You took my heart, could I please have it back?

[19] You took my heart, could I please have it back?

.:Recap:.

Sighing, I turned and went back into the living room, ready to crash on the armchair and wallow, before I got the shock of my life.

"What the hell are you doing home?"

.:Story Start:.

He looked at me with sad, blue eyes that mirrored my own. The stubble encrusted on his cheeks and his haunted eyes made him look older than he really was, but I wasn't concerned about that now. I just wanted to know why my father was sitting there, in his old chair, sober, eight and a half hours early.

"I could ask the same about you," he replied, his voice raspy. "Shouldn't you be in school?" I frowned.

"Why are you suddenly playing the stern father? Shouldn't you be at work?" I threw back at him, taking advantage of his soberness.

Silence fell upon us as he sank into his chair.

"Lizzy..."

"Don't call me that," I snapped. He flinched slightly, then bowed his head.

"Liz, then. That's....part of the reason I came home." I frowned, waiting for him to elaborate. People didn't just stop drinking after they had continually done so for five years.

We both sat in an uncomfortable silence for a while, and my patience was wearing thin. If he was going to say something, he might as well say it before I blew up on him...finally, after five minutes of solid looking at each other passed, I cracked.

"Well? What do you have to say for yourself?" I snapped at him. He sighed, and looked at the floor.

"I'm going to...try and make it better. When I woke up this morning, ridiculously late, I saw the calendar and I saw the date. And I remembered it all, Liz. I remembered-"

"OK, OK," I said shortly, but a little softer. He just said he was going to try and make it better. It was the best I could have hoped for...

"I'm going to be a proper father again, Liz. Oh, by the way...who did that to you?" he asked, indicating my most recent bruising - along my left cheekbone up to my eye - and the various scratches I had. I glared at him pointedly, and he sat staring blankly at me for a minute before the penny dropped.

"Oh god, no...please don't tell me..." he said, aghast. "I didn't...did I?" I nodded curtly, and he groaned, holding his face in his hands.

"I'm sorry, Liz, I never meant...I..."

I sat waiting patiently for him to get his words out straight. Inside, I felt a little warmer - he apologized, he was sober and he was planning on staying that way. Well, hopefully, anyway.

"How often have I done that to you?" he asked quietly, staring into my eyes. I swallowed hard, tears coming into my eyes.

"Every day. For five years. On my birthday, at Christmas, on mum's birthday, on the 10th of November...I've not had one entirely happy day for five years. Why did you give up on us? Why did you give up on everything we could have had? I have one friend dad, one measly friend who is the best I could ask for but risks humiliation if he's seen with me! He's helped me so much, because you weren't there," I said, and broke into sobs.

I felt bad for lumping it all on him because I know he felt just as bad as I did after the accident, no, probably worse, but I needed to make him see that alcohol was not helping anything...

As if on cue after what I had just said, there was a knock on the door and I instinctively knew it was Alex.

"And that's him," I said, and stood up to let him in, letting dad wallow in his thoughts.