"Brett!" I yell and run after him on the soccer field. I push my legs to go harder and faster to reach Brett who is already on the center of the field. When I reach him, I gently touch his arm, but he moves it away.

"Brett come on don't be like this." I plead.

"I have every right to be like this Bay. Is what Victoria said back there true?" He asks, hurt flashes in his blue eyes and I feel an ache in my heart knowing I did that.

"Of course not." I reply and look down at my converses.

"You can't even look me in the eye." He scoffs and walks off. 

This is why I just wanted to stay friends.

"Brett. You cannot trust a single thing that Victoria says. Trust me. Believe me. " I plead once more and stand in front of him blocking his walk. He looks down at me with a pained expression.

"You know, I always knew there was something going on between you and Evans, but I convinced myself that it was just friendship with playful banter. I have liked you for as long as I can remember and you never knew it and the one time that we have something going on, you have feelings for Issac Evans. And he likes you too, but he has a girlfriend. There is an obvious connection between you two that neither of you are acknowledging and I was stupid enough to believe that you picked me and Issac will just fade into the background. I was stupid."

"Brett, please. Don't do this." I hold onto his arm trying to plead with him, but he is too hurt.

"I can't be in a relationship with you if you like Issac. You are funny, drop dead gorgeous, kind-hearted, and every guy's dream, but I won't do this if you like Issac and I already know you can't just get rid of those feelings for him."

"Brett, I don't like him. He is just my best friend." I tell him trying to make him...and myself as well believe the mantra that I keep reciting in my head everyday.

"Bay, the entire school knows you like each other. In my opinion, he should break up with Mackenzie because I already know from experience now that being second best, being the second choice is not enough and no one deserves that." He says and looks at me with his blue pools of sadness and walks off past me and to the guys locker rooms. 

A deep sigh passes through my lips and I run a stressed hand through my curly hair and walk off into the girls locker room and back inside the building. Classes have already commenced and I am late, but luckily, it is just History and our teacher just shows us movies or as he says, educations clips, to help us understand the concept visually.

While we are watching movies, Mr. Waterman, the history teacher, is busy sexting his girlfriend and examining her...parts digitally.

I walk into the classroom and I expect Mr. Waterman to say some snide remark about my being absent and then turn back to his phone, but instead he doesn't even acknowledge my tardiness because he has his nose in his phone. I take my seat in the back of the classroom and look at the old, vintage TV upfront. 

Mr. Waterman has got to be kidding. 

This guy is playing The Crown as an 'educational clip'. I give Mr. Waterman a 'your fucking kidding me right?' look even though he isn't looking. I take out my phone and begin playing Super Mario Go in the mean time until class ends. 

...

"Ciao mio piccolo amico" 

Issac's head snaps over to me and he looks at me with an impressed look.

"Just when I think you have ran out of ways to impress me, you prove me wrong. Italian, right?"

"Yes. My father is half Italian, so he taught me the language when I was younger." I tell him and I look down at my fingers.

Those were the good times, when everything was perfect.

But you know what they say nothing gold can stay

"Hey what's wrong?" Issac asks and picks up my hand and envelops it in his huge hand. He intertwines our hands and I stare down at it, in awe at how perfectly our hands fit together like two pieces of a puzzle.

"Issac, I want to do something that I think will bring me peace, but I-I am not sure if I can handle it."

"What is it?"

"It's nothing." I shake my head and look down at our intertwined hands.

"You can tell me anything Bay." He says and I hold my head down. He puts his index finger under my chin and lifts my head up so I could look at his stormy grey eyes. I take a deep breath and exhale slowly.

It's time Bay. It's time to let go.

"My father left me when I was 11 years old. He upped and left and he didn't turn back. He left two weeks after Leo was born. I have only gotten birthday cards or cards on Christmas or something, but he never called, skyped, facetimed, nothing. Last week Zoe and I came home from school and he was there sipping a glass of Merlot and laughing with my mom like he never left. I didn't know what to say. I just felt anger and sadness. I wished he had stayed away and not came back. I even wished he was dead, but at the end of the day, he was still my father. I prayed for him every night. I wished him a good life. All of that despite everything. He has been staying at the house, so that's why I have been staying at a hotel near the city. I went back home to find out he is staying at a hotel and he left the house. I-I don't know what to do and I hate lying to Leo about his father. Leo thinks our father is an old friend. He just marched back into my life and is trying to take up role as father. I can't trust him and when he is around, I feel like I can't trust anyone. Looking at him makes me feel the betrayal all over again, the hurt when he crushed my heart in his palm and walked away like it was nothing. I just have to continue wondering. Am i not enough? What am I missing? Why did he leave me?" I feel a wet thing on my cheeks and I move my hand up to swipe at whatever it is. Tears are rolling down my cheeks like waterfalls and I never thought I would cry over this again. 

Issac engulf me into a tight hug and I lean against his chest breathing in his clean, sweet scent and the ache in my heart hurts a little less.

"You are enough. You are fucking amazing and you are probably one of the best things that has ever happened to me. Of course, Chipotle being the other thing of course" He says and I start laughing through my tears and I can already feel my mood lifting. "You have no idea how you changed my life Bay. You were that missing piece. I always felt like I was missing something in my grey life. You came and everything brightened up. You always call me the golden boy, but Bay, you are wrong. You are the golden girl and any guy, father or not, would be stupid to leave you."

