Page 62 of Breathless With Her

Chapter 13

Erin

* * *

I was apparently reallygood at making rash decisions. Recently, anyway.

No, that wasn’t the case. At least, I tried not to make it the case.

But I had told myself when Nicholas and I ended that I would figure out who I was. And in order to do that, I had to discover where I came from.

That meant I needed to figure out where Dad had gone.

Jenn knew my plans, and while she didn’t support them, she supported me. If this went horribly, which it probably would, I knew I could go to her.

But I didn’t want to. I wanted things to be okay. I wanted them to work out so I wouldn’t be stressed out. I wanted my dad to hold me and tell me that he loved me. I wanted there to be some excuse for him having left us like he did.

Like the FBI or aliens or something.

At least, that’s what I’d wanted when I was a little girl.

I wasn’t a child now. I’d had those blinders ripped off long ago. Even before our mother decided that she didn’t want to be a mom anymore and joined the commune.

It was just Jenn and me now. We were a family. And then she had made her own, and I had thought to make a family with Nicholas.

Somehow, I had been left alone, left behind. Again.

And that was why I needed to try and be okay on my own. Why I needed to be okay with this new version of Erin.

But it wasn’t easy when I was so worried about what might happen next.

But that was fine, I would be fine.

I was going to find out why my father didn’t want me. Why he left.

I was going to uncover the answers.

The detective I’d hired had found my dad.

I still couldn’t believe it.

I looked down at the note in my hand. Frank Rose.

He lived less than an hour away, up in Fort Collins.

He still lived in the damn state.

Our mother didn’t even live in Colorado anymore.

She had moved to Wyoming. Sure, just a state north, but she didn’t livehere. My father, the one who had abandoned us first, lived closer.

And he hadn’t thought to contact us.

I’d imagined at one point that maybe he had gone to prison or something. Or perhaps he had disappeared and lost our phone number and forgot where he once lived.

Anything would have been easier in my heart and mind than knowing that he had left us but didn’t actually move away.

But I had to be okay.

---