Waiting for My Sun to Shine

A soft yawn escaped my lips as I slowly felt myself waking up from my dreamless deep sleep. My body was stiff and ached slightly as I pushed myself enough to roll over onto my back, stretching out my sore body lazily. Lulling my head to the side, I squinted my eyes slightly from the sun light entering through my ...opened window?

“What the fuck?” I whined as a frown formed on my lips and sat up a little enough to lean on my elbows to allow myself to look around my almost empty room slowly. I coughed slightly while I sat up a little more, my fuzzy brain waking up as I rested my back against the wall my bed was pushed up against when I realized that I didn’t have my windows open last night when I went to sleep. “Dad!”

“Ah, sleeping beauty has awoken!” My father exclaimed, a wide, guilty and suspecting, grin upon his lips.

“Dad, my blinds where closed last night along with my windows.” I said coldly while crossing my arms over my chest and sent him a knowing look towards him.

“Win...” He said with a sigh and moved more into my room to sit on the edge of my bed, a sad look in his eyes. “All you’ve done so far since you’ve gotten here has been a mix between sleeping and watching TV with snacks. And I know what happened ... Well happened, but come on love bug, can’t we just start to healing process? You’re not the only one who’s hurting from what happened and I just want you to try to.. To... To move on in a sense, I guess. That sounds terrible I know, but we’re never going to go forward if all we do is look behind us.” He said with an understanding tone, his hand resting on the bottom of my leg and gave it a soft squeeze.

I felt the sharp stinging sensation behind my eyes and the burn at the tip of my nose as I hung my head, my hands laying limp in my hands. He’s right. It’s been five months and I honestly haven’t done anything to try and help myself, and being the selfish person I am I never thought to see how my father could be feeling from everything.

“Dad.” I cried out softly, my voice cracking. His eyebrows knitted together as he saw a tear falling from eye and leaned forward to pull me closer to him, wrapping his arms around me tightly.

“Sh, it’s okay Pooh. It’s okay, I’ve got you.” He murmured as he slowly rubbed my back and squeezed me gently which caused me to cry even more. I whimpered out, grasping his sweater tightly and pulled myself closer to him while I continued to soak it with my tears.

“I know honey, I know. Really bad things happen sometimes to really great people and no one knows why baby girl. But I wont let anything bad happen to you ever again, I promise. Nothing’s going to hurt you.” He said while he pulled back to look down at my tear stained, red, puffy face and frowned. “Everything’s going to be okay.” He said with a nod, wiping the tears on my cheeks away with his thumbs then brought me into his chest again to hug me tightly, pressing a soft kiss to my forehead. After a few sniffles here and a large sigh there, I slowly pulled away and rubbed my face to rid the rest of the other tears then kept my face in my hands. “Okay.”

“Okay?” Dad asked a little wearily, eyeing my to see if I’d have another minor breakdown but when he saw no sign of that happening, he grinned and nodded while pushing me gently to the side so he could stand up. “Okay! Get dressed soon though alright hon? The movers should be here by noon.”

This made me knit my eyebrows together and look over at the alarm clock on my bed side table, my eyes widening when I noticed it was only 8:37. “Now I know why my windows were open... Sneaky old man.” I muttered as I fell back onto the bed, covering my eyes with my arm and groaned out in protest to getting up and actually being a functional human being.

I was finally ready around 9:15 after taking a shower and getting dressed for the day. I moved back into my room, or should I say old room due to the fact we’re moving out of this house today. I chuckled to myself while I started to tie my sneakers. The move has two aspects to it, one aspect is that my dad thinks it’ll be a ‘nice fresh start’ for us and the second is that it’ll help expand his own brewery business. He’s trying to make it so he could start an international company and everyone in the world will know how amazing his own special home recipe of “Gale’s Ale” is. I didn’t see how it’d be a good start for me due to to the fact that I don’t know anything about England, besides the fact that it has a queen. But as of now, where my father goes, I have to go.

