Don’t Let Your Mind Go There

17

TATE

3 years ago

Mom’s had enough of me for a while now.

Even if I hadn’t been talking much, she’s had enough of me.

She had been the one sending me to therapy. She had said that if I wasn’t talking to her and Dad, I had to talk to someone else.

I wasn’t very keen on going to therapy, but I still went. And now that it’s been a few months, I wasn’t sure if therapy was the thing I needed.

I was sad and felt lonely most days, and every time my parents screamed at each other, I wanted to run. It’s been that way for a couple of years now, and the longer their fighting went on, the more I wanted to scream back at them and tell them that they were the reason why I was so quiet.

But they didn’t understand. Well, Mom didn’t, and Dad was trying his best to keep his distance from me.

It was hard for him to live in this house with Mom around, when all he wanted was to be alone with me. I knew he wanted that because he kept telling me.

It’s been five months since we first got close, and every day since then, I could see how torn he was whenever I was in the room with them. He wanted me just as much as I wanted him, but he had to keep that desire hidden because of Mom.

I wasn’t the reason for their divorce. To be honest, I couldn’t remember what had started their fighting, but I knew it wasn’t anything big. It was probably just another small argument they had, which exploded into something bigger. They weren’t meant to spend the rest of their lives with each other, which was fine.

I’d still have both of them around, but Mom started to leave the house more often, and on many occasions, she slept at one of her friends’ houses whenever she’s had enough of Dad. And me, apparently.

On the days Dad and I were alone, we slept in the same bed. The urge to get closer to him under the covers had always been there, and I held it back at first because I didn’t want to make things awkward.

But when Dad made the first move, placing his arm around my body at night, I dared to make a move too.

Though, he stopped me whenever my hand came close to parts of his body that were taboo for me to touch. I understood, and I didn’t put up a fight. But I was sad about it.

That’s why the last diary I started writing were about all the things I wished I could do with Dad. Most parts of those stories were made up, only with real people, and toward the end, things turned weird.

Including Mom and Ronan in the story and having them be intimate with each other, and later with us, hadn’t been part of my initial plan. It just happened, and I wasn’t one to go back and erase what I wrote in my diaries.

When Mom told me that I had to go to therapy, I wasn’t going to bring up my diaries. But somehow we came to talk about them, and Dr. Dalton asked me to bring them in. She had been reading through my very first one, and while it was extremely personal, it didn’t have stories in it like in the last one I wrote.

I was nervous for her to read that one, but it would take a while before she would get to it. I could prepare for that moment. Until that day would come, I’d have to keep living with Dad so close to me without showing how I truly felt.

It didn’t help being impatient, but there was one moment I had with Dad that made the wait less painful.

We were in the guest house once night, hiding away from Mom. We were testing the limits, with me standing against the wall, and Dad right in front of me. His hands were on either side of my head, and his body was touching mine.

I kept my hands on my sides, knowing that if I touched him, I would go too far. My head was tilted, and we looked into each other’s eyes. It was the most intimate moment we’ve had in a while, and though it was perfect, it wouldn’t last forever.

Dad’s sigh told me how unhappy he was about the situation we were in, but he kept his composure, never crossing the line. He rested his forehead against mine, and when he closed his eyes, I closed mine too.

“You’ll get better, and things will get easier for both of us. And when that day comes, we can finally be together,” he told me. His voice was low and calm, and the words he said next were ones I held on to until the day we were finally free. “Until then…don’t let your mind go there.”