“What are you meant to be?” Liam asked, scrunching up his nose.

“A princess fairy, duh.” I said rolling my eight year old arms and huffing at the stupid boy before me as Erin giggled beside me.

Eli walked over joining Liam “We’re the Knights.” He declared proudly, puffing out his chest.

Erin and I giggled “Yeah, well we’re princesses!” we squealed.

Liam scrunched up his nose “But you’re wearing pink! I hate pink!”

My eyes grew “You hate pink?” I asked.

“Yeah.”

“Well…..so do I.” my eight year old self lied, making Erin look at me frowning.

“Do you?” Liam asked looking at me, a smile on his lips.

I nodded eagerly “I hate it…..my favorite color is….” I trailed off unsure “Green!”

Liam scrunched up his nose again “Mines blue.” He declared puffing out his chest also.

“Same me!” I cried.

Liam shot me a glance that was confused and frustrated “Stop liking the same as me!” he cried.

I frowned “Why?”

“Because you’re a girl!” he cried.

I huffed, pouting “So? Don’t you like girls? Don’t you like me?” I asked.

Liam looked at me for a long time before sighing heavily “No, I like you. I have to anyways; you’re my princess since I’m the Knight.”

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He smiled at me, his grey eyes dancing all along my face and body taking in the daughter he had left when I was “My god jelly bean, you’ve grown!” he said smiling brightly out stretching his hands and gesturing towards me.

If he was asking for a hug he had another thing coming for him.

I was still frozen, my gaze resting on him in a mixture of moments, I literally felt like I wasn’t even in my own body, like an out of body experience or if I was a ghost looking on. This just couldn’t solely be real, he couldn’t be real. I was tempted to reach up and slap myself just to check and yet my limbs were too heavy to even budge the slightest.

I looked at him a little longer, my expression utterly devoid of all emotions and expressionless as I looked at him and yet I wasn’t looking at him, it was like I could see right through him and see him for what he truly was.

A heartless coward.

Keeping my head held high I stepped forward and he smiled thinking I was going to hug him or something. I didn’t though, I just kept walking passed him, unlocked the front door and walked right through slamming it shut loudly and pulling down on the lock with an echoing finality.

I continued walking or rather trudging up the stairs of my house and into my room. I threw my bag on the floor, turned on the TV to drown out any sounds not wanting to risk it. I than changed into my comfiest and most worn pajamas before I threw myself onto my bed and turned to my TV to watch a whole lot of reruns.

I honestly didn’t know how to feel, there was this heavy feeling sit deep within my stomach making me feel numb and disconnected. I didn’t know what was right and what was wrong; I didn’t know what was real and what was false. I just didn’t know and that alone scared me more than if I was curled up in a ball and crying my heart out.

Slowly but surely the TV was unable to distract me further more when some rubbish show came onto the screen and there was honestly nothing worth my time. It was in that moment that I let my tense shoulders fall slightly and like a tidal wave I was swamped in by ever single emotion and thought, all my quarrels surfacing and smothering to the point I couldn’t breathe and my ribs felt broken and bruised.

The first emotion that hit me was red hot rage; the rage consumed me like a fire burning through my veins dangerously and painfully. There wasn’t one thing that angered me but yet numerous and many things. There were so many things that I didn’t know what thought to focus on or what my thoughts actually were.

I felt like punching something, how dare him! He just shows up after all those years and just holds out his arms as if I’d run right into his arms and welcome him back easily, as if he was actually allowed to call me my old nickname. That name now only made me shudder. I literally wanted to punch the smile off his face and that hidden arrogance that made him think that everything was fine, that he could waltz in and out whenever he damn well pleased. There were so many profanities racing through my head and yet I didn’t know which word matched him best.

At the end of the day I knew he had literally no right to waltz back in and basically presume he had my forgiveness, as if everything was chucked out the window and everything was fine and dandy. He had no right to waltz back in. I hated him so much and loathed that smile and that outstretched arms.

Did he not remember what he had done to me? To my mother?

My red hot fiery rage just wanted to punch him, slap him and maybe even kick him. I wanted to scream at him ‘till I lost my voice, screaming and telling him how much I loathed him and what he did. I wanted to have the police come onto grounds and lead him out. I wanted to give him the worst most heartbreaking experience possible, to make him as worse as he had made me feel after all of these years.

What right did he have to show up expecting a warm welcoming?

Had he purposely shown up today knowing mum wasn’t home? I highly doubted it; my parents had absolutely no contact with each other, absolutely none. My mother won’t even mention his name or speak of him, she was literally adamant to any conversations about my father. Did my father even know how successful my mother now was? Was that why he was back, to get some money and take claim of what a large sum of the male population now fawned over with no shame?

My father’s doings is something that would have been highly scandalous years ago, but now it wasn’t something that was so awful, it was as if it was normal and heard of commonly. It goes to show how messed up society was if a parent – a mother or wife especially – could hear such a story and just softly gasp and forget it the next moment.

Nevertheless it didn’t mean it stopped hurting and haunting me.

