Don't Judge Me (Being Edited)

26_ Daddy

Um... this chapter won't be that long. It's just a short little anecdote, a story that I don't really have to tell. Well that's not true. I do have to tell it, it's just at the time I didn't think I'd have to tell it, just like all the other times things like that happened.

So this isn't really a story I don't have to tell. This is something I really have to tell, just something that I don't really want to tell, something I thought I'd never have to.

Here's a short story about my dad.

It's still set the night I left you on. Little Toni still there bawling her eyes out, staying quiet and wishing with all the parts of her hurting heart that the Williams wouldn't find her, that way it would be a longer wait till they ultimately rejected her for the final time.

But now we're a couple hours into the future. The sound of her name had stopped, the creatures had stopped stirring around her, she was pretty sure that she'd stopped breathing, stopped thinking, stopped feeling...

I say a couple hours into the future. Who knows how long it was? Sitting on a hard ground with twigs and weeds sticking into all of your crevices doesn't do wonders for your judgement of time. Anyway, there I was, with my head cradled in my hands and my knees tucked into my stomach.

The foetal position is something to behold. I've been in it many times before. When I'm like that I don't think about what's happened to me. Normally small inane little thoughts enter my brain, thoughts that have nothing to do with anything. Or maybe they do have something to do with something but I just don't see it that way.

For instance, that night I had been thinking about owls and how I'd never really seen one that wasn't in one of those bird life sanctuary things and whether owls were indigenous to England and that they must be because there are enough stories about them, like The Gruffalo. That's what I thought of to pass the time, or maybe to stop myself from going crazy by thinking of normal things, or maybe, on some other level, thinking about crazy things were a sign of me going crazy. I don't know, let's not go into it too much, let me just get to my point. My point is that I wasn't thinking of anything in particular that night.

I didn't think about the cold or the tears or repercussions or Callum, I definitely didn't think about Callum. I wouldn't let myself.

So there I was, thinking of owls when I heard cracking and fumbling and movement in my garden. It wasn't the usual fox or rabbit moving about the place, they were heavy thumps. Did you know things are louder when listening to them through a solid? Have you ever put your head on a table and tapped underneath it, or heard someone else move something around on it? Things are so much louder through the table aren't they? Things were so much louder that night. I like to think that it was because my ear was pressed to the floor. Whatever you think it was, I don't really care right now, I want to finish telling this story.

So I need to stop speculating and analysing, let me just tell the damn story.

My dad. It was my dad trudging through the garden coming to find me. At least I think that's what he meant to do. There was no calling of my name or wary walking about. It was just like he knew where I was. Dad just walked up to me, bent down and shock me softly, as though waking me up from a slumber, then, when I didn't move, picked me up and bought me into the house. I curled myself in his arms, sucking in his warmth and strength. My dad has always been so strong; I never had that kind of strength inside of me.

I remember the house being dark but dad knew where he was going. Up the stairs, down the hall, through a door.

Dad set me down on the hard, tiled ground and I heard a click. Light flickered into the room, attacking my eyes in minute intervals before pouring across the oddly sterile and white bathroom that was in my house.

I'd never seen it so clean before. Maybe my mum was in a lucid mood. Maybe the place was just relatively clean; I had spent a couple in the garden. Nevertheless, that night the bathroom in my house looked bright and clean and pristine, like some kind of hospital. I didn't like that thought. Then again I didn't like the thought of anything that night, especially moving, so I didn't. I just closed my eyes and pretended I wasn't there. I don't mean I pretended I wasn't there as in I was dead. I mean pretended as in I pretended I'd never existed. I would sometimes do that. Just pretend that there had never been a Toni.

At that point I knew:

That my parents wouldn't be together.

That my mum would probably be happy.

That my dad wouldn't be so angry, so volatile.

That Callum would have someone else, someone better.

So would Luke, probably.

Wouldn't that be a fine world, a world without me in it seemed so much brighter, softer, gentler to everyone, especially me.

That was just then, nowhere close to how much better the world would be now if I'd never existed.

I sighed as I heard water running and my dad's footsteps went around my head. I didn't flinch or react when he stripped my clothes off. I couldn't be bothered to move, there was no point anyway.

Once I was naked, dad lowered me into the bath.

Warm, almost hot, water surrounded me. My body floated and bobbed and just sighed with contentment, happiness, for a little while. I was glad my body was able to feel something. My mind felt numb.

"Is that better?" Dad's voice asked.

My eyes heavy, tired and weary looked up. I hadn't realised they were closed until dad spoke to me.

I smiled softly at him and nodded. I then ducked my head under the water. I shook myself ridding my body of all the impurities it may have acquired whilst I'd been lying outside. I then opened my eyes under the water. It was murky and greenish and I wondered for a moment how dirty I really was, how long I'd stayed out there, what the hell I'd been thinking, what I was even thinking as dad put me in the bath, but the moment was over when my dad put his hand in the water and pulled my head out of the bath by grabbing my neck.

And all thought had disappeared once again. 

I gagged a little and shook out of his hand.

"Don't do that, Annie. You'll end up killing yourself." He snapped glaring at me.

I continued to choke as a little water had lodged itself into my throat when I'd gasped in shock under the water. I then blinked the dirty water of my eyes and silently resented the man.

Like I would ever think about killing myself...

But when I looked up at his face, his face so full of earnest and actual concern for me all I could say was, "Sorry."

Dad smiled.

He then picked up the sponge and cleaned my body.

Dad and I had moments like that whenever mum wasn't around. I don't know where she was that night, I didn't care. It was nice to have my daddy all to myself for a moment.

It was nice.

Dad cleaned me, then dressed me, like I was a special little china doll or something, and I liked it, then dad put me in bed and smiled then kissed my cheek and wished me a good night.

Though it was a little too late for that I did enjoy the thought. At least dad thought about my well-being.

He was probably the only person left in the world that did. He was probably the only person in the world that ever had.

Thanks for listening to me talk about my dad. I think he needed a nice chapter, I think I feel a little better.