Almost Forgotten

Chapter 4: Family Isn't For Us

Some kill, some steal, some break you heart and you thought that I would let it go and let you walk

"Dad." is the first thing she yells across the room when I enter my office. The rest of the headquarters was informed of my previous outburst, making my phone blow up with a cazillion of phone calls in this half an hour drive I have to live through on my way here. Leah's feet were dragged over the wooden desk filled with my papers when she ran towards me.

There was a relieved smile on my face when I grasped below her arms, pulling her up in the air and letting her head rest on my chest. My embrace was harsh, head locked on her shoulder as I welcomed the smell of aquarelle which she busies herself on every morning. A week ago she finished drawing and painting a baby fox, which is definitely something that I would get scared off if I saw it hanging in the hallways, but as long as it's not on her bedroom wall, it's all good.

We had to repeat a whole room, after the first wall was destroyed we only then noticed the other three. I even vividly remember her excuse being, she didn't want one wall to feel lonely.

"Hey, honey." I greet her, pulling away just enough to sit her at the table. I furrow my brows at the mess, not remembering half of the papers there to even exist, along with a cardboard box in the middle. Still, it has been days since I saw these familiar curves of the usually tidied room.

"Where were you?" she crosses her arms. "They told me you were right behind me, but it's been this many days and you were not here."

I chuckle at exgaragation and her extended hands, showing up eight fingers. "Yeah, yeah. It was too dark for me, and I couldn't see so I had to drive slower."

She is staring at me for a while, which soon turns into mouth agape with hesitant nods. "I knew you were an old man."

I laugh, throwing my head back as I move her head from side to side by holding a palm over her hair while we both giggle. Heaven blessed laughs and smiles from her is something I could never get tired of. So much joy and happiness in a small person, it almost feels surreal.

If she only knew what was happening.

"Oh, yeah." she claps her hands, snapping me out of a cloud of fantasy. "Did you hear? Did you hear? They are sending me to a holiday with older kids that are already in school. We will be playing in the snow, dad. And then they will teach us how to ski and-"

In sophomore year of college, the classes were starting too early for someone who would spend hours even after midnight to study each corner of the thick books. I wasn't sure where my head was in the morning when the cock told me I was late, but I can only remember the cries of a child whose ice cream I accidentally pushed down on the floor, right there for a stray dog to come and pick it up.

This guilt would be the same if it wasn't seven times more personal and closer to heart.

I wish I didn't have to do this.

"Leah, baby." I smile sadly after interrupting the cheerful story about her imagination of seeing a bear in front of her. "You can't go."

Short and quiet laughs escapes her, obviously expecting some sort of joke between us, but the more her puzzled face sees the seriousness in mine, she soon gives up that theory. Her mouth is opening and closing, lost for words until she only manages to add small. "Why?"

I close my eyes, lifting my chin up in the air for a moment. The cruelty of this world is something I wanted to push her away from, stand as a human shield in front of her, but I know that can't happen. Not like this, and certainly not while he still lives.

I should have gotten it over with then. The first night when I left his cold, yet warm arms and slid out until the gun was in my reach, the barrel was on his face. He never noticed it, even woke up the next morning by showering my face with pecks on each spot where blood from his head could have been.