You joked about it, laughed about it, even made tik toks about it, but you never meant it. You didn't mean it when you said you didn't need a father. All you ever wanted was him to want you. You forced yourself to think you didn't need him, but you want his love-need it. You want him to say happy birthday. For him to say I love you every morning and night. You want to be able to have a bond between the two of you, but you can't even speak to him. You don't know how. You hear the conversation your mom and him have on the phone. You hear him from the other phone line asking if you want to talk to him, but when your mom looks over at you asking, you shake your head no. It breaks your heart thinking you hurt him because you didn't talk to him. It breaks your heart even more when you hear him say 'tell Baleigh that I love her'. You went to see him with your family after to years of having no communication. At dinner you sat as far away from him as possible hoping he would talk to the others and not you. You hardly even talked to him, didn't even make eye contact with him. At the end of the night he hugged you telling you that he loved you. You said I love you too knowing it's probably going to be another two years before you get to say it again. On the way back home, you tried holding in your tears and save them for when your alone in your room, so you could cry your eyes out in peace. Those were the last times you cried about not having a father- until now you writing this about the father you have but really don't. The father you wish for, but will never have. You want this to be the last time you cry about him, but you know it won't. All you want is a father to be a father.