“Wini! You ready for breakfast?” My dad called up the stairs which made me look towards my door while I sighed softly. As I made my way out of my room I got a whiff of the bacon that was being cooked downstairs, making me move a little faster towards the kitchen as my mouth began to water. “Oh good, you’re down. Listen, after breakfast we are going to head over to Bobby’s to say goodbye... Or Better yet I like the sound of ‘see you later’ better. Goodbye sounds so harsh.”

Nodding absentmindedly along to his tangent a small smile tugged at my lips as I thought of the blonde boy I’ve known since I can remember. Niall Horan, the odd ball of Malinger, but the boy with the sweetest, most genuine heart I’ve ever known. My smile faltered from the realization that I will no longer be part time neighbors with him. We were always attached to the hip the moment I flew in from Savannah, Georgia, to the last moment when I had to board the plane to go home to my mother. I’d wait all year just for the summer to come because I knew that’s when I’d get to see my dad again, but mostly because of Niall, best friend I’ve ever had.

“Okey dokey, lets eat.” My dad sang in excitement, forcing me to move on from memory lane and moved towards the kitchen table to see that he had set up a huge spread of food. A plate of buttermilk pancakes, a bowl of perfectly scrambled eggs, crispy bacon, and wheat toast. All accompanied with two big glasses of orange juice.

“It’s like you want me to eat my feelings away or something.” I teased my dad, referring to earlier this morning. Once I sat down I pursed my lips in thought, looking at the food in front of me. “I can dig it, but I wish I wore my sweats.”

My dad let out a belly laugh, shaking his head at me and with that I started to fill up my plate, two pancakes and a large spoonful of eggs, a few pieces of bacon. I reached over to grab a piece of toast and took a large bite out of it. I heard my dads laughter again and looked up from pouring syrup all over my pancakes after buttering them up and cutting them, raising an eyebrow.

“What?” I asked with confusion then turned back to my plate when I saw him just shake his head, an amused smile on his face.

“I think you have issues, really. You go from being depressed out of your ass, only to be perfectly fine again twenty minutes later once you know you’ll be fed.” He said, shrugging as he sat down across from me and started to set up his own plate. I swallowed hard and licked the remains of the syrup on my lips, shrugging along with him and looked back down at my plate, not feeling that hungry anymore.

“I... I had to stay strong for mom and god forbid I showed any emotion to...” I paused, putting my fork down with a shaky breath and rubbed my hands on my thighs. “That- that monster! He’d only enjoy it more... I don’t know. I guess I got good at masking everything when needed.. Hell, I-I don’t know!” I sighed in frustration and gripped my thighs tightly, nibbling on my bottom lip. He was right. I do have issues and I did my best for hiding them for three years but with everything that had happened, and breaking from it all, I really wasn’t that great with hiding anymore, especially in front of my dad.

“I-I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you.” My dad murmured, his face showing how guilty he felt which made my gut wrench.

Get a fucking hold of yourself, he didn’t do anything wrong to you. Just calm down.

“No..” I inhaled deeply through my nose and shook my head, letting my shoulders slump a bit. “No, it’s okay dad. I’m sorry. I just.. I get like that sometimes. I don’t mean it.” I muttered as I picked up my fork again and started to push the food around on my plate, my head in my other hand with my elbow on the table. I heard him clear his throat, his chair screeching slightly against the floor as he pushed himself away from the table. He moved over to my side, pushing my chair enough for me to face him then crouched down next to me, taking my hand into his and squeezed it gently.

“Winifred, you never have to apologize to me, ever.” He said with a firm squeeze of my hand, my eyes moving to lock on his and bit my the inside of my cheek with a soft nod. “I know what you went through with your mother was hard, the hardest thing in the world probably, and I don’t expect you to be one hundred percent again so quick. It’ll take time, but I know how beautiful you are inside and out and you will come to see it too. Plus you have me to lean on when things may get tough.” With that, the subject was dropped and sealed with a hug and another kiss to my forehead. “Now, finish your food. We’ll see the Horan’s before the movers come.”