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He stands in front of me, his shoulders looming over me like a willow tree. He's suffocating me and there is no way I can get out of this without a scratch. He steps forward, reaching his hand out to grab my arm but I stumble backwards inter the door.
"I thought you were at the station today?" I blink, my voice shaking with nerves. "I was...." he trails off taking another step and I feel air catch in my throat.
"But only this morning until Peterkin came in, she was... preoccupied with your friend John b." I open my mouth, trying to avoid that subject but he just ignores me. "Yes don't play stupid with me, I know you're fucking around with those delinquents. Are you trying to throw your life away? This life that your mother and I killed ourselves at work so that you could have a future."
I raise both of my eyebrows, stepping forward into uncharted territory. Fighting back against him. "Oh you mean the bubble wrap life that you've suffocated me in for years. News flash dad, there are people struggling on the island and you just expect me to pretend that life's perfect! Plaster on a smile and go to all of these events to show that we are the perfect family. You and both know we haven't been a family since Charlotte died!" By the end I was screaming, my voice shaking so much it was close to breaking. I could feel the tears streaming down my cheeks.
"Don't you DARE bring Charlotte into this argument!" His darken and I feel my heart drop. Fuck I've done it now. "She was my family too dad! I have the right to talk about her. I was the one who held her limp body as she died." I mange to get out between the tears flowing down my face.
He looks away for a second, sighing, before looking back at me, "And I'll never forgive you for that. You were the reason that she died. It should have been you that night and both you and I know that. Now I have to look at her reflected onto you for the rest of my life!" There it was. The sentence he had been holding back since she died. I was supposed to die, not her . Not his little girl.
"You don't think I know that! You don't think I've asked that question over a million times. Why did god have to take her! She was the golden child, the kindest soul, and the most compassionate person I had ever met. But instead she got pulled under the current instead of me and I couldn't save her!" The words pour out of my body faster than I could stop them, racking me with stacks upon stacks of guilt.
"I know her death broke you but not as much as much as it broke me! You say you see her whenever you look at me but imagine what it looks like to have her face looking back at you every time you look in the mirror!" I scream at him but he just stares blankly back, like something inside of him snapped.
"Dad?" I ask, stepping forward to see if he was okay and that's when he snaps back into reality, his eyes turning even darker than they were before. His fist swings at me but I react quickly, ducking so he hits the door frame instead. He curses loudly and I take that chance to run but as soon as I get past him me hair is yanked, pulling me backwards.
"You're not going anywhere you bitch!" He screams at me as my body connects with the floor, pain shooting throughout my whole body. I barely have time to react before his fist hits me square in the jaw. I wince before spitting out blood onto the wood flooring of our foyer. His hands are pressed into mine, pinning me to the floor as he lifts up his knee and I scream but it's muffled by another voice from behind me.
"Get off of her!" She yells and feel myself take a breath I didn't know I was holding. "Cash what the hell!" My mother yells shoving him off of me and starts dragging him to another room and I look up to see Sarah overtop of me. "Hey hey it's just me, here let me help you up off the ground." She says in a hushed tone as her hands slip underneath my shoulders and she pulls me up to a sitting position.
"God Li how long has this been going on?" She asks and I shake my head, my gaze lowering down into my lap. "It started when char died but it's been getting worse since I..." the words catch in my throat and Sarah's face contorts. "Since I started seeing JJ."
Her eyes widen as her mouth opens, "I'm sorry you what?" She blinks, letting go of my arms and I take a deep breath.
"Hey hey slow down and take a breath. I can't understand you." She whispers calmly, grabbing onto my arms again in a comforting manor. "I should probably start from the beginning then, but can we go somewhere where my dad isn't?" I glance at the door to my mom's office, hearing their muffled screaming through the door and Sarah nods, pulling me up to my feet and helping me up the stairs.
"Here let me get you a washcloth for your lip, it's pretty busted up." She let's go of my hands once I get into a seated position on the bed and walks into my bathroom, reappearing seconds later with a damp, navy washcloth. "Okay now start from the beginning."
"After Charlotte died I was in a really dark place. I wouldn't eat. I wouldn't sleep. I was too afraid to ask you for help cause that's when you started to date topper and I felt like you wouldn't want to listen to me. So I drove out to the drop off and tried to drown myself." I felt tears start to prick my eyes as I glanced to Sarah's face, who was now starting to cry.
"But JJ, JJ saved me. Then we started talking and hanging out all the time. Then we started to sleep together. I was lonely and broken and so was he. We were each others coping mechanisms. Then I started to fall for him, and I fell hard. It began to be hard to not be with him but we had to. Since when had you ever heard a kook and Pogue relationship working? Then some fucked up shit happened and I got all wound up in John b, Kiara, Pope, and JJ's shit."
"The treasure hunt?" Sarah asks and I send her a funny look. "What?! You're not the only one who accidentally got involved in Pogue business." She shrugs, her lips crinkling into a small smile. I've missed that smile.
"John b?" I take a guess and a blush spreads across Sarah's face as she nods sheepishly. "Now continue please I wanna know everything."
"So yeah I started helping them and some stuff happened that I don't really want to go into detail about but I ended up in hospital where I kinda figured out I'm having JJ's baby." I speed up the last part, my gaze dropping down into my lap, crimson creeping up my cheeks.
"You're... pregnant?" Sarah sounds out, confusion lacing her voice and I nod. "Yeah," I reach into my back pocket, pulling out the picture of the sonogram and press it into her palm. "Surprise auntie Sarah"
She looks at the photo for a little bit, mesmerized until a grin spreads across her face and she pulls me into a tight hug, squealing, "oh my god!"
✧✧ I'm not even sure what to say... del's dad knows now so get pumped for midsummers!
