How We Were | ✔️ (Complete)

7. The Ankle

The aching only got worse.

I was sweating profusely but couldn't tell if it was from the pain or the heat, or a combination of both. Shifting my weight, I leaned against the shovel and gave my ankle a break.

Tears welled up in my eyes again and I cursed softly.

Crying's not going to help you.

The pen seemed enormous today - there was no way I was going to get this done. I briefly considered confessing everything to the shift manager, but that would only make things worse. I knew that from experience.

I'm no martyr.

I tried confiding in the teachers and counselors at school, but they had turned a blind eye. As far as I could tell, the only way to get the adults involved in something like this was to have angry parents stepping in to demand change and threaten lawsuits. My mom couldn't be bothered to get involved. Even if she did, who was going to go against the Bishops and the Beaudrys?

Daddy.

My daddy would've moved mountains with his bare hands to protect me. Big and Blonde and Beautiful, he was a formidable man who feared nothing and no one. He would've fixed this, that's who. He would've burned this town down to the ground if he had to.

But he wasn't here.

Tears of sorrow combined with those of frustration until I was so fed up with the situation, and myself, that I wanted to scream and destroy those things that hurt me. But all I did was wipe the tears from my eyes with my fists and push on, ignoring the pain as best I could.

***

I knew he'd come again because I smelled the cigarette smoke. And I knew he was watching me because I'd felt his unrelenting gaze on my back from the moment he arrived.

"Go away!" I yelled. "I'm not in the mood today."

Naturally, he didn't listen.

"Don't you have horses to wrangle or something?"

"On break," he said.

"Well, I'm allergic to cigarette smoke," I lied. "So go away."

I'd expected a snide comeback but instead, he put the butt out and briefly touched the brim of his Stetson in a silent apology.

He may as well have punched me in the gut.

The gesture reminded me so much of my daddy that it knocked the wind from my lungs. My heart filled with a longing so deep that it ached to breathe.

For the first twelve years of my life, I was Daddy's Girl. It was just the two of us, him and me, and me and him. He loved me so deeply and fully that it never once occurred to me to miss the mother I'd never known. No, I was happy being just his, happy with the crooked braids he'd put in my hair, happy with the fluffy white dresses he'd make me to wear to church, and happy with the crappy food he'd cook for me.