That's three updates on time in a row! Like yes!!! New milestone for me. =D
So this chapter is dedicated to kirstensgilliam. She's a wonderful wonderful wonderful person. I loved reading your comments and replying to them. Thank you for being such a nice person! ♥
Now, about the chapter, hmm, well there's only one word to describe the chapter. Depressing! =P Like seriously I had to watch three funny youtube videos after writing this to keep myself from being sad. Gah, I don't like writing these kinds chapters buuuuuut they're important soooo =P
Anyhow, hope you like it. =)
Enjoy ♥
-------------------------------------------------
At a late hour in the evening of the same day, I got a call from him.
A twenty eight seconds long call.
He told me that I was going to tell my dad everything about Emma soon, or else he was going to do it.
"Two weeks," he had said. That was the time he had given me to do what he wanted.
And that was it. He didn't give me a chance to utter even a single word before disconnecting.
For the rest of the night, after having run out of tears, I stared at the plain ceiling and thought.
That was all I did. I thought all night. I thought about what he had said, about that letter, about that he was in love with me since we were ten, and about how he wished he could change it.
And it felt horrible.
Like someone was cutting my supply of air, like someone taking away the single good thing about my existence.
Dad knocked on my door several times, but eventually gave up that I was going to talk to him and went back to his room.
I held the phone close to myself, hoping that he would call.
Hoping that he would call and say that he didn't mean what he had said.
But he didn't.
After a very long time, the morning arrived. One of the dullest one I could remember.
Dad dropped me off to school, saying that I didn't look in a state to drive myself. He didn't ask any question, just drove in silence as I sat on the passenger seat, looking out of the window.
It was times like these that it seemed clear how much shit I put my father through. What he must feel to have such an ungrateful and depressing child?
"I love you," he said, kissing my forehead before I clambered down from the car.
The smile that I gave as a reply couldn't even convince myself.
And as I walked down the hallway, the first and the only thing I tried was to find him. I wanted to see him. Even if he didn't want to.
I saw him on my way to second class. He stared back blankly in my direction for a few seconds before going back to talking to the coach.
I waited to talk to him once he was done, but acting like I didn't even exist there, he just walked away.
At lunch, he didn't come to the cafeteria. I sat with Sebastian on the seat closest to the door. Sebastian was going through a rough time with his dad after he had seen him with Luke again.
I told him frown lines didn't suit him and spent the rest of the time trying to cheer him up.
It kept my mind off Daniel for a bit.
The rest of the week was same. We didn't talk. No phone call, no text, nothing.
I did try to call him twice, only to find that he had keeping his phone switched off at all times.
I couldn't decide which was worse, when I saw him in school and he completely ignored me or when I came home and thought about him all day.
And I missed him. I missed his laugh, his voice, his warmth, his touch, everything.
I missed him when I woke up. I missed him when I saw him at school. I missed him when I didn't see him. I missed him when my dad asked me what was wrong. I missed him when mom came over to see me. I missed him when I thought about him. And I missed him when I tried not to think about him.
And the nights were the worst. No matter how much I tried not to, I did end up crying for hours about him.
I missed him. I missed Daniel a lot.
Every morning I looked like hell. I looked pale and sick. My throat had gone sore and my nose was blocked.
So both in and out I was in a bad state.
But that didn't seem to affect him.
In fact, it was kind of scary how easy it was for him to ignore me. He didn't even have to avoid being in the same room as me to do it. He would look past me, and there would be absolutely no change on the look on his face. It remained blank.
Every time it managed to run a shiver down my body. The coldness that he had in his eyes.
And when I wasn't feeling like a damper in everyone's life, I was mad.
But, I didn't have an answer for it. Who was I mad at?
Daniel? Why, because he had finally realized that he didn't need me? That he wasn't going to just come around this time?
Or Nathan? Because he had left the same day, without saying anything?
He wasn't picking up his phone either.
Guess, everyone had found out that they were better off without me.
Maybe I was mad at myself. I was mad at myself because I wasn't the girl Daniel was actually in love with.
He had fallen in love with a girl he didn't know at all. He had created an image of a person who just had the same name and face as me.