My mother and father’s relationship was always great, it started off fine and they loved each other greatly. My father was a high business accountant for some big company and my mother stayed at home looking after me and being the perfect house wife. Their relationship was thick and they’d been together since they were around twenty, they got married a couple years later and soon I came and welcomed the world.

My relationship with both of my parents was tight and close, both adored me and loved me. My dad spoiled me like crazy, bringing me back dozen and numerous of presents and mum would sigh and roll her eyes but still smiling lovingly at my father and me. I remember all these great and perfect moments from back than with my parents, how a family should be. I never liked thinking back on what was before all of the mess, it hurt even more knowing what had been and just as bad as the rejection.

Things were going great with my parents but like every other story things began to change, commonly how things begin is that you hear your father is working more. Mum honestly thought nothing of it, she had income coming through to look after me and my father’s job had always been highly stressful and time consuming job. I questioned if sometimes as time wore on if mum just preferred to be oblivious and naive and knew she was catered for and didn’t worry about all my father’s so called job trips and late hours in the office.

I don’t think it was ‘till my mother felt suddenly like some ugly and neglected lady – that most likely hadn’t had sex for months – and seeing how neglected I had become did she finally take a stand. I remembered all the nights where I’d sit in my bedroom wrapped up tightly in my blankets wanting to material to block out all sounds as I heard mum and dad screech and yell at each other. She’d basically beg my father to come home early some nights and just bond with me, just for once in my life to say hi or ask me how my day was. My father had been so neglectful that in my young age I was beginning to forget what he looked like, or what having a loving father or just a father was like. He became in somewhat ways just some man that walked in the front door whilst I was asleep and was gone before I went to school or daycare.

However he never cared or acknowledged the fact that he had pushed his only daughter aside. He acted as if I didn’t even exist and at times he acted as if he wasn’t even married to my mother, coming home at nights drunk and stinking of alcohol, cigarettes and having receipts from strip clubs.

At that age not everything I understand, but children were more perceptive and smarter than given credit. Even if I didn’t understand than some things like what a strip club was over time the engrained memory soon became clear to me and I learnt and was scarred even after he left over what he had done.

One night though mum had finally convinced my father for him to show up to our school night where all our years had a presentation of some sorts to present and our art work pinned to the walls. My year – which was year two – were doing a dance and sing along on the big stage and I got to dress up as a princess fairy outfit that was bright pink and I adored it greatly since I was sharing the stage and character with Erin.

I was ever so excited that night, my mum smiled at me softly loving seeing me so excited and I could tell she was happy too knowing dad wasn’t there and I wouldn’t come home disappointed. I spent years clapping and squealing and I got up onto stage and tried my best, I was so happy.

However when mum came to find me alone and hugged and applaud me with no one at her side I was let down again and I felt like I had been struck. I was utterly devastated. I remembered crying the whole way home in the backseat, crying and screaming to mum. I remember her looking at me in review mirror and then the next thing I knew was she was turning around and screaming down the street to dad’s office.

The next thing I saw always haunted and scarred me so much, I remember mum unbuckling me and cooing to me as I sobbed that daddy would want a special viewing of my performance. She cooed and shushed me, trying to comfort me as she held my weight on her hip and walked into dad’s workplace in the dark. I remember cuddling into mum’s side as I continued crying softly and the sound of mum’s gasp had me glance up.

At my age I didn’t fully understand it and yet the sight than and still now sickened me. My father’s own eight year old daughter saw him bend his receptionist over his desk and continuously slam into her shouting out horrid words not noticing us until my mum’s broken sobs reached his ears.

I didn’t know if she finally figured it out that my father was a cheating sleaze or reality had sunk in and she grew a backbone. Either way it was this that was the final straw for my mother.

I remember in a blur my mother speeding home crying and muttering curses under her breath as I sat in the back seat with wide eyes not really understanding what was next and worrying greatly. From there on in I remember mum tucking me into bed early the whole time herself a mess torn between heart ache and anger. I remember later on into the night waking up to my father bashing on our house’s front door demanding to be let inside, but mum kept the door locked shut and everywhere else in the house as I balled my eyes out that night, scared out of my mind.

Over the next couple days neither my mum nor I heard anything from my father, not a thing and my mum went about like things were okay and kept a strong hold for me. Yet behind closed doors I knew she was ripped apart, I listened to her about the house in random spots crying her eyes out and gripping at her chest, as if trying to tear her heart out.

It wasn’t until a week later that he stormed in as I sat at the dinner table with my mother in our old house doing my homework with my mum that my dad barged into the house. My mum protested, demanding he leave and asking where he’d been. Apparently it wasn’t the first time he’d slept over at his receptionist’s house. Dad ignored mum and even I, I remember him avoiding my wanting gaze, practically begging him with my eyes for him to look at me and calm or my fears and worries. But he didn’t, instead right in front of me he slammed divorce papers right under my mother’s and I’s nose before storming out.

That was the last day I saw my father.

From there things changed rapidly, mum and father got a divorce, my father never present around me or event trying to make contact. Dad sent over one of his workmates to collect all of his possessions and he told my mother there was no custody battle needed since he didn’t want me. So my mum and father got a divorce and I saw my mother at her worst, struggling to provide for us with limited money since she didn’t have a job.

