Lost And Found

Chapter 25: Anchor

Drew:

"Where's is that bastard!" I shout, outraged. The man was a traitor, the man that had walked out on me fourteen years ago. The exact same man who left his son and wife to go have an affair with the opposite team.

"Drew calm down," I hear my mother say, trying to sooth me. I turn around, angry, glaring at her with my hands in the air.

"Calm down? Calm down?! He left us so he could go have an affair or did you forget?" I yell at her, my mother, Mary, flinching and raising her hands up in defense.

"No. I have not forgotten the fact that he left me with a broken heart and a son who, until he was ten, would look out the window and sit by the phone waiting for the day his father would come back. Did it happen? No. Does my heart still ache sometimes when I see a picture or hear his name? Yes, but I've moved on and so should you. I know that when he left you were too little to understand, but, now that you're older you might be able to forgive him?" She explains, but most of it sounded like a suggestion to forgive him, and let him enter my life.

I look down at the ground and then back up at her. "Yeah, I'll forgive him....," I say."...When hell freezes over!"

My mom sighs in defeat. "Okay, fine, be this way. At least go and say hi."

I look away, crossing my arms, and begin to pout like a three year old. "No, I refuse to see him."

She groans, and out of the corner of my eye I see her walk up to me. She leans up close by ear and says, "If not for me, then do it for Andromeda. Take her with you, she's the one who grew up with no parents, at least you had me. Besides, if I can't get you to shut up, maybe she can, being your girlfriend, she should be able to to."

I turn, giving her a curious look. "How did yo-"

Before I could even finish what I had to say, she cuts me off, laughing. "Oh, honey, I see the way you two look at each other. I'm also your mother, you don't think I don't know what goes on in your life?"

Glaring at her, that's all I could do. My mother rolls her eyes at my actions, shaking her head and crossing her arms. She gives out a sigh of relief, staring at something behind me. I turn my head, curiosity getting the better me, and I come face to face with the man I had spent years hating. Beside him stood Andromeda, the person I had yet to ask to be my girlfriend, she, unlike my mother, held the feeling of calmness, but if you looked into her eyes you could see worry.

I don't say anything as I turn my entire body to look at him. When my eyes accidentally lock with his memories come flooding back, painful as ever. So many years I had waited for him to come back, putting it on my Christmas wish list to Santa and asking him if my dad would be back. My heart broke over and over again into a million pieces when I woke up on those special holiday mornings, not seeing my him standing there. What made everything worse was the fact of how many birthdays he missed, him not being able to see me grow up, and the false hope I had when I got that stupid birthday card for my twelvth birthday. Most of my childhood was spent, waisted, wishing for this exact moment. The moment I would finally get to see my old man.

Now, instead of the joy I thought I would feel as a kid, all I got was the empty feeling, where nothing in that space of my heart could be filled. Sadness, anger, and resentment are what hit me like semi truck. A heavy weight suddenly fell on my shoulders, causing me to cringe, the certain feeling making me feel sick. Without realizing what was happening, I find myself falling to my knees, holding back tears as my stomach turned and twisted in ways that made me gag.

"Andrew!" I hear her voice, the one calling my name. The sound of her footsteps becoming closer as she ran over to me, and when she was close enough she falls down on her knees, wrapping her arms around my neck, bringing me into a hug. My head lands on her shoulders, the tears that had welled up in my eyes now falling, slipping slowly down my cheeks. My hands grip onto her shirt, and I cling to her, breathing in her scent; the mixture of pine needles, and grapefruit shampoo. The smell was intoxicating.