Not Enough

   

Waiting up late into the night for a father's call when she knows he's too lazy to pick up a phone himself. A man who spends too much time with well known Jack and Morgan. Downing too much, smoking too much. She knows she shouldn't get too upset; he's the one to blame.

Thirteen years without a father's love, not knowing a man's protective arm. A mother too scared to let her child know the truth (what harm, how deep the scars would go.) She grew up too fast, realizing all this on her own. Looking up to a shadow of a man she never knew, who will never know her. A shadow made of expectations growing dimmer and dimmer each year until nothing was left but a broken heart. A shattered heart, and not even comforting words that meant something to make the pain a bit better.                   She's fine though, knowing he won't be anything near what she thinks she wants. She's fine with knowing he abandoned her- tears don't matter.

All the years built up a hatred; a seething, smoking line that was too hot to cross, but one she made. Every thought she had of him, every maybe, what-if, what-could-have-been, got thrown behind that line, and she knew it was only a matter of time before the fire died and she was forced to face what would never be for a last and final time. But not tonight. She still has the ice to cool her down, the hope to calm her- hope she doesn’t want nor need.
     It's a Thursday night. The first night she's been home in a while. Beer and tobacco and anything else could be in his system right now. Why would she even want him to call?
    11:00
    ‘I have school tomorrow, I'm not waiting any longer. I'm a daughter to a man who can never be a father, even if he'd want to. All I have is nothing but a distant almost completely faded shadow of what I think one should be.’ And we all know that’s not enough.      

   

Author's Note

Revised. I think its better.

Reviews

[a donkey, briefly]

I didn't see the original version; if this is auto-biographical, it's very courageous...it's well put and expressed...not a lot of bells and whistles, but that's the very thing that can turn me off to reading a lot of stories..I may come back and make suggestions...but for now I will say that and well done.
because when I play percussion, a simple "well done" is more effective than a "do this or or do that" 9 times out of ten...