Suddenly one day my mum walked out of her bedroom looking like a new women, she got a job whilst studying at university to become a lawyer and she grew a thick backbone. Mum became an all new person, she threw herself into work and studies and she was no longer crying herself to sleep or staying up late watching Sex in the City reruns. I spent a large sum of time next door at my neighbor’s house with old Mrs. Hoover a widowed lady that had gray hair.

At first I was utterly happy to be out of the house and hang with dear Mrs. Hoover and her amazing cooking, especially her cookies. I after all thought mum was just trying to make us financially stable and supported as she studied and worked at irrational and crazy hours, never blinking. It didn’t take long for me to become invisible also like I had to my father, not seeing her for long periods. It came clear to me when I than had a twenty four hour nanny and we got a brand new house – the same one I lived in now – that mum had achieved wealth and yet she still didn’t want to come home. It was then I realized that we hadn’t drifted apart because she was trying to be stable. She pulled apart because I reminded her of my father and she didn’t want to be weak ever again.

At such a young age I learnt the definition of lonely and abandoned, it didn’t take me long to learn how to make a bed, to tuck myself in, pack my school bag and cook myself dinner. My nanny – Mrs. Albert – soon became a mother figure and my only parental figure, but sooner or later she left becoming too old and mum finally deemed me old enough to care after myself. It was then I took sanctuary at Erin and Liam’s and I literally became part of the family, their parents having been close to my mum not being agreeable at all to my mother’s actions but biting their tongue and loving me.

I was never an intrusion or hassle to them.

I never heard or saw from my father since that day with the divorce papers, I didn’t even hear of him from anyone else. My mother spoke nothing of him and if I mentioned him she’d get a stony face and snap at me, getting defensive. Not that in some ways I could blame her.

It wasn’t until my tenth birthday did I hear anything about my father, coming home from school my mum was surprisingly home early and I was ecstatic. I however found her in bed watching Sex in the City with a bowl of ice cream, not leaving her room. I had gone into the kitchen to find the reason for her actions; it was a two year anniversary clip in a newspaper from a city nearby of my father with his lovely receptionist, with great news of their first baby on the way. He had married that woman the same year he got a divorce, I didn’t know if that was worse or knowing that he only lived and hour away.

It was that very day, on my tenth birthday, that I put a shield up around my heart, declared that love wasn’t going to happen for me and solely the fact that I just didn’t care anymore. On my tenth birthday I hailed a cab – without my mother’s knowledge – and walked up to Erin and Liam’s front door and slept on the couch after crying my eyes out to Erin.

That was the last day that I let myself become weak and the next day I walked out strong and stony as my mother.

My father had ruined my mother and also me, if it wasn’t for him I’d be kept together and I’d have a mother to come home to daily. Instead I lived a trashy and awful life, never really understanding what a true family was or even Christmas.

I had gotten over how awful and miserable my home life was, I really had, I had accepted the fact that it was as good as it was going to get. Thant he bombshell of school and Falan hit me hard and I came to accept the fact that at school and such I was always going to be judged. I came to accept the fact that I had to run and hide from Liam and shy away from my true feelings. I had accepted all of that.

But seeing my father on my front step door destroying all my plans to keep it together and strong wasn’t part of the plan and I couldn’t accept that at all. It wasn’t meant to happen and I didn’t want it to happen because he was a weakness and with weaknesses come actions you just don’t want.

Don’t get me wrong, I had always naively dreamt of the day that I found my father on our houses doorstep, begging and groveling on his hands and knees for my mother’s and mine’s forgiveness. I dreamt of him saying all these sweet words to me, listening to what he had to say, setting everything straight for there only to be one misunderstanding. Than he’d move back in and he’d say all the things a dad would say, and he’d do all the things a father would do for their daughter.

I had my days I dreamt crazily like Erin.

And yet my dreams never ended with a happily ever after, it ended with me falling apart again and sometimes yelling and screaming, telling him and showing him every ounce of pain he put me through. Making him feel bad and awful because I wanted him to know what pain felt like. I wanted him to know that whilst he was off getting married, banging his receptionist and having a perfect family I was coming home to an empty cold house.

What frustrated and weakened me most was although there was all that red hot rage and hate, how I loathed there was always going to be that small part of me, the inner child and girl with a soft heart that just wanted to run back out there and into his arms. I wanted him to tell me how much I’ve grown, hear him tell me how proud he was of me, how sorry he was and try and make it up to me ‘till the day he died. I wanted to hear all the sweet things and protective things a father would say and I wanted him to just love me. To say what every daughter deserves and wants to hear from their fathers. I wanted to know for once what it'd be like to be a daddy's girl.

But I kept strong because I know better, it just didn't happen and he didn't deserve it.

So instead I threw my face into my pillow and cried my eyes out and letting myself fall apart one last time, clutching my heart as I promised myself that the next day I’d walk out of my room like my mother used to do with that strong facade and with all the harm thrown her way bouncing off reflected. Tomorrow I’d walk out strong and stony and I wouldn’t cave into all those people that were at risk of softening my heart.

Because I was more like my mother than I ever knew or was willing to admit.

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