And by chance, if he had in fact loved the real me eight years ago, then I wasn't that girl anymore either.
The girl he loved was somewhat of a nice person, who would have never hurt anyone, not the fake and lying damaged goods that I was now.
He was in fact smart to see that there was hardly anything in me worth loving anymore.
So, one week later, this was what I had reduced myself to.
Self loathing.
Awesome.
"Have you tried to go and talk to him in person?" Dr. Rae Fraser asked, settling back in her wingback chair.
Apparently, my psychiatrist and my father were having secret meetings of their own. He had told her all he could understand about what what actually happened with Daniel and me, so now I was stuck in her office answering questions for the past hour.
"I did," I answered, twiddling my thumbs. "He ignored me."
To elaborate that further, two days ago I had tagged along with Shay to the basketball practice after school thinking that maybe he would finally give me a chance to talk.
He knew I was at the stands so he didn't even spare a single glance in my direction. And I was not the only one who noticed that how mechanical he looked while playing, like someone incapable of making mistakes or any slip ups. He played, allowing nothing to distract him. That distraction being me.
And once the practice was over, he didn't waste any second and left the gym.
Liam had shot me a look of pity, saying that Daniel was just stressed because of the first game of the season that was just two weeks later.
I couldn't understand how stupid he thought I was.
I sighed and looked at Dr. Rae again. Her work must suck. Getting stubborn and rude patients like me all the time must be exhausting.
"Norah, do you think you have a friend you can talk to about this? Someone you feel at ease with?"
I didn't have to think much about that. "No, I don't talk about myself to anyone. You're kind of the closest thing to a friend I have," I answered, half smiling. "God, that was depressing. Do you think I'm depressed?"
She smiled in return. "I think you've been through a lot and you're just sad, which is understandable."
I shrugged. "Oh, well."
For the next ten minutes, Dr. Rae asked a few more questions and I replied as much as I could.
At the end she said that by the next week she might put me on some anti-depressants if she felt necessary.
I was being put up on a lot of time limits for the next week lately.
"How did it go?" Mom asked as I got inside of her Mini Cooper.
"Alright, I guess," I simply answered.
"I am sure her sessions are going to work, you know," mom told me, smiling, of course.
"I don't know," I mumbled. "Hey mom, did dad tell you about the New York thing?"
Her smiled slipped a little. "Yeah, he mentioned it," she answered, trying her level best to hide the panic in her voice. "Have you made up your mind about that yet?"
"No, not really..." I trailed. "But, umm, I'm thinking it might be nice to, I mean..."
"Yeah," she murmured. "Might be."
Yes, I was thinking of running away. I wasn't sure for how long I could keep myself sane before eventually one day breaking down in front of him.
So yeah, I wanted to run away.
Ten minutes later, I was standing in my driveway, staring at the car parked aside from dad and mine.
A shiny black Bentley.
I knew I had seen it somewhere, just couldn't recall where.
Think Norah, not many people drive this kind of super pricey car around the town.
I kept my eyes glued to the car as I walked up the stairs of the porch, still wondering where I had seen it.
The front door was unlocked as I got in.
"Oh, good, she's here," I heard my dad say. I turned around towards him only to be surprised by realizing who the car belonged to.
Jeremiah Cohen, Daniel's dad.
"Hello Norah," Mr. Cohen spoke, standing up from his seat at the couch. He was wearing a perfectly tailored gray lounge suit, looking like the busy man he always did.
"Um..." I stood awkwardly at my spot, clutching the edge of the door. "Hello...Mr. Cohen."
"Uh, he wanted to talk with you about something," dad told me as I made a deer caught in a headlights face.
Talk with me?
Why?
Oh Jesus, Daniel hadn't told him about the Emma thing, had he? Cause why else would he be here?
Was he here to talk to me first and then tell my dad later about it.
Or what if he had told him already?
I looked at my dad. He looked normal, except just a little confused as to why I wasn't saying anything.
"I would just take a couple of minutes," Mr. Cohen notified me with a small smile. "I promise."
Once again I looked at my dad, as if asking him what I should do. He nodded slightly.
