ASSIGNED

Chapter 32

They say time flies when you're having fun, but I didn't expect the end of October to come so soon. Bailey and I had been 'dating' for almost one month now, and the feeling of butterflies never went away when I was with her. I was so in love with her and every day was perfect.

We were sitting on the floor of my room, leaning back against the bed. Bailey's fingers were tracing patterns on my skin and I had to fight the urge to shiver. She always had this effect on me.

"Baby," she whispered to me one day, running her hand lightly down my arm.

"Mmm?" I hummed in response.

"I'm sorry if this upsets you, but I heard you and your mum arguing about it the other day and I just wanted to ask..." she began, and I instantly knew what she was talking about.

Last week my mum and I had gotten into a huge argument. She had made a passing comment that my father wasn't as good of a man as I thought he was, and it had upset me greatly. I had yelled at her, telling her that before things went downhill he was an incredible dad. She had gotten angry and told me that if he was such an incredible dad then why wasn't he thinking about me when he drove his car off a bridge. She didn't mean it, she was just angry...but it hurt. Bailey had overheard the entire conversation/argument unfold, but had known better than to ask me about in while I was angry and upset. She held me while I sobbed into her chest, my arms clinging to her as if she were my sole lifeline.

"It's fine, ask me anything. I'll tell you," I said to her, holding her hand tightly. It was time that she knew everything about me, my deepest secrets and my difficult past. I wanted to be completely open with her. How could I expect full honestly and openness from her if I didn't give her the same?

"Well...what happened?" she asked me simply. I took a deep breath and began to explain the story, my story, the reason we moved to Chadstone.

"He got demoted at his job and his pay decreased...a lot," I began, "One of his friends was pretty into gambling and took my dad to the casino one night, and after that he was hooked. At first he was running on sheer luck, bringing in a few thousand here and there, but then without my mum knowing he took out a second mortgage on our house and used the money to gamble."

I watched Bailey as she listened intently, absorbing every single word that I told her.

"He lost us hundreds of thousands of dollars, and when my mum found out she told him she wanted a divorce," I told her. She nodded her head slowly, urging me to continue.

"He started drinking heavily after that, and then one day he disappeared. We had no idea where he had gone but then three days later we saw on the news that a car had driven off Captain Halloway bridge. We recognised our car, and that was how we found out."

"Oh my god," she breathed out, squeezing my hand tightly.

"We rang the police and they wouldn't give us details over the phone so we had to go into the police station, and that's when they told us that he was dead. He had so much alcohol and drugs in his system they think that he might've fallen unconscious behind the wheel and veered off the bridge. But he ultimately drowned...and that's what happened. I just hope he didn't suffer..." I finished, breathing a huge sigh of relief.

I hadn't told anyone that story, and it felt good to get it off my chest. Everyone back in Adelaide knew what had happened and I hated it. I was known as 'the girl whose dad died' or 'the daughter of the guy who drove off the bridge'. I wanted to keep it to myself, but I realised that sharing the story with Bailey made me feel one thousand kilos lighter, and I felt like I could breathe properly again for the first time in almost an entire year.