Again (PUBLISHED!)

Chapter 4.

"Daddy, don't worry about school tomorrow! Screw time zones, Screw everything! I will definitely stay up late at night to talk to you!" I said stubbornly, sitting by the window sill of my room, "How did your day go? Oh yes, how silly of me, it's morning there. You'll be starting your day!"

Europe was quite a many hours ahead of New York. He asked me how my day had been.

"All good. My day went pretty much fine," I said. "Gran, as always, invented a new recipe and called it by a weird name. It was equally weird in taste too. Got to think of ways and means to stop her from making it ever again!"

"I know right," I laughed at a remark that he made. "She's a great cook but at times you seriously wish you were invisible to her!"

He asked me to name a souvenir that I wanted.

"Well, I can't think of anything that I want from Germany right now," I told him. "Speaking of Germany, Miss Thatcher today read to us some pages of the book written by Hitler,"

I told him all about the little known facts that the English teacher said about Hitler. We then talked about couple of other stuff. We even laughed at the jokes we cracked before I asked him, "When are you returning, Daddy? Can't wait to play soccer with you!"

"I'm never coming back, Eleanor."

A chill ran down my spine hearing him. "W-What?W-Why?"

"Because I don't want to. You're better off being alone."

"No Daddy, please don't say that," my voice cracked as my heart grew numb, "Please come back! I don't want to be alone. It scares me more than anything else. Please don't leave me...!"

"I've already decided to give you up, Eleanor. I won't change that for anything. So don't ring me up henceforth. Bye."

My heart stopped beating when Daddy hung up.

My eyes flew open and I sat up on the bed with a start in my dark room. I felt my heart hammering violently in my chest and I was breathless to the tips of my toes.

You need to chill, El. It was just a dream. Daddy will never leave you. Doesn't he say that he wants to go to college with you?

"As a matter of fact, if you call him right now, I'm sure he will answer you," I said out loud to myself. I was just about to grab the phone from the night stand but stopped.

"He will be worried if I ring him up now. He will be like, why the actual hell are you vampiring in the middle of the night? Why aren't you sleeping? And I don't want to freak him out," I said to myself.

So, instead, I wore my slippers, got off the bed and went downstairs.

On reaching the kitchen, I pulled open the door of my freezer and grabbed the box of Ferrero Rocher chocolates.

I sat by the kitchen counter and opened the transparent rectangular box. I tossed one of the pieces into my mouth after unwrapping it. The heavenly flavor of hazelnut chocolate enticed my taste buds the moment I bit into the crunchy shell and I experienced my distressed nerves soothing at once. I ate some more of those spherical chocolates until I had calmed myself down completely.

"Maybe I should eat one Ferrero Rocher every night before going to bed like, one Ferror Rocher a day keeps bad dreams away! But then I'll gain flab and I hate exercising. Ugh."

I kept the box back in the freezer and went upstairs, yawning. And I fell asleep the moment I hit the bed and woke up straight when I felt the sun rays on my eyes. Grateful.

"Eleanor sweety, don't you want to have the strawberry milkshake?"

"Huh..?" I blinked, realizing that I had been aimlessly stirring the milkshake in the glass with a spoon while lost in thoughts.

"Missing your dad, hun?" she asked fondly.

"Very," I said, smiling a little.

"You can talk to him again today just like you did yesterday!"

"Yeah. I know. I'm just thinking of the usual stuff."

"Honey, don't what you're thinking," she said after a brief pause, sensing my thoughts. "I've told you this a lot of times you don't have to hurt yourself. It's completely irrelevant!"

"I know. Whatever happened was very unfortunate. But at times, I can't help but feel so guilty about it. I can't help but feel responsible for Ma's death...." I said, feeling downcast.

"Not true, child," said Gran at once, drawing me in a comforting hug. "Not true. Your father will be hurt if he gets to know what you think."

"Yeah, he loves me a lot," I said, a small smile made its way to my lips. "It pains so much to see him keeping himself so occupied with work but, obviously, not at the cost of being a negligent parent to me. Sometimes I catch him looking at the stars at the night. I know he tries to feel closer to Ma by doing so..."

To the world and to me, Papa was an incredibly warm, kind, hard working and happy man. But it was only I who knew that he was an incredibly warm, kind, hardworking and sad man. Unknown to him, I could figure out the shadows of sadness lurking behind the happiness in his eyes and voice....

"Honestly, I've tried to play a matchmaker to him so many times in the past but then he made it quite clear that no other woman can ever replace your mother in his life. And he sticks to that till date."

"It's been a really long time....so many years since Ma left us but he still hasn't been able to get over her death. He misses her so much.. "

"The past not your fault, Eleanor."

Gran looked grim. I held the glass of milkshake with both hands and brought it to my lips. As much as I miss Ma, it pains equally to see my father so broken.

"Yoo hoo, El! Aren't you going to school?"

I heard Josh shout from the front door.

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