Words Your Father Never Told You. Part 11.

Joe wasn’t home, or that was what the high pitched male voice told me. Joe was home, I heard him in the background. “Just tell her I’m not home.”
Did he really think I wouldn’t hear?
Or maybe he decided to abandon me, like our family had done to him so many years ago. Has it really been five years since he left? I pondered this thought. Five years had gone by so fast. I was twelve then, seventeen now, and I was so innocent. Who would have thought that in just three years I would fall deeply in love with the one man I couldn’t keep forever and always. I know that thought never crossed through my mind at twelve, I was too busy with Barbie’s, and running away from boys on the playground.
Tossing the phone onto the dark wood in the middle of the hall, I glanced up at the clock. It was almost midnight. Almost my eighteenth birthday, and my family was nowhere to be found. I would spend my eighteenth birthday alone.
Knock, knock. A sudden bang on the front door petrified me and caused me to freeze in a defensive position. After a quick recovery, I flicked on the main hallway light and looked through the tiny glass peep-hole.
It was only James, a sudden sigh of relief flew out of my chest. I cracked open the door, only leaving room for my head to pop out. “Hey James!” There was too much excitement in my voice.
“Hey Cass,” he outstretched his right arm towards me, “I was going to come at midnight, but I guess a few minutes early doesn’t really matter.”
My eyes, still in shock that he was at my door, ultimately looked down to see a glittering ball of neatly arranged sunflowers. They weren’t in their natural state. A florist with too much time on his or her hands had taken out each individual sunflower and coated it with a different color glitter.
“Well,” James cleared his throat, “happy birthday!”
And for the first time, in a long time, I cried.



James sat with me for two hours, and let me cry on his shoulder.
“I am such a fool.” I told him.
“A fool?” He asked.
“I fell for a boy, and never accepted him as a man.” I managed to mumble.
“I don’t understand,” James replied.
“Neither do I.” I cried.
I wanted to sleep, right then and there. But James wouldn’t let me. “We have to go Cass, I still have another surprise for you.”
“Okay.” I stood up and opened the front door. “Let’s go.”