Total pages in book: 91
Estimated words: 86335 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 432(@200wpm)___ 345(@250wpm)___ 288(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 86335 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 432(@200wpm)___ 345(@250wpm)___ 288(@300wpm)
Dad’s gaze flits to mine for only a second before he looks away. Ever since Mom took her last breath, Dad has barely looked at or spoken to me. I get that he never wanted me, but shouldn’t the fact that Mom loved me be enough for him to at least care about me?
“I’ve made my decision,” Dad mutters. “We’re moving.”
Mom has only been gone for two weeks. Fourteen days. And my dad has decided to take a job in Rome. He doesn’t care that this is the home we’ve lived in for the past several years, the last place I felt the magic.
Mom’s gone, and if my dad has it his way, so will every memory we created here. The trips to the Tower Bridge to look at London from the top. It was so magical. The walks to Kensington Gardens. It was her favorite place. We would sit on the bench and talk while we people-watched. Our favorite bookshop was nearby, so she’d buy us each a new book, and then we’d have tea while we read. When she was doing well, we’d take the tube to Chinatown and eat at our favorite Chinese restaurant.
I already lost her. I don’t want to lose this city as well.
“You promised Mom this would be the last time we moved,” I remind him, hoping mentioning her will thaw his icy heart. “This is where she wanted to make a home. I have school and friends and a boyfriend!”
And a dad who never wanted me, I think to myself.
If he moves me from here, away from the city my mom loved, away from the friends I’ve made, away from the only place that actually feels like home, what will I have left? A man who can hardly stand to look at me?
“Well, your mom isn’t here!” Dad barks. “Stop acting like a brat. You’re not a baby anymore. It’s time to start acting like an adult. We’re moving, and that’s the end of it. You’ll make new friends, and there will be plenty more boys.”
We moved the next day and spent the next year in Rome. Dad was gone so often that it felt like I was living on my own. The home he rented was beautiful, but it was filled with silence…emptiness. The magic was gone.
Then, he moved us again to the States my junior year. My senior year, he met a woman closer to my age than his. They started a new family and had a baby the same month I graduated.
All this time, I’d thought when he told Mom he didn’t want to be a dad, he meant in general, but it turned out, it was just me he didn’t want. Me he couldn’t love.
I left for college a few months later, and Dad settled down. He stopped moving, he took less flights, and stayed local, proving once again that I wasn’t enough to stick around for, but Debbie and their daughter, Kristin, were.
I came home for Thanksgiving and again during winter break, but it was hard to watch. To wonder why I wasn’t enough. Why he couldn’t love me, didn’t want to be home with me, but he wanted and loved the new baby.
And then they had another baby. Another girl. Ashleigh. And I stopped going home. I made excuse after excuse until Dad stopped asking.
I rented a small apartment off campus so I could stay year-round. And after I graduated, I moved back to London, hoping it would make me feel closer to my mom since it was the last place where she had been alive. Unfortunately, I didn’t feel the magic there. I just felt...alone.
With a degree and MBA in marketing, I took a job at Benson Liquor and hoped, one day, I would find myself a home. A place where I felt loved and wanted and cherished. I craved the magic I had felt when my mom was alive.
Before she gave up and left me...
I thought maybe I could have that with John, but I’m starting to realize that, once again, I was wrong. Because right now, as John sighs in frustration, I feel anything but loved or wanted or cherished. Once again, it feels like I’m not enough. And there definitely isn’t any magic.
“Look,” John says, cradling my face. “Let’s just give it some time. We’re both busy with work, trying to make a future for ourselves. I can fly in for Thanksgiving, and you can visit for Christmas. We’ll talk and video-chat. We’ll figure it out. Who knows? Maybe you’ll realize you miss London and want to move back.”
His lips quirk in a boyish grin, and I sigh in defeat, not verbalizing what I’m thinking: I wish you would choose me...choose us. Put us first. Think about my wants and needs and not just your own.