Find me

PART 2 / Chapter 23

The weather is beautiful, not too warm, not too cold. Unfortunately, not in the mood to enjoy this. My mind is still on him which I hate the most. Why would I not be able to distract myself? I know he hates me like I kill his loved ones, but still, I want to know about him, sometimes he confused me and that is something which makes me more eager to find out who is he and why is he like this, Is that make sense? Well, I don't know.

"Hello Princess" a male voice broke my thought, I turned and there is my father approaching me with his beautiful calm smile. Since it's only a few months that I have been away from him, and from my house but it felt like a year.

I stood up, unable to control my feet as I ran to him.

He hugged me tightly. My father's hug was as firm and solid as his handshake.

"Look at my girl," dad says, smiling.

"I miss you, Dad," I tell him, unable to control my smile. Right now, I'm so happy to see him, like he knew that I need him, I need my dad.

Dad beams at me, his dimple boring into his cheeks the way a mole burrows into the dirt.

And my smile washes off when I noticed her, standing behind my father, Angela, my stepmother whom I never like.

And there she spokes "We missed you a lot dear, how are you?"

Seriously? She behaves as if she cares, bullshit, I know all this is just a show-off in front of my father. I want to ignore her but instead of that I give my tight smile and nodded. Since it's always so much easier just to smile, to let go of everything.

She wore her lavender knee-length dress having V-neck and full sleeves. Her hair is pulled into a bun and no doubt she looks more beautiful than ever. But still, I hate to call her mom, to give her my mother's place.

It had been 12 years of their marriage. I was 6 when dad married her and that day, I cried a lot, I missed my mom. I wish, she could be there, and then we also be known as a complete family.

I pulled away from dad, he seems as happy as I am. "How are you?" dad asks.

I smiled "I'm a good dad as you can see, but you look slimmer than before, doing gym or something?"

He laughed "Or maybe I become younger"

Pressing my lips tightly together to keep from laughing, I nodded 'Yes'.

I grabbed his arm "Come on dad, I'll show you my room" and pulled him towards the entrance of the building.

~~~~~~~~~~

An hour has passed and still, we are talking like in these few months I never talk to anyone and have tons of things to share. When my mother passed away, I was so small that I didn't remember anything properly, there are just some blur of memories which sometimes flashed in my mind where I used to see my mother.

And after one year I got my stepmother but then also I'm close to my father. He's the one with whom I used to share everything, whatever doubts or thoughts come to my mind.

Whenever I cried, I want my dad to hold me. He always cracks his jokes just to make me laugh which I loved.

I hadn't noticed that Angela is not in the room, maybe she knew that daughter-father need their alone time or maybe she got bored of our conversation and so went outside for some peace.

"Dad what about the café shop? Is it going well?" I ask.

"It's fine as usual" he replied, shrugging his shoulder, and giving his apologetical smile.

My father and Angela run a café shop at home, not exactly at our house but near our home. Dad started this business when I was born. Our shop is not so big but enough to attract the customer.

The door clicked open and Angela slides in holding three mugs of coffee "Time to drink something" she says and handed us the coffee.

Angela sat down opposite us, gulping her coffee, but didn't speak anything.

After a couple of minutes, she turned to me, making direct eye contact "So Alice, how's your college going on" she asked.

I don't know what to say because nothing went right with me since I came here. Every day was ready with its new problem. But if I'll tell the truth then it'll make my father worry. So instead of that, I say "It's good" I assure them, not making eye contact with her because maybe she'll find out that I'm lying.

Just to change the topic, I asked Dad," should we go outside for dinner?"

"Umm...Yeah sure" he replied while scratching at his temple.

"I love to" Angela replied, smiling.

~~~~~~~~~~

Dinner with them was quite good, I hadn't expected that it would end up so well, because I never used to eat with her. Either I ate in my room or with dad.

We ate enchiladas, dad joked that if they went to a Chinese restaurant, they would never go anywhere else. Even though I wasn't a fan of Chinese food, usually I love to eat Italian food.

We laughed as we walked around the campus, talking about my hometown and how much I missed it, plan to went back on weekends but dad refused the idea. I mean why? Didn't he like the idea of having me at home.

They left when I reached my room and promised me that they'll come tomorrow morning.