CHAPTER 10-EXPECTATIONS
791 Words
Abbey’s phone rang.
Once.
Then again.
She stirred slightly, eyes still closed, hand reaching blindly across the bedside table until her fingers brushed against the vibrating device.
She pulled it closer, squinting at the screen.
Dad.
Her sleep faded instantly.
She sat up.
“Hello?”
“Abbey.”
His voice came through, familiar, steady, but there was something else in it. Something that made her straighten a little more.
“Hi, Dad.”
A small pause.
“You haven’t called,” he said.
Abbey rubbed her forehead lightly. “I’ve been busy. I just started a new job.”
“I know,” he replied. “You didn’t visit either.”
Her grip on the phone tightened slightly.
“I’ve just been trying to settle in.”
Another pause.
Then.....“Can you come home this weekend?”
Abbey’s brows pulled together.
“Dad…”
“Please.”
She blinked.
The word didn’t come from pressure.
It came from somewhere softer.
“I’ve missed you,” he added. “My baby girl.”
Abbey’s chest tightened.
That word.
My baby girl.
For a second, she didn’t respond.
Because she wasn’t in her room anymore.
She was younger.
Standing between her parents in the kitchen, her small hands wrapped in theirs.
“Where are my baby girls?” her father’s voice echoed warmly as he stepped into the house.
Her mother laughed softly, wiping her hands on a towel. “We’re right here.”
Abbey had run to him first.
Always.
He had lifted her easily, pressing a kiss to her cheek before reaching for her mother with his free hand.
“My girls,” he said again, smiling at both of them like they were everything.
And for a long time...They were.
Abbey blinked, pulling herself back to the present.
Her room came back into focus.
Her phone still pressed to her ear.
“Abbey?”
She swallowed.
“I heard you,” she said quietly.
A faint sigh came from the other end.
“Come home this weekend,” he said again. “Just stay the weekend”
Abbey stared at the wall.
Her jaw tightened slightly.
Because home wasn’t what it used to be.
Things had changed.
Not suddenly.
But enough.
Abbey hadn’t understood everything back then.
But she had understood enough.
One day
They showed up.
Her stepmother......Her daughter.
Standing in the living room like they belonged there.
Like they had always been part of something Abbey hadn’t been told about.
Her mother had stood still.
Too still.
Abbey remembered holding her hand that day.
Tightly.
Because even as a child...
She knew something was wrong
Then Her father had started coming home late.
At first, it was small things.
Work.
Meetings.
Delays.
Then.....
“Her daughter isn’t feeling well.”
“She needs help.”
“They need me.”
She had heard all the excuses behind doors....
She had seen the way her mother’s smile faded slowly.
The way silence filled spaces that used to hold laughter.
The way her mother sat alone more often.
Waiting.
Few months later....
Her mother was gone.
An accident, they said.
Sudden.
Unavoidable.
Abbey didn’t ask questions.
She didn’t understand enough to.
But she remembered everything else.
The quiet house.
The way her father stopped saying my baby girls.
The way things moved too quickly after.
Too easily.
Her stepmother moving in.
Her stepsister’s voice filling spaces that didn’t belong to her.
Nothing felt like home anymore.
“Abbey?”
Her father’s voice pulled her back again.
She blinked.
“I’m here.”
A pause.
“You’ll come?” he asked.
Abbey closed her eyes briefly.
She already knew what waited for her there.
The tension.
The forced conversations.
The presence of people she never accepted as her own.
But.....There was still him.
Her father.
And despite everything.....She had missed him too.
“I’ll come,” she said finally.
Relief slipped into his voice immediately. “Good. Good. I’ll be home this time.”
Abbey gave a small nod, even though he couldn’t see it. “Okay.”
“I’ll be waiting.”
“Alright.”
A short silence followed.
Neither of them saying what they were both thinking.
Then.....“Take care of yourself,” he said.
“You too.”
The call ended.
Abbey lowered the phone slowly.
Her room was quiet again.
Still.
She stared at the screen for a second longer before placing it beside her.
Then she leaned back slightly, exhaling.
Weekend.
Home.
She already knew..It wouldn’t be easy.
But she didn’t change her mind.
After a moment, she pushed herself out of bed.
Work was waiting.
And unlike everything else..Work made sense.
She moved toward the bathroom, already letting the morning take over......
- Writer
