I'll Be Fine (All Time Low Fanfic)

Chapter 42

July 2007

A waitress came over with a coffee pot and refilled my cup. I smiled up at her to say thank you, this was the fourth time she had come over to me.
“How late is he now, Sweetie?” she looked concerned.
“About twenty-five minutes,” I shrugged “I’d be surprised if he showed up at this point.”
The waitress shook her head lightly and moved to the next table. I’d driven back to Baltimore with Heather for the weekend to meet up with my father. Alex thought it would be better if I didn’t go alone, and even though Jack was a bit annoyed, he also agreed this way would be the best. I looked around the diner to see if I could see Hannah, but she had hidden herself quite well.
I just started to text her when I heard his voice.
“That’s a really pretty necklace you have there,” he said. I peered down at the necklace that Alex had given me for Christmas a few years before looking up to see my father for the first time in years.
I don’t know exactly what I had expected, but it certainly wasn’t this. He was tall, at least six foot two, with slightly curly dark brown hair and greeny-brown eyes. He had a kind, yet nervous smile and a light blue shirt on.
“Hi Isabel,” he said with an anxious smile. I really had no clue about how I would react, I had nothing rehearsed, so I just relaxed and smiled.
“Sit down, the coffee’s great.”

We talked for hours and honestly, it was wonderful. For once in my life I was told the truth, and I had answers. The answers weren’t exactly wonderful, but they were answers and that was good enough for me at this point.
He told me the story of him and my mom, and everything happened. They were high school sweethearts, both went to college with a good future ahead of them; my dad was to be an accountant and my mom was studying midwifery.
Suddenly they were out of college and engaged with a baby on the way. My mum was really sick when having me; back problems, vomiting, the whole shebang, so my dad had to get two jobs to try to prepare for a baby. He said when I was born that everything made sense and that he didn’t mind having to work two jobs if it meant that I would be safe. But, when I wasn’t even a year old, my mom was diagnosed with cancer. The cost of her treatment, daycare and paying for bills turned out to be pretty pricey. He ended up selling drugs and eventually started to take them himself with all of the stress. He said he doesn’t regret it; it produced money for my mom’s hospital bills.
The next part is when he is arrested, my mom dies and I was left to care.
The next part was the most shocking. When he got out of jail he decided that he was going to clean up his act and then try to get me back. He got a degree and became a counsellor/consultant for families who are struggling with money and helps them out.
After he got straightened out, he met with my social worker, Abigail and they discussed him having visitation rights and eventually taking me back full time. This was around the time I was staying with the Caroline and Jim, and when the Barakats where originally trying to foster/adopt me, this interfered.
One day, Abigail took my dad to see me now, to see how happy I was with my friends and if he came back into my life so suddenly, I would be shocked. She took him to see me that day in the park, the first time Alex drove me back home when I was living with Caroline and Jim. He said I looked so happy with all of my friends, that I’d already lived this long without him, so he thought the best thing to do was to sign the adoption papers to the Barakats.
It was an amazing experience; all my life I had never really known why I ended up where I did, but I was certainly glad I ended up there.

After arranging to meet with my dad again before heading to college, Heather and I travelled back to the guys.
When we arrived at the bus the guys were playing their set so the bus was empty. I unpacked my overnight bag, changed my clothes, and decided to head down to the beach for a swim.
After about twenty minute I saw a figure bound towards me. The water didn’t even manage to slow him down. When he got close enough he didn’t even wait to get to me, he jumped, knocking me under the water with him. He was holding me so tightly that I wasn’t even able to hello or laugh at this reaction.
“I missed you so fucking much,” he said between planting kisses all over my face. He hugged me tightly once more before softly pressing his lips against mine. My legs wrapped around his waist and I threw my arms around his neck. I had missed the taste of his lips and the way his hands felt on my back. The kiss wasn’t too urgent, it was soft and sweet and lasted for a long but I knew we were both hungry for it. It was only now that I realised that he was completely clothed, standing in the middle of the water.
“You in a hurry?”  I smirked. He gently pressed his lips to my forehead.
“Just a little bit. I couldn’t believe you didn’t come straight to the stage when I heard you were back!” he pouted, but I knew he wasn’t actually upset.
“I’m sorry,” I shrugged “I needed to think about some things before I saw you and now that I have, I’m ready to talk to you.”
I now realised that he had carried me out of the water and we were on the sand now. He had actually though to bring two towels which impressed me. I hopped down and sat on my towel to dry off.
“Oh shit, this better be a good talk. An ‘I love you sooooo much, Lexy and I want to have your babies and we are going to go back to the bus and have amazing sex now’ kind of talk,” he smirked. I slammed my fist hard into his arm and he whimpered quietly.
“You’re an asshole.”
“I’m you’re asshole.” He grinned and I rolled my eyes.
“I’ve decided what I’m going to do in college.”
“What? That’s amazing, Iz! What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to do social science, become a social worker like Abigail and hopefully try fix some screwed up kid like I once was,” I bit the inside of my lip and looked at the sand, worried about what he was going to think. I felt my fingers run down my thighs. Where the scars were once so visible, now had faded, not completely, but they weren’t as noticeable. I felt his two arms wrap around me, pulling me close to him. His lips were pressed to my temple as he held me close.
“Isabel,” he said softly into my ear “I think that will be just fine.”

*Author's note: I think I have some apologies to make. I am so unbelievably sorry for disappearing for so long. I had written so many drafts of this chapter, but none of them seemed right. I lost the original copy of this chapter so rewriting it was a bit tricky. I'm sorry to everyone for keeping you all waiting for so long, and the support has been amazing! Thank you for all of the votes and comments and everything and I apologize if I haven't replied to your comment but I will get around to it in the next day or so. I hope this isn't too awful because it's been a few months so I'm quite rusty!