New Beginnings

Never Felt Love Like This Before

A/N: So yeah, this is the chapter you've all been desperately waiting for. And I truly have appreciated your patience

"Mom?! I can't find Dad anywhere." Betty called innocently as she stepped down the stairs the following morning.

Pausing from reading her magazine, Alice darted her eyes up towards her daughter, a slight wave of guilt hitting her upon seeing the girls puzzled face. She had yet to tell Betty and Polly that she had kicked Brody out, not quite preparing what to say seeing as it was a bombshell she'd have to drop onto them and she'd need to be delicate.

"Uhm-" Alice begins softly, closing her magazine and placing it onto the table in front of her. "He's not here." She tells her firmly, ripping the band aid off.

"Well, where is he?" Betty questioned once more, her face twisting in curiosity. Her Mother was clearly hiding something.

Alice's eyes clenched shut as she sighed in preparation, reluctant to reveal the truth. She had been up all night pondering over this but she knew she had to deal with it sooner or later.

"Honey, he's gone." Alice admitted in a stern but sympathetic tone, knowing this was going to hurt Betty. "He's not coming back."

Betty held an unrelenting stare on her face, puzzled by what her mother meant. "What do you mean he's not coming back?"

"I mean he's done what he always does and bailed out on us, okay?" Alice impulsively snapped, her face forming into one of regret as soon as she finished.

Betty's expression tightens, a wave of disbelief over her fathers disappearance crossing her face. "No- no way. He wouldn't just leave." She argues, running her hand through her messy blonde looks, furrowing her brows in confusion.

"He said he was sticking around, he promised!" She rambled frantically. "There's gotta be more to this, right?"

Alice doesn't answer, darting her slightly widened eyes from her daughter to the seat opposite while the teen watched them flash with guilt.

Betty had seen that look on her mothers face before, the look of suspicion and blatant toy hiding something from her and her sister, one too many times and come to think of it, her mother seemed a little more calm compared to the other times Brody had left them. Something wasn't adding up.

"Mom, answer me!"

"Fine, I kicked him out, okay?" Alice finally reveals, her expression softening upon seeing the heartbreak in her daughters face. "I told him to go, he was bringing trouble to our door, literally, and I wasn't going to have that with you, Tyler and your sister under this roof, so I had to."

Betty tears up at her mothers revelation, scrunching her face and clenching her jaw tightly in frustration. "Why would you do that?!" She questioned, wanting to understand why her mother would do something she considered so stupid.

Regret crossed Alice's features as she slowly approached her daughter, wanting to explain things to her thoroughly with the hope that she'd understand. "Honey-" She rests her hand on the girls shoulder for extra comfort. "I'm so sorry, but it was for the best."

Betty's small lips fell into a straight line, averting her angry gaze back at her mother. "Best for who?!" She rhetorically questions before removing herself out of her grasp.

"Betty?!"

Ignoring her mothers call for her, she stormed into her bedroom, slamming the door shut to let Alice know just how pissed off she was with her.

She pulled her cell phone out of her back pocket, desperately dialling her Dad's number, the least he could do was give her an explanation or a proper goodbye. She listened to the dial tone. No answer, just a straight to voicemail.