Intent [Wattys 2017]

Chapter 66

Is that silly? After all these years that I'm still scared of my father? Well we're gone from that place so I don't see why I'm worried anymore.

Somehow I managed to get off the damn ice and perched myself on a bench hoping Harry would just find me so we could get out of there. The moment I saw him he was all smiles, thank god...he didn't know anything.

I don't know how something like the fact that that man was my father would come up but knowing my luck, especially tonight, it wasn't an outlandish possibility.

I hated seeing Harry like that. The moment he saw my banged up shoulder his eyes turned all frantic and lost. The fact that I caused that in the moment and his less than satisfactory mood there after is heartbreaking. He loves me and even if I don't know my own feelings you shouldn't treat people like that.

In hindsight I feel this way but in the moment I didn't care about any of that. My dad was walking around somewhere and I needed out. I remember thinking that I didn't care if my arm was falling off, I needed to get out of there.

He wouldn't listen when I asked if we could go back to the hotel and every response he gave me was harsh in tone and insensitive in nature. Not my Harry but then again I wasn't his Emma either.

Since that night all those years ago I haven't had any interest in knowing what's going on with the man who gave me half my DNA. Once my mum tried to get me to talk about it under the pretense that it would help me get over what happened but I stopped that right away.

I think my mum knows what he's been up to.

Honestly I've never thought about him and his life after that night, at least not in that way. If I had to answer I guess I just assumed that he would always be far away from me. Now that I think about it though, no one ever gave me an explanation as to what became of him after that night.

Did he go to jail?

Did he get help for himself?

Has he ever tried to get into contact with me?

My mum wouldn't have told me if he had I don't think. After my reaction seeing him a year later I don't think she ever dared bring him up fearing that I'd run away and get lost in the woods again.

Yeah that actually happened.

It all happened a year after my father left.

I was walking back home from school. It was a short walk, I had done it countless times before. It was the same route Harry and I took to and from school every day. Of course then I was walking all alone but it was familiar and I felt closer to him somehow.

Anyway I was walking along the familiar road along the small area of woods that were situated between the school and my house. It was late autumn, the trees were bare, leaves blanketing the pavement, it was a picturesque day. I always loved that time of year. Harry and I would play around in the piled up leaves like the careless kids we were.

I didn't do that anymore. I didn't really do anything fun at the time.

Then I saw him.

He was just standing there, like he was waiting for me or something. I was utterly terrified to see my father so close, at the time I don't think I went a week without having a nightmare.

So I ran.

I heard him call my name but I didn't care. Who knows if he came after me or why he was there, I didn't stay to find out. I just ran into the woods and didn't look back.

It was getting late, I was out of breath, hopelessly lost and then I stumbled over my own feet and went tumbling down a hill before I was stopped by rolling into a rock and passed out. I don't know how long I was out there. Next thing I knew I was waking up in the hospital with non other than Steve, who would later become my mother's husband, hovering over me. I was there for three days recuperating from a concussion and my mum never mentioned my dad after that.