"Okay."
Mr. Cohen and I were sitting on our porch chairs, well more like he was sitting, I was just squirming in my seat from the anticipation.
"I'm sorry," he started. "I know this all must seem really strange to you."
"Oh no, no, nothing like that," I replied but I didn't need to spell it out how uncomfortable I was right now. It would have been evident on my face. "I'm just a little confused, that's all."
He nodded, adjusting his tie. "But I take you might have an idea why I am here."
To expose my secret to my dad?
"Maybe," I muttered with an awkward smile.
He remained silent for a few seconds. Meanwhile, I continued to squirm, nervous about what he was going to say next.
I took a look at him.
It was uncanny how much Daniel looked so much like him. Even their pensive expressions were the exact same one.
I quickly looked down at the ground, sighing.
I missed him.
"Your father mentioned you haven't been eating or sleeping properly either."
Okay, like seriously dad, stop mentioning this to everyone! First Dr. Rae, now to Daniel's father. I mean what- wait- what did he mean by either?
Oh
"Is he okay?" I asked.
Mr. Cohen looked at me, a new weakness in them now. The smile from earlier was gone. "No," he said. "I know that I shouldn't meddle. This is something between you two and no one else should have a say in all this but I just couldn't not do anything. I-"
I waited for him to carry on with bated breath.
"I met Sharon, um Liam's mom around five years ago."
I wasn't expecting him to say that, but I decided to listen quietly.
"It's quite a strange way how we met. As I guess Daniel has already told you about his step father and how he- um... so I was suggested by one of my friends about this support group for people who have themselves gone through abuse or for anyone close to them. I tried to convince Daniel to join it, but you know how stubborn he can be, and obviously at last he didn't. But I did decide to go there myself thinking that it might help and that's where I met Sharon."
Eyes wide, I stared with my mouth agape. "Liam and his mom they..."
"Yes, Liam's father was an alcoholic. Sharon tried to put up with the abuse she had to go everyday just to save her family but one time he was under the influence and he pushed Liam on the ground and that was the moment when Sharon decided that it was the limit and she can't stay with him any longer. She divorced him but he continued to trouble her even after that, but she never let him to get to Liam. When we met she had suffered years of domestic abuse, a divorce and the troubles of being a single mother, and having gone through a failed marriage and having failed as a father, I guess that made us confide in each other 'cause we felt like we could understand what the other has gone through."
A car pulled in front of the house adjacent to us. I watched as Mrs. Nguyen stepped out of the car, a bag of grocery in her hands.
"I'm sorry, Mr. Cohen, for both you and Liam's mum," I spoke quietly, feeling it hard to believe that such a lively person like Sharon had to suffer all of that.
"It's fine," he said, with a small sad smile. "Now, you must be thinking why I just told you all of this, huh?"
"I might have an idea," I confessed, dodging his gaze.
"You know when he was little Daniel was such a happy kid. He never cried, kept giggling at everything. I remember when I used to come home and he would just be waiting by the door, with that adorable dimpled smile of his."
As he spoke, the smile on Mr. Cohen's face grew, which was very similar to the smile he was describing except that he didn't have the dimples as Daniel did.
I found myself smiling too.
"He was the perfect kid. Never troubled anyone, never expected anything. Just always happy like nothing in the world could bother him." His smile started fading slowly. "And...I would do anything to have that kid back, to have my little Daniel back. But I know I can't. He doesn't trust me anymore to let me in. I knew it when I went over to Fairbanks after his mother called me about the accident with James. He was in his room when I saw him, and when he looked at me and there was this blankness that stared me back in the eye. A grown man shouldn't be as scared as I was with that look in his eyes."
I knew a one or two about that look myself.
"These boys, Liam and Daniel, both had a shaky childhood but Liam, he's like normal boys his age, thinking about college, grades and dreams and then there's my Daniel..." He breathed out a sigh. "And you know what made that difference between them? Because Liam had his mom. He had someone who he knew won't let anything happen to him. But Daniel went through that alone. Now I can tell him that I am here for him all I want but it doesn't matter because I wasn't when he really needed me. He thought his father was unaffected by his life and his own mother wasn't doing anything to help him. He thought he had no one. Do you know what it feels when you realize that there's nobody for you out there?"
