elevator : afi

twenty - seven

"Who?" I asked again, making sure I heard correctly.

"Chloe Strantford?" He said questionigly. "Do you know her?"

"Not really and I don't ever want to." I spat, sitting back.

"What the fuck's wrong with her?" He said defensively.

I sighed deeply, not sure if I should tell him or not.

Oh, I knew her. I definitely knew her. Not personally, not really, that isn't needed, but I knew who she was and I knew I didn't want to know her personally.

The thing is, on my thirteenth birthday, I actually did hear from my father again - he sent me a letter.

No, not a cliché letter saying I'm sorry for leaving and I'll make it up to you, and I messed up...blah, blah - it was quite the opposite.

I read it once, and once was all it took for it to be imprinted in my head forever - scarring my heart worse than the fact he actually left.

"Dear Danielle," it had said. "Feeling like it should be my job to wish you a happy birthday, I won't. Because you or anything involved with you isn't my job anymore. And since I haven't said happy birthday for the last thirteen years, there's no point saying it now. I didn't apologize because I'm not sorry at all, in fact, all I wanted to do is make sure you're not caught up in the idea of me ever coming back or ever expect me to apologize - don't. In fact, I'm very happy with my new family, a beautiful wife and another daughter - not that I consider you my daughter. Her name is Chloe, there's a picture of her in the envelope.

"Quite literally, I only made sure that you didn't care and didn't waste time on thinking about me - that is all.

I'm pretty sure you know by now that I'm your father. Well, was."

It had scarred me and imprinted in my memory since the very first time my eyes skimmed over the sentences, and I felt every slight bit of strength in me drop when I saw the picture of the girl.