ALL THE STRINGS ATTACHED | COMPLETED

19.

THEODORE.

To say that I was calm and composed was the biggest lie of the century. My palms are clammy and my legs felt like it had stones weighing them down but I had an ego to uphold. I had my best poker face on, acting like I didn't care that I was going to attend his dad's birthday party.

Who was I kidding though? Daniel saw right through me.

"Stop being so nervous. It should be me that's freaking out. Not you."

"Well, we can both freak out. Just for completely different reasons."

His mouth curved into a grin. "Yeah, that's right. You freak out about why you made the bad decision to follow me, while I freak out about the bad decision I made to go see him."

"I always knew you didn't have it in you to play the bad guy. Deep down, you still love your parents. No matter what they have said to you in the past. Am I right or am I right?"

"There's no such person as 'I' here."

I rolled my eyes at his attempt to crack a joke. "Nice try, Dan. Not funny."

"Sorry," he said, even if I knew he wasn't. "I was trying."

"Try harder."

Daniel didn't talk after that. Probably trying to calm himself down a little. After our little fiasco back at his apartment, we did talk a little about this whole thing.

His parents have been nothing but unsupportive and selfish in their squared-thinking ways. It caused Daniel much pain and heart ache and that's putting it lightly.

He wasn't sure that this whole reunion thing was such a good idea in the first place, which is why he didn't talk about it in the beginning.

The only thing was, Daniel was a kind soul. He thought of others before he thought for himself. Him attending the party was most likely already set in motion the first time Xander appeared. He just didn't know how to go about accepting the fact that it was happening.

"Is it too late to bail now?" he asked as the car pulled up to the driveway. "Xander keeps telling me he's changed, no longer the person that he once was. But what if he starts throwing those homophobic comments at me again?"

"Well, we're already here aren't we? There's literally no turning back now."

"But-"

"It will be fine. Besides, you haven't said 'yes' to being mine yet. So technically, I'm walking in as a friend, not boyfriend. Or you could just say 'yes' right now."

"Theo, I'm-"

"Get out of the car, your two love birds. You have been talking and eyeing each other like I'm not there the entire trip, gross."

Leave it to Xander to be annoying when he needs to.

We both sighed and got down the car. "You're fucking annoying."

"I know. Always will be." Xander shot me a wink and I could feel my intestine bunch up in disgust. God, this guy pisses me off.

We got down and looked at the door, both a little unwilling to move. Feet firmly planted to the ground. Maybe this was a bad idea after all, but I couldn't turn back now.

"Are you ready?" I asked.

We pushed the front door open and to our surprise, there was no party going on. No guests. No cake. No deco.

DANIEL.

It was just a person, sitting there. Alone. At the sofa. The sound of the TV filled my ears.

The person turned his head towards our direction and I saw a familiar face staring back at us.

His jet black hair now tainted with strands of white. The smile that he was giving seemed overjoyed yet it was filled with sadness, like he couldn't believe what he was seeing.

"You're really here."

I scratched the back of my neck. "Y-yeah."

He placed his hand on the arm rest and pushed it down to prop himself up. "I'd didn't think that Xander's lame excuse would actually bring you here."

"Hey, it was a fabulous idea okay!" Xander complained but was ignored.

"Well, I kinda had an inkling. You never liked crowds and parties anyway."

He let out a laugh. "That's right, son."

My head jolted up, eyes as wide as saucers. "What did you say?"

He walked over, stood in front of me and instinctively took a step back. Now, I could clearly see how much he aged, since he was standing so close. His skin now had freckles all over, something he didn't have when he was younger.

"..." He didn't answer, maybe surprised at how I was reacting.

Theodore nudged me by the arm, telling me to say something. I opened my mouth, but no words came out.

"You may resent me, but I never hated you. You're my son. I can't say I was sorry for the way we acted and I'm not asking for forgiveness. However, you are still my son."

"Son?" Was a son to him when he decided to kick me out of the house to fend for myself?

"Yes, but I probably lost the right to call myself your dad."

I pursed my lips. What he just said caused my heart to ache a little and the worst part was I didn't know what to do.

Theodore seemed to sense the struggle that I was going through, because he held my hand.

"I'm not one to meddle in family affairs," he started out. "But no offense, you did walk out of his life for a long time. All because of the gender he likes. If you want to make it up to him, how about the both of you start all over? Because I'm pretty darn sure you didn't know the real Daniel even before you chased him out."

This guy, he seemed to take the words right out my mouth and said it for me. He was right, I never once had a good heart to heart with my parents about myself. I kept it in and decided that they were never going to find out. In the end, the bottle exploded.

I saw the aged man's mouth curve into a smile. "You must be Theodore." The person whose name was called nodded his head.

"You're right, we do need to start over. How about we start right now, over dinner?"

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A/N: I'm repenting here. I'm so sorry. Work has caught up with me that I didn't have time to write AT ALL. If you still have this book in your library, you have my sincere thanks 😆

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