My Unexpected Love

Chapter Two

Here we are with chapter two everyone! I hope you've all enjoyed the first chapter and I hope you enjoy the second as well. I personally love all these characters so much and I'm so glad that I'm finally finishing this story. I'll continue to upload chapters so keep an eye out! Also, the picture above is of Darrell. 

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Chapter Two

The next morning Kendall woke up to the sound of her father getting sick in the bathroom. Rolling onto her back, she closed her eyes took a deep breath. Despite hoping that the recent events of her life were a dream, Kendall knew they were very much real. Her father's drinking was growing steadily worse and she feared returning home every day. She wasn't scared of her father in particular, he would never physically hurt her not even while drunk, but she fears what she has to come home to.

Would a day come that she returns home to find her father passed out on the floor? Or perhaps cops coming to her house and taking her away into social services? She is, after all, still seventeen and not yet able to make her own decisions regarding her living situation. Her father is her last living relative so she doesn't have the option of staying with anyone else either.

She could not believe what her life had become. Thinking back, Kendall remembered her life back before she was ten. Her family was happy and it seemed like nothing could have ruined that. Only then shortly after her birthday her mother got sick with cancer. The cancer was strong, and even though they tried everything possible to fight it, her mother didn't survive the battle. She was gone after six months of treatment and Kendall's life was never the same after that.

Shortly after the funeral, her dad began drinking. Kendall knew she couldn't tell anyone and had to learn how to care for herself at an early age. She watched various cooking shows and taught herself how to cook several meals. She learned how to forge her father's signature if it was needed on any school forms, and Kendall also had to teach herself how to stretch a dollar in order to grocery shop for them.

Kendall continued this for thee months until her grandparents came over one day to surprise their granddaughter. They caught her at a bad time. Her dad was drunk and she had been in the middle of cleaning. She could see the shock and rage that passed through their eyes at the sight of their son-in-law.

Her grandparents made her a deal. They would try and help her father in whatever way possible, but she had to move in with them. "This is not a suitable environment for you, Kendall. You're a young girl. You shouldn't have to be taking care of your dad like this. You should be in a home where you are loved and can still be a kid," she remembered her grandma saying to her. As much as it hurt Kendall to leave her father, she knew that she had to think of herself in that moment, so she took the deal and moved in with her grandparents.

Her life changed again five years later just after her sixteenth birthday. Kendall was preforming as Hermia in the school's play of A Midsummer Night's Dream that winter. It was snowing particularly hard that night. After finishing one of her scenes, Kendall walked off the stage to find a pair of cops standing next to the principal. She had expected them to talk to her about her father. Maybe he had gotten drunk and done something, or he had decided to drink and drive.

Only they weren't there about her father.

As the news got out, her father came to her grandparents' house. He sobered up and offered to help her with the funeral. Kendall remembered the hope that she felt like maybe just maybe he would finally be her father again. He stayed sober just long enough to help her. Two weeks later, after the funeral, Kendall was living with her dad again when she began to notice the empty alcohol bottles. Her dad had officially fallen off the wagon.