Page 16 of Being Julia

“Dad, come on,” Collin said.

“Stay of this, son. This has nothing to do with you. This is between my daughter and me.”

I was so angry. I thought that maybe my mom would have talked some sense into him last night and he would have at least forgiven me, but I guess I was wrong. My heart was racing as I blurted out, “I wish you were never my father!”

He got up from the table and stared at me as he pointed his finger. “Get your ass upstairs. I don’t want to see you the rest of the day or night!” he yelled.

“Don’t worry about it. You won’t have to,” I cried as I ran up the stairs and to my room.

I threw myself on the bed and sobbed. I didn’t know if I was crying because I got caught having sex or because I hurt my dad, and he was disappointed in me. I needed to get out of here. I couldn’t stay here anymore. I looked out my bedroom window as the clouds covered the sky. There was one place I needed to go. A place where I knew I could think and find some sense of peace.

I packed a light bag because I didn’t know if I was going to be coming back for a while. I heard my mom and Collin leave, which meant I was home alone with my dad. After getting dressed, I put my hair in a ponytail and put on my shoes. I carefully opened the door and stepped outside my room, looking down the hallway and making sure he wasn’t around. I tiptoed down the stairs to the kitchen and peeked around the corner to see if he was in there. He wasn’t. I would bet he was in his office. I couldn’t take the elevator out of thepenthouse because he would hear the doors open, so I quietly opened the front door and stepped out, pulling it closed as softly as I could behind me. As I let out a deep breath, I took the elevator down to the lobby and left the building.

It looked like it was going to rain as I walked to Central Park, but I didn’t care. Rain or shine, it was still my place of solace. I found an open spot on the grass in the Conservatory Gardens, and I sat myself down, bringing my knees to my chest. Tears started to fall, as did the rain from the sky. I looked up and let the raindrops hit my face while pondering how much my life sucked. The rain was cool as it hit my skin, and I sobbed with my head buried in my knees.

“I never thought I’d be here doing this with my daughter.”

I lifted my head and looked behind me as my dad stood a few feet away from me, holding an umbrella.

“Spare me the talk, Dad. Nothing else you can say will hurt me more than I’m already hurting.”

He walked over to me and sat down. I couldn’t believe my dad was sitting on the wet grass.

“I knew I’d find you here.”

I looked at him as he handed me a small towel.

“How did you know where I was?”

“This is the one place your mom would always run to after we’d have an argument. I went to your room to talk, and you were gone.” He smiled. “You’re just like your mom.”

“Is that a bad thing?” I asked.

“No, baby. It’s not. Your mom is an amazing woman, and you should be very proud to be like her.”

I smiled softly at him as he took hold of my hand.

“Julia, I’m sorry for how I yelled at you earlier. I’ve done some things in my life that I’m not proud of. In fact, I’ve done many things that I regret, and I don’t ever want you to have any regrets in life. You’re my princess, and I’d doanything to protect you and make sure that you don’t have any regrets.”

“You can’t always do that, Daddy. You’re going to have to let me make mistakes because it’s the only way I’ll learn, and yesterday was a mistake,” I said as I looked down.

He took in a sharp breath and put his arm around me, pulling me into him. “My sweet baby girl, we all make mistakes, but you’re only sixteen. What were you thinking?”

“I was thinking about how much I wanted to be loved by someone like the way you love Mom. All of my friends’ parents are divorced or can’t stand each other. But you and Mom, your love is like nothing I’ve ever seen. It’s real, natural, and sometimes hard to believe with the things I’ve seen in this world. That’s the kind of love I want.”

“Baby, you’re only sixteen. You’re trying to grow up way too fast. When you’re older, you’ll find someone who will love you like your mom and I love each other someday. I never knew what love was until I was thirty, and it was the first time I saw your mom.”

I lifted my head and looked at him. “When you saw her in the kitchen after your drunken night at the club?”

He raised his eyebrow at me. “She told you about that?”

“Yes, and she said something about a list of rules you had and how you thought she broke one of them. What’s that about?”

“Nothing that you ever need to know about. The only thing you need to know is that my list of rules was one of my regrets,” he said as he kissed the top of my head.

“Mom said I’ll know who the right person is when he looks at me and takes my breath away.”

His grip around me tightened. “She’s right. You’ll know it in an instant. Now, do you think we can go somewhere else and talk? It’s really raining, and I’m tired of being wet.”

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