Page 33 of My Damaged Protector

“He just wants to talk,” she offers.

He's had many years to want to talk before now, but he never made any move. How convenient is it that he remembers I'm his daughter now that I'm successful?

“No,” I say and start to walk out of the room.

My aunt runs after me, and she's in front of the door, preventing me from leaving within seconds.

“I don't want to talk to him.”

“Just hear him out,” she says softly.

I can't believe her right now.

“This man left me. He left his wife, your sister! He might as well have been the one who killed her because we both know hedrove her to an early grave. Let me remind you again that he left me, his daughter, without once looking back.

“For years, I wondered why he left, if it was because he didn't love me, or I just wasn't worthy of love. Do you know how that's affected me? How it affected every relationship? Always leaving me to wonder when the other shoe will drop and they'd leave! And suddenly, after all these years, he wants to talk? Because I'm successful now? He's delusional if he thinks I'm going to give him a dime of my money.”

“I don't want your money, dear.”

His voice irks me.

He's somehow made it from the table to now stand behind me.

“Don’t you fucking call me that. And don't talk to me unless I'm talking to you. In fact, do everyone a favor and leave. You're not wanted here.” I snap my fingers literally in his face as I rage.

“Sarah.” My aunt tries to get my attention from where she's standing in front of the door. I pretend not to hear her.

“Leave!” I maintain, my eyes still on Neville, my deadbeat father.

“Sarah,” my aunt calls again, her tone more demanding this time around.

“I said leave!”

“He's dying,” I hear my aunt say. Turning, I look at her in confusion, sure I must have heard her wrong.

“What?”

“He's dying Sarah. He has leukemia.”

11

IAN

I putthe last of my clothes into the duffel bag I'd brought with me on this journey and zip the bag up.

After a long day of aimlessly driving around, wasting gas that I don't really have money to afford right now, I drive back to the motel and start to pack up.

The receptionist lady wouldn't take money from me when I tried to pay for it. Instead, she asked how long I was going to stay, and when I said I was leaving the next morning, her face changed, or maybe I was just imagining things.

At this point, there's no putting it past me. The rest of the day passed in a blur after I left the estate. I spent most of the drive convincing myself not to call Sarah.

I just don't see any sense in it. She's doing well without me. Why mess with her life after all these years?

She's better off. Really.

Someone knocks on my room’s door, and despite my earlier thought, I'm running to the door excitedly at the prospect of Sarah being the one there.

It's not her.

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