November 5th.
Almost two months have passed and our home feels empty without him.
Its difficult knowing that we won’t be able to see him until next September. Keign and I would have had our milestone 18th birthday and the babies would be almost a year old by then.
Of course, we’ll all pay dad a few visits in between, but it still won’t feel the same.
We miss dad. It’s like there’s a missing piece in our lives. I expected mum to miss him the most but no one has been hit as hard as Keign.
The first month was rough. My twin is usually a tough egg to crack, he doesn’t shed a tear very easily. Dad leaving was the first time in 10 years that I’ve seen Keign cry like that, I didn’t expect him to react the way he did. He was devastated.
My brother has looked up to dad for his whole life. Following in his footsteps and aspiring to join the medical field, young Keign idolised him. When he was stuck on homework, it didn’t matter how many people explained to him the way to do it, dad’s opinion was always the one he would settle on. Every school play, awards evening and teachers conference, dad had to be there.
On role model day in primary, guess who he dressed up as? In full nurses uniform. Dad.
Yeah, Jordan and I are really close to dad too, but Keign and dad’s bond is different.
He always made an effort to make dad proud.
Dad was always right in his eyes.
His confession completely shattered Keign’s image of him. As it did to the rest of us too. I assumed the incident had just been some sort of fluke. Yeah, it was a horrifying experience to witness but, I thought maybe he was just a raging father with a child pregnant at 17. Any parent would have been upset.
No. but dad was different to me. It was like something broke inside him. Now I know that nothing broke, and nothing was different. This was him all along. Perhaps that is what Keign can’t wrap his head around. Maybe that’s what he can’t understand, or refuses to accept.
That dad isn’t who he thought he was. He isn’t always right.
Tonight is bonfire night in the London, every year -without a fail- my whole family (cousin’s and all), come together to watch the fireworks. We gather in the backyard around a fire pit chatting and laughing. Sometimes we even roast marshmallows. Annually, we alternate between our grandma's house or ours. This year it was grandma's turn.
She lived a little over an hour east away from us so if we wanted to get there for six o’clock We would have to leave at Four. (Side note, if you know anything about my family, no one is ever on time).
Mum and I were on our way to a scan appointment. I was sort of hoping it could have been just Louis and I but she INSISTED that I should have her drive.
We had to be there for one o’clock but first, a quick detour to Louis’ house. He texted me the directions. The GPS said two minutes away but mum was never good at following maps. She took the wrong exit Three times.
Eventually, we turned into Lakeland Grove with five minutes until my scan. Gladly, it was only down the road from his house.
I pulled my phone out from my worn out jogging bottom’s pocket.
“Rye, what are you doing?” mum leaned over to have a look at my phone.
“About to text Louis that we’re here.”
YOU ARE READING
A different feeling
RomanceRye is well known in Camdon town for being a bit of a trouble maker. Her highschool years were full of consistent detentions and phone calls home for bad behaviour. She had always been the one to cause trouble ever since she was a little kid but pra...
