The Girl Who Never Smiles | ✔️

Chapter 39

Today marks the 8th year anniversary that my father has been absent in my life. 

I have no words.

Not a single syllable, nothing. 

I don't want to feel anything. I stopped feeling after the 6th year anniversary. 

Zoe and I are walking home from school right now. On days like this, we choose not to take the bus. Sometimes we just want to be in a a quiet space. Walking has always been like that for us. We just walk, side by side, in complete silence as we fight our own demons on the most dreadful day of the year.

"You okay?" Zoe murmurs.

"Perfect." I bitterly respond. We reach right outside our house and we stop outside the house.

"8 years." Zoe mutters. She sniffles and wipes her nose. 

"8 years." I repeat her. 

"What do you think he is doing now?" Zoe asks.

"Sipping a glass of Merlot while he plots new ways to ruin someone else's family." 

"Bay, do you hate him?" Zoe asks with a broken voice. The same broken voice she has every November 20. 

A darker silence falls between us two and something dawns on me. Every year that our father is gone, the darker Zoe and I become. The more hollow. Zoe has always been the brighter one of us two. She doesn't let the emptiness our father left behind in us consume her. I, on the other hand, can't control it. Especially since he left 2 days before Thanksgiving, our family's favorite holiday. 

"I don't know, but I am leaning towards it."

"Well, I am leaning towards going inside and locking myself up in my room. So lets go." she says and walks to the door of our house. I follow behind her and she takes out her keys and opens the door. When she opens the door, the smell of my mother's home cooked stir fry wafted through the air of our sad household. She hasn't cooked in years.

I hear voices coming from the kitchen. Two different voices are in the kitchen. Laughter. I hear laughter. Something that has not been heard in this house for years. Zoe and I round the corner leading into the kitchen. My mom is leaning against the counter talking to a man in a burgundy coat who has a glass of wine in front of him and a bottle of Merlot next to the glass. His back is to us and he is chatting with my mom. I know for sure it isn't Chris. Chris has dirty blond hair. This man has shiny brown hair. 

"Mom?" Zoe speaks up.

Mom's eyes move off the counter and she looks up at Zoe. The man in the coat turns around revealing his face. Everything slows down around me. The ticking from the old grandfather clock fades away. I can't even hear my own breathing anymore. All I here is the thumping of my broken heart against my chest as I stare at the cause of my empty, hollow state.

The man who abandoned me for 8 years has finally come back on the day of the 8th year. Sean Stewart is sitting at my island table talking, laughing with my mom like he never left. I try to move my body, even just one limb, but I can't. I can't move a finger, nothing. 

I am frozen.

I could hear my heart beating in my ears and the blood rushing through my body. My head begins to feel dizzy and fuzzy. My vision becomes blurry as I can't see what's in front of me properly. I close my eyes hoping, wishing this to be a dream. This can't be happening. Not now, not today. With everything going on in my life, with Issac. 

I snap out of my dark bubble when I hear Zoe bursts into tears next to me. Her sobs rack through her body and she covers her mouth to try to silence herself, but 8 years of suppressing sadness does that to you. I stare at the stranger who is sat a meter away from me. He has barely aged since I last saw him when I was 11 years old. His lustrous brown locks haven't changed a bit. He looks exactly like my brother and I am grateful that he isn't here today to see this. It would break him and he is already on a good path. His fair skin is now lightly tanned, but he still has the same hazel eyes that I share with him, unfortunately. 

He stands up from his chair and moves toward us. Mother nears around the corner to stand next to father. She looks up at him with this look in her eyes. The same look she had in her eyes in those wedding pictures that were taken of her and father's wedding. She has the same love-filled, adoring eyes she had when she would look at my father playing with us as kids. 

How could she look at him like that after he abandoned us, leaving her with a newborn on her own?

Sean nears us and he stops. He looks at us in awe. "My two beautiful princesses" He moves closer to Zoe and she takes a step back, moving as far away from him as possible.

My heart hurts.

Does that make sense?

No. It's okay. 

"Zoe please." he pleads and she cries more into her hand and my heart clenches for my sister. She adored my father just as much as I did. Father looks to me with hopeful eyes. He extends his hand out to hold my hand or something, but I move back. The air in my lungs begins to shorten and thin out and I find it hard to catch my breath. I hold onto my chest and I begin wheezing trying to get air into my lungs, but every time he takes a step closer to me, it gets harder to breathe. His hand comes out and touches my arm and I feel warm all over. My head begins to pound and I feel more lightheaded. I stumble over my foot and suddenly, I feel the heat wash over me become overwhelming and then everything turns black.

...

My eyes flutter open and the first thing I see is my sister. Her eyes are puffy and red. She is sniffling like crazy that I am afraid she is sniffling more than taking an actual breath. I try to sit up, but my head fogs up and I groan in discomfort. Zoe's head snaps to me and she helps me sit up. She has a sad smile on her face as she looks at me.

"What happened?" I ask. I am laying down on the couch in our living room, but I don't remember being her in the first place.

"Dad happened Bay. You fainted." she tells me and a few tears roll down from Zoe eyes and for the first time in 8 years, this is the first time I have ever seen my sister so broken. Like actually seen it. She is breaking down right in front of me and I can't help her because how can a broken person help another broken person heal? I'm useless.

Images of my dad here, in our house talking with my mom and pleading with me and Zoe flash in my mind and I am guessing this is what happened before I passed out.

"He was here?"

"Yeah. He still is. He is in the other room." she answers. "Why is he here Bay?"

"I- I don't know, but I am going to find out." I respond to her and get up out the couch and dust myself off. "You coming?"

"I'm not running from him anymore. Lets go." she says and gets up and stands by my side.

"No matter what Zo, you are my sister and I love you, okay?"

"Likewise Bay." she says and looks to the door leading into my mother's study.

"OK. Let's face the music." I say and walk toward the study with Zoe beside me.