daddy's girl ❥ luke hemmings ✔️

30. "leave you"

SOPHIE

I always wanted to know who my real dad was but I never expected him to be like this.

After wordlessly ditching both my mother and I, you think he'd want nothing to do with us by now. I always thought he'd forgotten about us, but apparently not.

I knew Luke wasn't my real dad when my tutor started teaching me about the birds and the bees and the awkward way that people made other people. I knew Luke wasn't my real dad but I pretended anyway because I was in too deep and having a father figure in my life was better than resenting the one I lacked.

When you're a kid, none of that stuff really matters. When you're a kid, you're not as confused, not as messed up, because everything is so much simpler as a child; Daddy wasn't my real dad but it was easier to think that he was because I didn't want to grow up without one.

In a way, I wish it had never happened. I find myself wishing for a lot of things that can't come true lately and one of those wishes happens to be Chris James; a man I'd heard of beforehand but had never met.

Daddy would always complain about him, drag his name through the dirt, speak awfully about his business and what his people made others do. I knew he wasn't a good man. I knew he was one of those men Daddy tried his best to stay away from. I never once let Luke know I listened, though. I wasn't supposed to know; not a lot of people were.

He used to talk to the guys about Chris when he thought I was asleep, or had earphones in, or just wasn't paying attention. He used to say how he had to protect me, had to keep me away from the media, had to do this, had to do that. It's like a chant, a routine, as easy as breathing because apparently, he's used to being told what to do.

Chris made Daddy do a lot of things and it wasn't just stuff that affected his career. He made Daddy do things that affected the separation between both his life and his job.

Chris James made Luke attend a red carpet event despite being too ill to even keep his eyes open. Chris James made Luke perform for a million critics with a sore throat and a broken wrist. Chris James made Luke play his guitar until he had rough callouses on his fingers and fifty percent of a paycheck that wasn't even his to keep, shoved in the bank of the management company that had him chained to a contract.

Chris made Daddy have a fake girlfriend, have a fake life. He made him unhappy, so unhappy, and now, Chris James has made Daddy cry.

Never in a million years have I ever seen Luke cry. He doesn't let me. He says it's not right for little girls to see their Daddies cry. He likes to think that I'm always asleep or not around when he locks himself in the bathroom and sobs into his hands, sobs about every little thing he's held onto for so long. Never in a million years have I been there to witness it but I know it happens; it shows in the way he walks out, eyes red and puffy, and dismisses me with a hug whenever I ask him what's wrong.

I have never seen Daddy with tears in his eyes and his head buried in my shoulder until this very day.

"I love you," he keeps saying, the water in his eyes spilling onto his cheeks. "I love you, I love you, I love you." it's like a mantra that he doesn't want to stop, in fear of me changing my mind and walking out, and my heart hurts because I have never seen him so broken.

I don't say anything. I want to tell him that I love him too, that I love him to the moon and back and everything beyond, but I know it won't suffice. It won't do when Daddy's this hurt, when he's this conflicted, this tired.