Glory.

8

Tori finally coaxed Ava into coming to see me as I lay in the hospital bed, wallowing in pity. Though, I could see the hatred in my wife's eyes, I knew she wouldn't leave me alone during a time like this—she wouldn't admit it, but she couldn't bare to know that I was suffering.

I told her that she and the kids could sleep in my apartment while I recovered at the hospital. She took  the offer but not before predicting what was true—that my apartment was a pigsty. "Hey, Ava." I whispered hoarsely as she tiptoed through the door. That girl was a spitting image of me—I couldn't deny her even if I wanted to.

"Hi." She said, dry and curt. Her eyes remained glued to the device in her hand as she plopped down into the chair furthest away from the bed. She was like me in too many ways. I couldn't blame her for this blatant attitude. It's what I deserved. But it still hurt. My presence seemed to have brought more harm than good.

I wish I had a worthy enough reason for abandoning them but I didn't. I got scared—I was a young, 19 year old dumbass when Ava was born. Though, I clearly wasn't ready, I stuck around. I didn't want to be my dad—balancing being a father, cop and husband wasn't as hard as my father made it out to be, I thought.

Out of pure naïveté and maybe stupidity, I married Victoria because it was the sensible thing to do. You knock a woman up, you marry her. I was in love with Tori, no doubt but it was clear that we were not ready to be parents, let alone spouses. Our concepts of love were too misconstrued—I thought being a provider was my only duty and Tori assumed that throwing herself into mothering and housework was a woman's job. A man was supposed to suffer with financial burdens. And eventually, I started to cheated.

I was a womanizer; wasting our money on prostitutes, strippers and bars. Until one of my concubines found out about Victoria and confronted her—leading to a public altercation in front of Ava. In a cowardly attempt to escape all of my wrongdoings, I left. I abandoned my daughter and my wife, feeling that sending them a few hundred dollars every month or so was enough. I was a 24 year old drunk when I left them and moved two cities over—her traditional, Vietnamese parents despised me now. I was the one who ruined their daughter's life.

I suppose it would be fitting to blame my actions on alcohol or my incontrollable addiction to sex—but it was all in me. Alcohol gave it the push it needed to come out.

I was a coward.

I could see Ava's wandering eyes occasionally glance over at me and her lips part, as if she wanted to say something but chose against it. Her body language screamed uneasy and uncomfortable. She'd been a witness to my brute ways—my babygirl was scarred. I was a monster in her eyes, and yet here she was—facing the boogeyman. My brave angel. "What are you doing?" I finally mustered up the courage to speak to the curly haired teen. Tori was never too keen on the upkeep of 4c hair—the Asian woman use to try to 'wash & go' or curl cream our daughter's hair every chance she got. I was no help either.

Her hazel eyes, much like Jude's, peeled away from her phone screen before she turned it to me. Dancing. People were dancing on her phone. "Tik Tok." Her lips curled upward as she adjusted the headphones over her head. "Old people don't know about this but it's a cool app." This was the most I'd heard her talk in years. Her legs uncrossed in the chair as she became more comfortable and began to tap her sandals on the tiled floor.

"This guy ain't old." I reminded her, chuckling. "Your mother maybe, but not me." She laughed.

Ava actually laughed at something I said.

Her gaze landed on me and stayed. "She says the same about you." This made me smile again. I wasn't the best person but for her, I wanted to be better now—better than before. Ava didn't deserve the burden of what I'd gifted her and I knew it was no way to take it back, but I did want to make it up to her—any way I could.