You Found Me

“God, my teenage daughter. How I didn’t miss this moping,” Dad grumbled as I shuffled through the living room.

I could feel the thick bags under my eyes, present from a mixture of near-constant crying and lack of sleep. My hair was a mess, sticking up in all different directions, and I hadn’t changed out of my shorts and t-shirt in three days. I’d showered and stuff, but I just…put the same clothes back on. I didn’t have the effort level to search for something new to wear. Plus, wearing the same clothes made me feel more like I was mourning.

“I’m not moping,” I whined as I entered the kitchen, the freezing tiles sending shivers up my spine. “I’m just…”

“Moping,” Dad finished. “Honey, do you want me to kick his ass?”

I looked up at my father to see that his mouth wasn’t remotely twitching in a smiling direction. He was dead serious. If I gave the word, he’d hunt Harry down and beat the shit out of him.

“No,” I responded. “It’s my fault, not his. He was perfect.”

“Wait, what?” Dad’s dark eyebrows pulled together as he looked down at me. “He was perfect? Then why are you guys not together?”

“It’s a long story that you really don’t want to hear.”

His cheeks flooded with red coloring as he realized what I meant. “Oh, um…yeah, you can keep that to yourself.” He brushed past me to go over to the coffee maker, the busy work an attempt to distract him from the reality that his little girl was starting to face sexual situations. “Do you want a cup?”

“Yes, please.”

The two of us moved around the kitchen silently, moving within our own circles to accomplish the goals in front of us. I readied a bagel with cream cheese, my process slow and methodical, careful not to mess up anything.

About ten minutes later, I sat down at the kitchen table and started to eat, staring out the window and trying my hardest not to think about Harry.

I wasn’t too successful. Unfortunately.

My phone started to ring, snapping me out of my trance completely. The familiar Ed Sheeran song made me get a massive knot in my stomach, and I fumbled around to answer it as quickly as possible.

“Hello?” I answered without checking the idea, using my index finger to wipe off a crumb that I felt on my cheek.

“Hey, Leigh,” my sister’s voice responded. Unlike the Ed Sheeran song, the familiarity of her voice immediately made me feel at ease. I could feel myself sinking into the wooden seat, some of the stress relieved from my body. “How are you?”

“Awful,” I responded honestly. “But what’s up?”

“Awful? Anything you want to talk about?”

“After you, since you obviously called for something. What’s going on?”

“I finally told Mike.”

For the first time in half a week, I burst out laughing. “What? I figured you told him weeks ago!”

“No. I kept avoiding it. And the only reason I told him was because he was starting to get suspicious that I made him take out the trash three times a day to avoid that reeking stench and that I’m really tired all the time. He told me to go to the doctor, and I said I already knew what was wrong with me. And blah. Word vomit. Now he knows.”

“And?”

“And he’s thrilled.” I could hear the smile in her voice, and I let out a long breath of relief. “He squealed like a little girl when I told him.”

“Ariana! That’s wonderful. I’m so excited. And when are you planning on telling Dad?”

“Uh…when I’m in labor?”

“Ariana!”

“Sorry. That’s just going to be…an awkward conversation.”

“Not as awkward as the one we almost just had.”

“I don’t want to know, do I?”

“Definitely not.”

There was a short silence before Ariana asked, “Alright, now why are you feeling shitty?”

“Hey, I said awful.”

“But I knew you meant shitty.”

I smirked a little before sighing into the receiver. “Harry and I broke up.”

“Aw, baby, I’m so sorry. How bad was it?”

I remembered the angry look in his eyes, the way he sped out of the parking lot, the tone of contempt in his voice when he asked me forcefully to get out of his car. “Pretty bad,” I responded casually. “Awful, actually.”

“So shitty?”

“What is your fascination with that word? I can’t say it. Dad’s listening.”

“You bet I am!” he called out from the other room. “Tell your sister I say hi.”

“Dad says hi,” I said slowly.

“Tell Dad I say hi back.”

I relayed the message.

“And my fascination with that word is that I think it’s what you mean. So there you go.”

“Whatever.”

“Are you really upset over the Harry thing? Who broke up with who?”

“I broke up with him. But I didn’t want to. It’s complicated.”

“But you miss him?”

“More than anything. But I just…” I paused, looking for the right words so I didn’t scar my father for life. “I wasn’t ready for something serious so soon after Jared.”

“Oh,” Ariana trailed off suggestively. “And he wasn’t willing to wait for you?”

“No, he was, but I just…I wasn’t ready.”

“I hear you. And I’m proud of you for sticking to your guns.” There was the sound of screaming on the other side of the phone, which my sister answered, her voice far away, before she came back. “Alright, I have to go. Mike and I are going to pick out some wall colors for the house. Call me soon and give me an update on your emotional situation, okay?”

“Sure,” I replied. “Love you.”

“Love you, too, babe.” And with that, she hung up.

The silence crept up on me, and it was shocking how quickly I sank back into my previous depressed state without hearing my sister’s voice. I had missed her insanity, her dramatics, her…everything.

Sighing and taking a sip of the coffee in my hand, I made my way over to the sink and deposited my plate.

Without saying another word to my father, I jogged up the stairs and locked myself into my room. My legs gave out before I could make it to the bed, and I found myself sobbing again.

Ariana was married, and she was having a baby with the man she loved most in the entire world. I may have been young, but I wanted that beauty. I wanted to look the way she did, have that same sparkle in my eye, feel like everything I’d gone through had been for a purpose.

But I just felt so lost. What I thought had been the right decision wasn’t easy in the slightest. And I knew that doing what was morally right was never supposed to be simple, but I was never told that it was supposed to be quite that hard.

I wrung my hands together in my lap, taking deep breaths to try to calm my crying. I couldn’t stay the way I was forever. I would have driven myself insane.

I wasn’t so sure that I wasn’t insane already.

About a half hour later, I was able to move over to my bed, which I collapsed on, feeling completely and totally helpless. No matter how much I tried to push the picture of that curly-haired, dimpled boy out of my mind, I couldn’t do it. Images of him smirking down at me, his shirt off, a bit of his star tattoo showing as he leaned in to kiss me flashed through my mind.

They were plaguing, irritating, and exhilarating at the same time.

I missed him. I missed him so much, it hurt.

“Ugh,” I groaned, grabbing my pillow and shoving it on top of my face. “What the fuck do I want?!”

At that moment, the answer still seemed extremely unclear.