Page 9 of By Your Side

By the time the abuse turned from mental to physical, there was nothing left of me. I was a shell of my former self, and I blamed only me for everything that was going on. It had to be my fault, didn’t I? I had to be the problem because I had transformed the lovely gentleman in to the worst of the worst. I also clung on to the good memories and tried to get them back. I would have done anything to get that relationship back and that’s why I stayed for far too long. So long that any confidence I have gained now is a freaking miracle.

I don’t know what would have happened if everything hadn’t erupted in such an epic fashion. If my whole life hadn’t been shattered in one awful moment, I don’t know where I would be now. Not in LA, that’s for sure. Probably still with him and being beaten all the time. Maybe even in a morgue. It’s scary, but in a way, it took that massive moment to change everything and to give me the courage to run away. Not that I can be grateful for it. I can’t be glad for any moment that I spent with Dante. I regret every moment of it…

Ring, ring. My cell phone shakes me from my thoughts, from the past, thank goodness. Ring, ring…

“Dad,” I answer happily, glad to hear from him. Just because we got divided during my relationship with Dante, it doesn’t mean that he has destroyed us completely. Of course, we can’t see one another all the time now that I’m in LA, but we talk a lot. He stops me from going freaking crazy. “How are you?”

I press pause to stop the other complication in my life, Lance, from playing on the screen, then I rise up from the couch and pace the front room as I speak to my favorite person in the world. It makes me home sick to hear my father talking about his friends and his work, all people and places that I know all too well, but I know that however much I want to I can’t go back there. I can’t re visit what I ran away from.

“Anyway,” my father finally declares. “You sound peppy today. How are things with you?”

“Hmm, things are okay,” I reply cautiously. “Very much the same. The bar keeps me busy…”

“And what about friends?” He always asks me this. I know that he worries about me being lonely, but I’m much happier being by myself rather than letting someone else in that I can’t trust. “Dates? Anything like that?”

“Dad, you know I don’t want to date anyone here. You know I can’t trust myself again. And you hated my last idiotic choice of guy, so why would you be encouraging me to get back out there?”

“Millie, I know what loneliness looks like,” he replies sharply. “I haven’t managed to move on from your mother dying when you were just a baby. That situation changed me, but at least I have those happy memories to keep me going. I didn’t like Dante because I knew that he wasn’t right for you, and the last thing I want is for you to have your whole life ruled by him. That isn’t right either. You got away. You are still very young. You should absolutely try again. Just learn from your mistakes and chose wiser in future.”

“Hmmm.” I don’t know what to say to that. I don’t want to get even more confused here.

“Aren’t there any nice young men there who can take you out? Come on, Millie, you are beautiful. Unless you are completely hiding yourself away from the world, someone must have asked you out. Didn’t you mention an actor who comes in to the bar at one point? Lance? Hasn’t he been very nice to you?”

I roll my eyes, irritated at myself for ever even mentioning Lance to my dad. I should have known that he would jump on that information and make it a much bigger deal than it really is.

“Dad, he is just a friend of mine, that’s all. Yes, he’s nice, but that doesn’t mean anything…”

“The best relationships can come from friendship. Me and your mother were friends before.”

I tune out as he tells me the infamous tale of him and my mother meeting because I’ve listened to it a million times before. Also, it’s hard for me to hear it because it’s about a woman who’s such a big part of me but that I haven’t ever met. Not at an age when I can remember anyway, so it’s a challenge for me to listen to anything.

Instead, my mind drifts and I imagine a different life, the one that my father seems to want for me without ever meeting Lance. He wants me to have my own happiness and he wants me to find it with someone that he considers ‘nice’. That’s hardly surprising considering my track record, but is Lance ‘nice’ enough? I guess he’s the nicest person who I have ever met, which leads me to day dream about what a date would be like with him. He would probably go all out because he’s been asking me forever and I have finally agreed, but it would have to be private, I think that he gets that part. If anyone learned about us and I ended up in the media, then the eruption I ran away from would become public knowledge and everything would change. I don’t want that.

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