I tried not to cry from thinking about Daniel. He had suffered so much and I just made the things worse for him.
How much I wished I could undo the things that hurt him, his step dad, his mum, the things I did to him. Everything.
"No..." I managed to utter.
I didn't know what it felt like not to have anybody by your side because no matter how bad things would go, I knew I had my dad. I had him.
But at one time, Daniel didn't. He had no one and for a moment I thought how it would have felt if I didn't have my dad with me for the last three years.
My heart clenched even more for Daniel. I wished I could hug him tight right now, make everything better for him again.
"I thought taking him away from there would help him, that a new place could mean a new start for both of us. But nothing was working, he would keep to himself, won't talk to anyone. He was hell bent on homeschooling, just so he wouldn't have to meet kids his age. And I felt defeated, I felt useless because I had let him down. I felt like I had lost my kid and it was just so unfair, a ten year old shouldn't be this troubled. He should be..."
I felt my own throat choked up, listening to him.
He wasn't even trying to hide the quaver in his voice and pain on his face. He was hunched over, his elbows resting on his knees and his face looking down.
I always felt like his presence demanded to be respected, but right now he looked so vulnerable.
"Are you okay?" I asked, and my own voice sounded strange to me, possibly because it was so close to breaking.
After another deep breath, he looked more composed now. He slowly nodded. "But I was hopeful when he started writing those letters."
I jerked a little in my seat. "You know about them?"
He let out a soundless chuckle. "Yeah, but I promise I read just one. He doesn't know that so please don't tell him."
I chuckled at his sheepish expression.
As if Daniel would listen to me anyway.
"And then it wasn't hard to tell who they were for after I noticed how he would wait for a little girl to get safely to her school bus before getting into the car himself when I came to pick him up after school. And then suddenly he was interested in reading books and music."
He let out another chuckle and I felt a flush on my color on my cheeks.
"I owe a lot, Norah," he said, serious now. "You helped him get better."
I wanted to tell him that I really didn't. I mean how could have I possibly done anything? I never even bothered to talk to him. What was he thanking me for?
I wanted to ask that, but I didn't, because it didn't feel right to interrupt him.
"I wanted to tell him when your family moved away. I had already come to know about your sister from someone."
He looked at me with a hint of pity in his eyes. Not wanting to see it, I looked at the sky which was all shades of pink and orange. "Why didn't you then?"
"It felt pretty clear that your family didn't want to be found and I didn't have the heart to tell him about it when he was already panicking about you leaving the school," he answered.
I nodded, still keeping my eyes on the sky.
"What do you want me to do, Mr. Cohen?" I asked, feeling tired from this conversation now.
"He's a mess, Norah. Now, I know how temperamental he can be and how ruthless he's with his words at times-"
I cut him off this time. "It's not what happened. He didn't say anything. And I've tried to talk to him but he just won't listen."
"Then I am asking for you to try just once more. Please. Please, I am used to people giving up on him, I wouldn't want you to do that too."
Why was he saying those things?
How should I explain to him that Daniel didn't want me to try at all?
I hadn't given up on him. He was the who had given up on me, on us.
"I know, I am asking too much from you," he spoke, a desperation mixed in his voice. "but I can't see him like that again. Lately, he seemed to be doing so good. He wasn't drinking, he had given up on racing, he spoke with his mother after so many years, and even if you didn't see it yourself, it happened because of you. And the only reason I told you about Sharon and I was because I know you understand how it feels when two broken people can help each other. You're the only one who can help me right now so please I am asking you to try just one more time. Please."
"Okay..." I whispered.
I didn't know what I was going to do, or if Daniel was even going to let me say anything, but I just couldn't say no and crush the hope Daniel's dad had for him.
I was going to make Daniel see that I loved him and that I wasn't going to give up, not so easily.
But what was I going to do?
-----------------------------------
Kind of a meh chapter. Boring.
Buuuut the next one would be better, promise. =)
Vote, comment, share ♥