Tough Love

CHAPTER SEVEN

ASHTON.

Two weeks without Isabelle and I would say I was coping pretty well on that front.

That's a crock of shit. I wasn't coping at all. Things were going downhill badly, and I was a mess. I had turned into one of those men who forgot how to shave, or couldn't care less about their hair. Like when Belle and I had first met. I hadn't needed to impress anyone, so there wasn't a need for me to do it.

I'd also realised I wasn't as good of a cook that I had first thought. We were living off take out most evenings, even two minute noodles. I had perfected those bad boys perfectly.

Tonight though, it was pizza night again. "Pizza?" Jenna complained heavily with a sigh as she slumped down into the chair across from me.

I looked at her. "Eat it and stop complaining." I'd also turned into a grumpy prick, with very little patience of late.

It was probably due to lack of sleep, and lack of Isabelle. I hadn't spoken to her since she answered the phone a couple weeks ago, the night after Parker came around. She told me that she needed space to think, and when I heard her crying on the phone, I again put my hand into the wall once more.

The same fucking fist I'd previously punched through the wall days earlier.

"Dad. I need a red velvet for school tomorrow."

I groaned, holding my slice of meatlovers mid-air. "Why are you just telling me this now?" how the hell do I make a fucking cake?

"I told Isabelle to make one." She shrugged back. Hearing her name hurt more than I would admit.

"Well, I'm sorry. You're just going to have to make a cake yourself, or I'll buy one from the bakery in the morning."

"No! I'm not doing that. How embarrassing!" she shoved her chair aside as she abruptly stood, storming to the stairs.

I followed, jogging two at a time to catch her. "Don't you speak to me that way, and did you demand Isabelle make one? Or ask her to?"

Her eyes turned to slits, and she stood opposite me with folded arms. "I told her to make it after I had already told the teacher that she would. Can't you just call her and tell her to bring one over?"

Oh, I imagine that would go down well. "What do you mean, told her?"

"I said, I needed that type of cake and told her to make it." She said, looking at me as if I couldn't understand basic English.

I didn't want to think she just demanded her to make one. "Did you ask her, did you say please or thank you, Isabelle?" my own voice was reaching, growing louder as I started to get pissed off.

Jenna shook her head, uttering the word. "No."

Fucking fantastic. No wonder she left.

I walked away before I said something I'd possibly regret. It was the sinking realisation of what I had done. I'd enabled Jenna's behaviour. She was never punished, and if she had been the brat everyone had claimed she could be, then I'd be rewarding that behaviour. This was more my fault than my daughters. As a parent, we're meant to teach right from wrong, and what have I fucking done?

I've taught my daughter that it's ok to speak to people the way she does. Worse, I've let her treat the woman who was meant to be family this way.

Guilt kept me awake that night. Tossing and turning, in the pit of my stomach, I was starting to worry that Belle wasn't coming home, and that was a realisation I had been in denial about.