Balance, Baby

Chapter 24

My feet were aching so bad when I finally arrived back at the hotel. I was holding my sandals, I should've brought walking shoes with me but I failed myself. During my hours alone I had a lot of thinking space. Watching waves and waking alone was the perfect opportunity to sort my thoughts. I came to the conclusion that I owed my parents an apology and an actual conversation. So, instead of going back to my room, I went to my parents' room.

I knocked on the door, waiting patiently to find out if they were even here. Eventually, the door opened to my mother's face. It wore a pitiful smile and she took a step towards me, hugging me tightly. "I'm so sorry. We had no idea. We should've just respected your wishes."

I sighed, "Don't worry, we should've told you when we got together in the first place. I wanted to wait until we were here, I thought it would've been a great trip. I'm sorry too. I ended up ruining the trip instead."

"No you didn't," My dad's voice was somewhere inside the room, "I forget sometimes that you're all grown up. Adults have adult problems. I treated it like it was childish, and I couldn't have been more wrong. I'm sorry."

"Are you okay?" My mother finally let me go and looked into my eyes, her hands still gripped my shoulders.

"I will be," I smiled genuinely.

"Oh, honey," She hugged me again, "I can only imagine what you two had together, we've been watching it brew for years now. I'm so sorry it didn't work out."

I laughed to avoid crying instead, "It was so good, mom." I couldn't hold it back, the tears started to pour, "I felt like a princess, he was so good to me. I love him so much." I let out my emotions. Since I was already crying, I didn't see a point in holding back anymore, "We just have too much shit going on in our lives, we don't have room for each other right now. We're not complete adults, we couldn't figure out how to make it work. We still weren't ready, even after all these years. And it hurts so bad."

I heard my dad sniffle as he wrapped his arms around my mother and I, "God damn it. We're old as dirt and we still can't figure things out sometimes."

"I'm so sorry," My mom said again as I started to calm down. I really did love them. They're great parents, I couldn't have asked for better ones. Everyone backed out of the hug and they both looked at me, my mother holding both of my hands.

"It's okay. I'll be okay. It'll only hurt for a little while. Plus, we agreed to try again some day," I cracked a smile, "So, we'll see how life treats us. What's meant to be will be, right?"

"You're so strong, and I'm so proud of you," My mom squeezed my hands reassuringly.

"You're doing an amazing job, we're both very proud of you," My dad added with a smile.

I nodded, smiling at them still. Their support made me feel a bit better in general, "I love you guys."

"Thank you for coming here, I know after what we said-"

"Don't worry. You didn't know. I was just very emotional about it, and I snapped. That's my fault, I'm sorry," I interrupted my father, "Honestly, let's just forget it happened."

My mom nodded, understanding I was done talking about it, "Okay. I love you too."

We all said our goodbyes and I walked over to the elevator. I made my way to my room, regretting my long walk. I stopped along the way to rub my feet quickly, it was actually that bad. I took out my key card and opened my door, throwing my bag onto the bed and throwing my shoes in the corner. I sat on the edge of the bed next to my bag and started rubbing my feet again.

"Want me to do that?"

"Holy shit!" I jumped up, putting my hand over my heart. I turned around to see Judah sitting in the corner of the room in a chair, "What the fuck are you just lurking for? You fucking stalker, scared the shit out of me."