Pieces [Lip Gallagher]

Chapter 1:

I looked up from the textbook I had in front of me and looked around my room. For the past few hours I've been studying and it was tiring. Right as I was about look back down at the textbook there was a knock on the door.

"Yes?" I called.

The door opened and I turned my head to see my dad. Putting my pencil in my book, I closed and turned my body to face him.

"Hey sweetie." He smiled softly.

"Dad?" I asked.

My dad and I didn't have the most stable relationship. He was barely home most of the time but when he was home we would often argue. Mostly the arguments were about how the Gallaghers were a bad influence on me and I shouldn't hang out with them.

"You're needed in the living room." He informed me.

"Is it important? I need to study." I asked.

"Yeah." He nodded and left without another word.

I rolled my eyes and stood up from my bed. As I walked into the hall my brother, Scott, walked out of his room which was across the hall from mine. We walked downstairs and navigated our way to the living room. Once we entered we saw my dad sitting down already.

"Kids. I have an announcement." He said. "Sit."

We sat down and he turned to us. "Now I know that I'm barely home. But it's usually for weeks at a time."

"Dad?" Scott asked confused as to where he was getting at.

"This time I'm going to be gone for a month straight, maybe longer." He said.

"A month?" I asked in disbelief.

"Why?" Scott asked.

"Well my another branch of the company lost an employee and they needed a fill in worker until they could higher a new one and the process of getting a new employee takes a month usually." Dad explained.

My dad's job was something related to construction. Or that's what he's told us. He never really tells us anything about his work unless it's that he's leaving.

"So you could be gone for up to a month?" I asked.

He hesitated a moment before nodding. I threw my hands up and stood up. Scott pulled me back down onto the couch.

"No fighting." He said glaring at me.

"Please. I want to be able to leave you two alone for however long this may be without anything bad happening." Dad begged.

"Well you can't know that for sure." I pointed out.

"Elena." Dad warned.

"You can trust us okay? I'll watch after her while you're gone. You can check in once every few days but you need to focus on work. Okay?" Scott negotiated.

Dad nodded and it got quiet.

"When do you leave?" I asked.

"Tomorrow." Dad looked down ashamed.

I looked at Scott and he shot me a glare.

"Sorry." I muttered while looking down.

"Is that everything you need to tell us?" I asked after another moment of silence.

"Goddamn it Elena." Scott screamed.

I flinched and moved away.

"I get that you hate him because he's never home and you never get to spend time with him but I don't get to either. That doesn't give you the right to be rude to him." Scott yelled.