This chapter is dedicated to TemilopeOsho. Thank you so so much for your support and votes💙💙

Character;

Olive Stones (Timothy's younger sister).

*

What is my dad doing here?

Okay...I know he's my dad and all but I just didn't expect him to come here!

Kelly was the first one to make a solid move by hugging him. He reciprocated the action immediately and they were now enclosed in each others arms. Kelly's small body against my dad's bigger one.

It looked....cute.

And there was this sudden feeling of wanting to be right there.

It was a bit suprising when he shot a wide genuine smile towards Ivy and she replied with a large grin.

What did I miss here?

It was only my mom now that had a potato face on.

Don't mind my language but her face still looked firm and stoic. A contrast to the rest.

I remained frozen on the spot where I stood holding the bag containing a few of my stuffs, leftover food and drinks.

I didn't want to go back to my 'extremely small, cold but stuffy' cell yet because I doubt my visit period was over yet.

Though I couldn't hear, but from the look of it, my mom and my dad were having a serious but kind of quiet type of conversation over there involving a lot of hand signals and head nodding.

After about three minutes, my mom and sis moved aside for my dad to walk in.

"You'll be fine dear!" My mom said to me before finally making her leave.

"Remember to take it easy okay?" Ivy adviced while Kelly had a very expectant, cute puppy eyes on.

After that, they left also leaving me standing a few feets away from the man that happens to be my dad.

He walked closer with slow strides till he was about a reasonable distance away from me.

"Stella...." He started and it caused me to shift my attention to his face.

"Please....can we talk?"

I remember the last time he asked that question and I also remember how much of a disaster it ended.

And also all I'd heard after that...

I dropped the bag I was holding and quickly took fast steps towards him before encircling my hands round his torso, my head resting upon his chest.

I could tell he was taken aback by my sudden action because it took quite a while before he could actually return the gesture.

Maybe I wasn't the girl he used to know, maybe I had changed, maybe I had learned how to look through other people's perspective and not judge only on what I know but what actually happened.

My dad might have been wrong but it wasn't entirely his fault. We're all human afterall, we can only try to be perfect but no one is.

With the kind of happiness I noticed in Ivy and especially Kelly's eyes when he walked in, I knew that there wasn't any need for me to hold back anymore.

I didn't want to be the cause of my family being incomplete or any other person feeling hurt.

Maybe I had been to selfish.

Maybe, it doesn't always have to be about me all the time.

We broke the embrace and he looked straight into my eye before removing a stubborn strand of hair that was disturbing my vision.

I damn miss this kind of fatherly love.

Most people never had the chance to see their fathers, some never had theirs for so long, some wish they had they had this opportunity but I almost pushed mine away due to my ego and ignorance.

"I miss you dad."

"I missed you more," he replied.

"I'm sorry...I'm so sorry for everyt--" he interrupted by placing his index finger vertically along the path of my lips.

"You shouldn't be...I should be the one apologizing dear...I know I've been one of the worst dads in the world and I'm really sorry...there's no excuse to justify what I did," my dad said.

I walked towards the table we were sitting on earlier and he followed suit. I sat on the exact chair I sat on before while he sat on the one beside me exactly where my mom sat and tilted the chair so that he would be facing me.

There was a form of comfortable silence between us.

"If--"

"Well--"

We both started talking, our words clashing at the same point in time.

"Don't worry...go first," he offered.

"Well...it's just that, you'll always been more than a good dad to me...to all of us. I really don't know what exactly happened between you and mom. But when you left...it was just really hard to adapt to life without you, many things changed...our lives changed, mom changed. We were all hurt dad...and as time passed with no sign of you ever coming back, all that hurt kinda faded into rage."

"I know right...I'm really sorry...I wish I could go back in time and make things right."

"You weren't the only one wrong here dad...mom was too and I was very wrong too for not being able to understand."

"You were too young then Cowr...sorry...I mean Stella--"

"It's okay...you can call me anything you want to, even if the name sounds really weird and reminds me of Cows," I said and there was a round of chuckle after that.

"I really didn't mean to hurt you...all of you," he continued.

But you did.

"It's fine, besides it's all in the past now and you're here now so that's all that matters," I tried to assure him...tried to assure myself.

The door to the visiting room opened and a man and woman whom I assume to be couples came in, holding a filled brown bag along.

"Oouuu...sorry I couldn't grab anything for you on my way here, I was just in a hurry and I literally rushed over here immediately I heard of what happened," he apologized.

Does it mean that he didn't knew I was here all these while, I thought he knew but didn't just care to come.

Or maybe he was perhaps disappointed in me.

"You didn't know about this all these while?" I asked.

"Yeah...I was out of the State after your mom and I had our most recent arguments where she made it clear that she didn't want to have anything to do with me anymore. So she didn't let me know about what happened, it wasn't until Ivy called," he replied.

He gently cupped my chin.

"I heard about everything that happened, I wish I had known earlier...maybe I would have done something about it."

"Nevermind dad...I deserve every bit of it, I'm so sorry for letting you down."

"Come here," my dad said, pulling me close until we were enclosed in another hug.

"I love you...Cowry."

"Love you too, dad."

The same door from where I came in from opened and the same blonde woman that brought me in came in with a brown-haired girl of about fourteen years old along with her.

A huge smile was drawn on the young girl's face when she noticed her parents sitting on a different table on the other side of the room.

She was allowed to go meet her parents and the blonde woman walked towards my dad and I.

"I see you're feeling better now right?" She said to me after acknowledging the presence of my dad.

I smiled in reply.

"Your time was up a long time ago Stella," she said and both my dad and I exchanged glances.

"Sorry sir...but she has to go back now," she apologized to my dad.

"It's fine...thank you," my dad said and we both stood up from our sitting position.

"Bye dear," my dad said with a huge smile, ruffling my hair before turning around to take his leave.

When he got to the door, he turned back and when he noticed I was still there, he waved at me and I waved back.

As soon as he was gone, I picked up the bag my mom brought earlier and followed the blonde officer out of the room with a huge grin plastered on my face.

I haven't experience this volume of love in quite a long time.

Today just appeared to be one of my lucky days.

~~~~~
Happy new year peeeps!❤

I know most of you would be wondering where the hell I got the name Cowry from.

Lol. I dunno actually, it just popped into my head and that was it.

My initial thought was that since Cowry was once used as money back in the days, it is being regarded as something valuable.

I checked online later one and found Cowrie, not Cowry though and it was kind of a rare name.

So however, our Stella remains Cowry😂😂

Thanks so much for reading again.