Daughter

Chapter 13

Flashback:

"So tell me, how's life here? With Max as a stepdad and Kelly?" Lando asks. "It's not the worst. I think I needed a change. A new place to live." Amelia sighs. "It's better here than in Marseille. I feel more welcome here." Amelia says. Her gaze was fixed on the ground as if she was ashamed.

 "You ARE welcome here. What do you mean when you say you needed a change? Weren't you having a good time there?" he asks interestedly. "It wasn't the best place to live." Slowly, a lone tear falls from her eye. But Amelia quickly wipes it away in an effort to keep Lando from noticing. But Lando does notice. However, he didn't say anything. 

"I have a lot of bad memories in there and few good ones." "You want to talk about it?" He put his hand on her shoulder. Amelia nodded, tears starting to trickle down her face. "I don't want to be quiet anymore." She shook her head as she began to cry. "I've been silent for a long time. I won't anymore. At least not in front of you. I trust you so please don't let me down." 

She turned her head to Lando who nodded. "It all started when I was about five. Maybe earlier but not as visibly. My dad brought home some girl. It was evening and I accidentally opened the door and saw something I didn't want to see." She laughed. "When they saw me, the unknown woman asked him who I was." 

She continued speaking as she wiped her tears and shook her head. "He told her I was a nobody. Then he corrected himself and said I was his sister's child even though he didn't have one. I was confused, still a child. I didn't understand so I asked him. "Dad? Who is that woman?" I remember those words to this day.

"Dad? Do you have a child? You didn't say anything about him." I remember her quickly getting up and starting to gather her things, getting dressed on the way. Dad was yelling after her, apologizing to her." Now streams of tears began to flow down Amelia's face. 

"When he came back upstairs he was very angry. He was shouting how could I do this to him. Why I wasn't in bed and sleeping. I told him I heard noises and he hadn't been home all day. He left me alone. That was actually the first time. I hardly ate that day I didn't know what to do or how to do it.

 I finally found some biscuits in the cupboard that I had tightened the biscuits on. That was what I had been eating all day. When I told him my reason he started screaming. Screaming really loud that I had ruined his life at first, then he started that he had to quit his career because of me. That he would have been better off if I hadn't been born, that he would have been the happiest.

 He started saying that I was the reason my mom left, that everything was my fault." She took a breath to continue. "When he yelled at me I started to cry. I've hated screaming ever since I was little. I was very sensitive to it. He yelled at me for being a crying little ungrateful child who didn't know what all he had done for him. 

He was right about that. I never knew what he gave up for me. He never said it." Lando had tears in his eyes but still didn't say anything just listened intently. "The first time he hit me I screamed a lot. I didn't understand why he was doing it, why he didn't like me, what I had done wrong. After he yelled at me so much at that time I tried to isolate myself. To grow up.