Catching Feelings

Chapter Fifteen: With Or Without You

I stare at him in confusion.

"Earlier you said you wanted to know the small things; like what my favourite colour is ," he explains, "it's green."

I smile at him, "Birthday?"

"November 22nd, you?"

"August 29th." I say, finding it strange that I had to tell my own father the day I was born.

He smiles at me, "summer baby, exactly what I wanted."

We sit in silence for a while and I watch him as he scratches his arm in a meaningless way. I focus my attention on the puddles of rain littering the ground beneath our feet, watching as the heat of the sun slowly dries them up.

"I picked the name you know," he says suddenly.

My face brightens, "you did?"

He nods, "I told her if we had a girl I wanted to name her Skylar."

"Why Skylar?" I ask.

He shrugs, "you were special, and you weren't a normal baby so it didn't seem right to name you a normal name."

"I'm pretty sure everyone says that about their child," I say, "that their more special than the rest."

"Everyone's child is special. When you create something so amazing you want the best for it. And I know it may sound dumb, but I liked the name skylar because it represented that just like the sky; you were everywhere I went and in everything that I did. Like the sky, you surrounded my whole world."

"And what about a boy?" I ask, trying extremely hard not to point out the fact that I obviously meant nothing to him if he left without a second glance.

"She liked Nicolas. We agreed on that; if we had a girl I was allowed to name her and if we had a boy she was allowed to name him."

"Looks like you got everything you wanted," I say sarcastically.

"I did," he says seriously.

Well obviously not if you didn't care about me enough to stay.

My eyes start to fill with angry tears and I blink them away, pinching my arm so I can focus on the pain rather than thinking about the tears.

"You remind me a lot of your mom, you know?" he says. "Like you, she was sarcastic, and she never let anyone see her tears. Said something about not wanting to appear weak, I'm guessing that's your reasoning too?"

I stare at him blankly, "just because I'm her daughter doesn't mean I'm exactly like her. I was only four years old when she died, I barely even remember her."

"It must suck, hearing people talk about how great she was and you have no choice but to agree even though you don't even remember what she likes to do on a Sunday afternoon or what kind of shampoo she used in the shower."

I nod, "relaxing on the couch with a book, and vanilla lilac."

He shoots me a confused look.

"She relaxed on the couch with a book on Sunday afternoons, and used vanilla lilac shampoo in the shower." I explain.

He shoots me a look of pity and I try my best to ignore it. I don't need him feeling bad for me because he can join every other person in this stupid town, and I don't want him to. I want him to be different; I need him to be different.

"I thought you said you didn't remember her," he challenges me with a pointed look, a hint of a smile playing on his face

"I don't. I was referring to the things I did know. Just because I remembered what shampoo she used in the shower doesn't mean I remember her. Those things have nothing to do with who she was as a person."