Everything She Saw

This Is Where I Leave You

 When I woke up, Jonathan wasn't in bed with me. I hadn't expected him to stay; that would have been asking too much. I wasn't even sure I wanted him to stay.

I fucked up so bad. Edward was going to hate me when I told him. I had to tell him. And even though it would hurt, I had to break up with him. There was no way I could be with him when I had been with Jonathan. I wouldn't be fair to him. Of course, I wouldn't be telling Edward I cheated on him with a criminal.

Cheated. I hated myself so much. How could I have done something so stupid? I've never been the person to do something like what I had. Why had I done that?

I worked from home. There was no part of me that wanted to go outside yet. Rarely did I see Edward outside when we weren't meeting, but seeing him already wasn't a chance I wanted to take. I needed time to tell him, because I would be telling him. I had to; I owed him that. He had been so good to me, and I ruined it because of a stupid infatuation with a man that cared more about his experiments than me.

The need to talk to someone consumed me, even though there was no one that I could talk to. Not really. Sam was out of the question, and so was Edward for now. Zoey didn't need to be burdened with any more of my issues. Vicki, well, that would probably end up in a disaster if I was being honest with myself.

I pushed papers to the other end of the table and put my head down. Why was everything so bad? So wrong? One slip of paper didn't make it to the other end of the table. I played with it with my fingers before lifting my head to look at it. It was a phone number. One I never used. It was a phone number I never thought about calling. It was my father's.

I didn't even know if it was still his. It had been, what, about fifteen years since I'd seen him, much less talked to him. He'd most likely gotten a new one by now. It had been ages. There was no way this number was his. To be honest, I didn't even know why I had it. I wanted no contact with him at all. It had taken me ages for me to realize what he did to me was abusive, even if it wasn't all the time.

Which is why I was mentally slapping myself as I dialed his number. I waited, part of me hoping he had changed his number or he had moved away and gotten a new one. It rang four times. Then I heard his voice.

"Hello? Terrence Connery speaking."

I hadn't heard this voice in years. My throat tightened.

"Hello? If this is a prank I-"

"Hi, Dad." There were a few moments of silence.

"Amber? I-is that really you?" he asked.

I nodded, then remembered he couldn't see me. "Yeah. Yeah, it's me. How have you been?"

"I've been well. And you?"

"I've been okay."

It was probably one of the most awkward conversations I had ever taken part in. But I suppose that was a given, since it had been years since we last spoke.

"I'm surprised you kept this number," he said.

"Yeah, me too."

It was quiet again for a couple minutes.

"Did you need something? I know it's been... a while, and we didn't exactly end on good terms, but I'm always willing to talk."

"That's good because I-uh, I need to talk to you about something."

It took a good hour or so for me to tell him about everything that had happened in the years I had been in Gotham. I told him everything about Jonathan, Edward, Zoey, Sam, and Katie. I told him everything about the stories I had worked on. I told him everything that had happened in the past day. He said nothing as I talked. He listened. The only thing that made me acknowledge that he was still there was his breathing.