Torn

Chapter 2 - The Power Behind A Broken Promise

Chapter 2
The Power Behind A Broken Promise

A/N - Thank you so much for the lovely comments and such in the last chapter! It means a lot. The side picture is of the beautiful Flynn (;

“I promise I’ll come back to you, sweetie. I’ll be coming back for you,” she said, before placing a kiss on top of my head.

“But Mommy, Daddy’s not home from work yet. Aren’t you going to say goodbye to Daddy?” I asked, keeping a tight grip on a few of her fingers to make her stay.

She shook her head, that blonde bob swaying back and forth. “I’m sorry, Willow. Mommy will be back for you soon, I pinky swear,” she grinned, lifting a well manicured pinky.

I slowly lifted a small, chubby pinky to hers. We linked fingers tightly before she placed another kiss to my hair and wrapped me in her arms. I clung onto her like my life depended on it, gripping the back of her jeans. She wrenched me from her legs and smiled one last time before getting into the driver’s side of her car.

I watched my mother leave the house for the last time that day, instantly wishing that I could have held onto her longer, tighter. Maybe if I was a better little girl, she would stick around longer to watch me grow up. If I’d eaten my vegetables and went to bed on time, she would want to be there for me again.

I spent months after that, waiting by the front door with my bright pink Barbie suitcase full of the odds and ends of my closet. I’d sit on the little wooden bench perched in the corner by the doorway, sucking on my thumb and twirling a blonde ponytail in my chubby hands, just waiting. She promised she would come back to get me, and I sat by that front door everyday after that, waiting for her to come pick me up in that little red car of hers. I’d do my homework on that little bench, bring my dinner plate with me while I sat there, simply hoping that would be the night that she would show up to get me.

But she never did.

“Here,” my dad said, shoving a large trash bag in my face.

I took it without another word and stood up from my spot on the little wooden bench by the front door. Our fingers touched briefly, making all of my nerve endings stand up in sheer fear. He handed it off to me without another glance in my direction before he stalked off to his leather chair in the living room.

I quietly walked outside to throw the trash in the bin on the sidewalk. My nerve endings were still on fire, sending threats to my brain, telling me to get out now while I could. I should have run off with my things now, while he was most likely nodded off in the stupid chair. If I really wanted to, I would have been able to sneak off without him noticing, at least for a few days. But I knew how Jack worked. He would make up some phony sob story about his one and only daughter and how she’d gone missing, and I would be back at home days later, paying the infuriating price of my actions.

As I let the bag drop from my hands, I heard a familiar chuckle from somewhere behind me. I placed the lid onto of the trash can and turned towards the noise. There was no way that he could be living there, right next door. It was hard enough dodging him after class and in the hallways. But now I had to make sure to be out of eyesight around my own house too?

I saw him coming out of his front door as he was laughing with some girl around his arm. She was beautiful, in the catalog model type of way. Her long, brown hair cascaded down in ringlets on her back. She was bronzed, with clothes that I hadn’t even considered wearing for years. As she shoved Flynn after he made another joke, he pretended to feign an injury, placing a hand over the area she’d pushed.

I don’t know what it was about Flynn Avery. Maybe it was his annoying, too good to be true, lively personality. Or maybe it was the way he sauntered as he walked down the hall sometimes. Something about him just struck a chord with me, and I couldn’t quite put my finger on what it was. All I knew was that I wanted to stay as far away from him as possible, even if that meant going to extreme measures once in a while.