, about how his eight years of silence was finally over and how he’d love to talk…

“You look tired. You should take a nap.” …or not.

  I ended up dozing off, to the delicate words of a folk song and the swaying of the unstable vehicle my father had chosen to purchase, twenty-five years ago. I felt at rest, the situation so serene, that it took me a while before he could get me up and told me that we reached home. I woke up in a haze and turned to him, a faint smile on his face. It was so dark out, the only light coming from the faint glow of smoke coming from a chimney that stood in front of us, this is what I have been waiting for, a place to call home.

“Does your mother know that you’re here?” My father asked me slowly.

It was close to midnight now after an akward dinner of silence. He was standing at the foot of the steps to the attic, handing me my duffels.

“Oh um…” I turned from him putting a bag on the bed and heard it creak underneath the pressure.

“Yeah of course she knows,” I say and roll my eyes for effect.

"And she's okay with it?" My father asked, looking skeptical...and a little shocked.

"Yup!" My voice getting higher, with each lie.

My mother would just be finishing up her writing session, going down the stairs to get herself some coffee and she would round the corner, take a double glance and see a strange piece of paper placed in the middle of the charcoal granite countertop. I imagine her setting her cup of coffee on a counter as she picks up the letter slowly, reading the Dear Mom, at the top. A tear may roll down her cheek and she might think twice about calling me or the police. I check my phone just in case, put there were no messages from her. 

I saw the relief on my father’s face as he handed me my last bag.

“Good,” he said quietly.

I looked down from the top of the stairs and watched as my father closed and unclosed his hands and fiddled with the loose button on his shirt. He was more awkward of me here than I was. It was weird that he was this hesitant. When I was younger, he was so outgoing and crazy. He was lovable and my best friend, I could turn to him with anything. Maybe losing my mother changed him or maybe living on his own changed him.  

“Well good night,” he said giving me a little wave and dropping out of my point of view.

I was about to close the door when he came back into my focus.

“I’m glad you’re here.” 

a/n: hey guys! so yes, olivia's father comes back into the story! but has he changed forever? has the small town atmosphere, completly rearranged his personality? & was coming to seattle, the right move for olivia? hmmm...find out in the next chapter! (;

thank you all once again, for all the lovely comments & votes! they really mean alot! 

enjoy a photo of olivia (nina dobrev) at the airport, going to see her father. {i will post a photo of what the cabin looked like soon!}  >>>

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love y'all! - miah xoxo