Page 74 of Hate To Love You

Mom lets out a breath of relief, and when she speaks again, her entire demeanor has changed.

“Good. I can’t wait to see you, Gwenny. I’ve missed you,” she tells me, and my eyes suddenly feel the burn from unshed tears.

“I miss you too, mom. I have to go, I’ve got class,” I lie. I don’t have a class for the rest of the day, but I need to get out of here. I need to go home and curl up in a ball and cry. “I love you,” I tell her, my voice as soft as a whisper.

“I love you, too, honey.”

My eyes squeeze shut as I attempt to tamp down the tears threatening to spill out, but it’s too late. A single tear falls from my eye as I press the end call button.

Taking a look around the café, I realize that it has become more packed with students trying to avoid the cold weather outside and warming up with hot chocolate and coffee.

I wipe my cheek quickly, grabbing my things and heading out of the warmth and into the brisk cold winter air. It’s cold enough to where you can see your breath, but I have so much pent-up sadness, so much rage, so much confusion building up inside me that I don’t even feel the chill.

My heart is beating a million miles per minute, my thoughts are jumbled and racing, and my legs feel numb as I run toward home.

I hurriedly unlock the front door, toss my boots off and run to my room, passing Haley on the couch in the living room. I dive onto my bed, bringing a pillow to place under my face as I let out a scream. The muffled sound doesn’t take the pain away, but it certainly helped get some of the anger out.

There’s a small knock on my door, and then Haley is peeking her auburn head in. Her face is etched with concern as she takes in my position on the bed.

“Gwen… you okay?” Haley asks cautiously.

“No…” I mumble as I switch to sit up, holding the pillow in my lap. I hate admitting that I’m not okay. I try so hard to be strong. To not let things affect me. But this? This is messing with my head. My own father.

Haley pushes the door open wider before slowly making her way over to my bed and climbing on to sit across from me. She crosses her legs and sets her hands in her lap as she plays nervously with her fingers.

“Do you wanna talk about it?” she asks hesitantly, keeping her eyes focused on her hands. She seems nervous, like I’m a bomb that could go off at any moment. We’ve never really done this before, talked about our feelings with each other. Lainey is usually the one I complain to and she either tells me to suck it up and move on or holds me while I cry.

Haley also doesn’t know anything about my relationship with my dad, so she won’t fully understand what I tell her, but I need to talk to someone.

“My dad got remarried and had a kid he never told me about,” the words spill out of me. I peek up through my lashes to assess Haley’s reaction.

Her eyes are wide and she’s no longer playing with her fingers.

She gulps. “Wow,” she wipes her hands on her thighs before looking at me. “That’s really messed up. I’m sorry. I-”

I cut her off because she looks like she’d rather be anywhere but here.

“Yeah, it’s fine,” it’s not fine, but whatever.

Haley shifts uncomfortably. “Do you… do you need anything?” I shake my head. I don’t know what I need. I don’t know if anything will make this better. I feel betrayed, forgotten, insignificant. Is there anything anyone could do or say to fix that? Probably not.

“I’m just gonna take a nap. But thank you for talking with me,” I say with genuine appreciation. I know this made her uncomfortable, and it was probably the last thing she wanted to be doing. So it means a lot that she still came to try to help.

Haley nods in understanding. “Okay. Well, let me know if I can get you anything,” her lips turn up into a sad smile.

“I will,” I flash the best smile I can muster as Haley walks out of my room, shutting the door behind her.

I throw myself back onto my pillows, completely wrecked and exasperated. It’s only noon and I’m already spent.

If I’m being honest with myself, a small part of me always hoped that my parents would get back together. That dad would come to his senses and get over his midlife crisis and realize that he loved my mom so much he couldn’t be apart from her.

That he loved me so much he couldn’t bear being so far away.

Sometimes I think it would have been easier if they got the divorce when I was younger, so I’d be able to get used to it. But by the time they split, I had grown up watching them love each other. I’d based any relationship I had or wanted on them. I wouldn’t settle for less than the kind of love my dad showed my mom.

I’d gotten used to having my parents together. To seeing them happy and in love. And then at nineteen, I had to just accept that all of it was fake? That they’d actually been fighting for years.

The sound of my phone vibrating against my nightstand pulls me out of my pity party.

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