𝐃𝐢𝐬𝐜𝐫𝐞𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧

Chapter 29 | Night

"That was one handsome boy with you Alora. I felt myself start to swoon."

I'd titled my head forward to allow my hair out of my face. There was too much of it, and it began to stick to the back of my neck in the most irritating way imaginable.

She'd pretended to faint to which I met her eyes. Mine were glassy whilst hers were perfectly dim despite being in broad daylight. "Please, stop."

I can't bear it any longer. The misdirections, the missteps away from discussing the man who abandoned us in the worst way possible.

I'd always struggled with that. Abandonment. Whilst some people developed phobias of public speaking or heights, my greatest fear, enough to deem a phobia was abandonment. It would be easier to deal with my dad packing a bag and leaving the two of us. At least then there would be so guilt, no sense of responsibility. For when someone intentionally abandons you, you can displace your anger into them.

When he died, I couldn't blame him for abandoning me.

"Can we look through it?" I ask her, referring to the photograph collection. My dad took each step he could to ensure he'd be immortalised in images, all with the help of my mother's amateur photography skills. "I could have been taking pictures of the Kardashians if I wasn't stuck with a baby at my hip." She used to kid about.

We sat down in my bedroom, the one she'd moved into the moment I left home. Her, their, old bedroom has turned into a shrine for my father. Never entered, never seen. Like the mere presence of another soul would disturb his memory.

"I'll leave you be with it." She took the book off of a high shelf, placing it in my lap.

I opened the lamented pages to rediscover the stories I'd grown up with, the images of him flooding my mind. It was like I'd had thrown off of a cliff by the past and I could do nothing but brace myself for the landing.

                                   15:03pm 1/09/17

                     Hi dad it's been a while to say the least.
                                                                        Read:15:03
Alora, I will call once I can okay xx
                                             Read:15:04

He never called.
The universe hadn't given him a chance too.

Looking through the photo album, I remembered our trip to France.

We were all under the Eiffel Tower, where he'd started his mission to write letters and scatter them at every holiday site we went to.

My memory is fading of his image and I only see us, this day, as shadowy figures.

"This life is full of grand surprises and for us, for people like us, it'll often come with lots of challenges." My mother had went to go and get us ice cream. She wore a yellow daisy that day. "But in this life my sweet child, we can either choose to be products of our circumstances," he looked me in my eyes. "Or products of our own actions."

"Which is it you want to be Alora?"

The memory unlocks like a broken latch, and I can't stop the other end from flooding under me.

I shut the book, and return to my phone, eyes locking on the brightness of the words in-front of me. It's our pinned message, his last words. But they're the only words I have saved. Neither of us were big on texting, but as we grew distant towards the end, we translated our distant affects to voiceless messages.

Going into the drawer that contained all my items during my childhood, I looked for the electronic device that belonged to my dad's.

I didn't do this often, but when I remembered moments exactly as they happened I felt almost compelled to.
17:54pm 1/09/21