I cry more into Issac's chest as I cling onto his shirt for dear life. It isn't sad tears spilling out of my eyes anymore. It's bittersweet now. I am crying because I am realizing I made the biggest mistake in my entire life by letting Issac Evans go. I made the biggest mistake when I told him we should stay friends. Issac Evans is the best thing that ever happened to me. He saved me and I owe him my life. I was dying. Of course not physically, but emotionally and mentally. I was letting the darkness consume me and eat me alive from the inside. I was cold all the time. Issac is the warm golden sun that just so happened to pass by on the coldest place on Earth and I was stupidly ungrateful and I wanted to push away the one thing that made me truly realize that I could be happy in life. I want him back, but I will have to wait. 

If Issac and I are meant to be then it will come. 

Issac rubs my back and whispers sweet things into my ear and I already feel my sad mood disappear and the crying stops. He hands me a towel and I wipe my face and blow my nose. I look into his grey eyes that are a little darker now.

"Thank you Issac. I really needed that."

"You're welcome. Oh, and I think you should talk to your dad. I mean, I know the common action would be to avoid him, but you will never find peace or have a true chance at being happy if you don't talk to him and tell him how you feel, empty it all out you know. It will hurt like a bitch, but in the end, you will feel at peace once you said your piece." He says and gives me a small smile.

"You're right. I will do that."

The bell rings signalling that free period is over.

Issac and I get up from off the bleachers. Issac moves closer to me and gives me a warm hug. I rest my ear against his chest and listen to his heartbeat which is faster than usual. It's a beautiful thing to hear someone's heartbeat. It reminds you how grateful you should be that they are alive. Issac plants a kiss on top my head and we walk back into the building.

"See ya later. I will come over at like 7 pm, okay?" He asks.

"Yeah okay bye" I say and wave and we part in our own separate directions.

....

OK I got this.

I can do this. Just breathe Bay. 

I open the door to the coffee shop and look around for the man I came to see. When I spot my father sitting at a booth near the back window, I walk over to him. I just came back from home. After school, I went home and I took Issac's advice. I called my father and told him I wanted to talk to him and he told me to meet him here. I left everything at home besides one thing. 

The one thing that contains my deepest feelings and thoughts.

"Hello Bay" He greets me with a smile.

"Hello."

"Bay, I just want to start off by saying that I am truly sorry for hurting you and leaving you-"

"You are going to leave again. No need to make it seem like you are here to stay."

"I thought I could stay here for another week maybe even 2. Bay-"

I start chuckling and I bite my lip to contain my laughs. 

"You think I don't know? You really think I am that stupid."

"I-I don't follow." He stutters.

I pick up his left hand and point to his ring finger. "That tan line right there. Yeah, you're married. And for a long time it seems. My mother is too oblivious to notice how much you have changed. I found your wedding band in your suitcase. I don't care if you are mad that I went through your things." I drop his hand down on the table. His face has run pale and he is looking at me wide eyed. 

"Bay, please don't tell your mother. I want to make it right with her."

"You shouldn't be here! You have a wife!" I take a deep breath to calm the anger that is bubbling in me. "Tell me everything."

"Bay.."

"Now" I demand and hand him the most wicked look I can summon on my face.

He looks at me and I can see the battle he is fighting with himself on whether to tell me, but my pointed glare knocks that out the door and he starts confessing. "Her name is Carly. We have been married for 6 years. I met her when I moved to town. She helped me get a really good job. I am the manager of a rich hotel in the town we live in. And-" He stops talking and runs his hand over his face.

"There is more. Tell me now."

He sighs and closes his eyes. 

"We have a son together." He murmurs. My heart beat slows down along with my breathing. My heart is aching in pain from the suffer it has been put through. I feel like I was punched in the heart. Everything around me is moving so fast and I feel like I am moving in slow motion. 

dontcrydontcrydontcry

"His name is Charlie and he is 6 years old." He adds and looks up at me. I put on my usual blank face but inside, hell broke loose in me and the inner turmoil going on in me causes an aching headache to strike me and I feel like passing out, so I won't feel the pain.

"Where does your family think you are right now Sean?"

His face drops at the use of his name, but nonetheless, he says, "A conference in Venice."

I scoff and shake my head. "You will never change. You ruined my family and now you are lying to your new one. I wonder when you will leave this family that you have made."

"Bay, I'm sorry. I made a mistake"

"I prayed for you. I wished that you were in good health and you were happy even when you left me. You started this! You made me like this! Unable to trust, to love,to feel at peace with myself. I push away every good thing in my life because I always believed they would leave like you did. I adored you and you left and never came back. How could you?" My voice breaks in the end and a lump forms in my throat. I look into my dad's hazel eyes that are filled with tears of his own. He blinks and some tears start falling down his face.

"I was lost, stupid, afraid of committing to a family. I shouldn't have left and it is my biggest regret. and I have to shoulder that burden. I am sorry I did this to you and I have no more excuses because what I did was.....appalling. And I left Leo as a newborn and me coming back was unfair to him. I am truly sorry and I hate leaving you with this anger in yourself."

"Does your new family know about my family?"

"My wife does, my son doesn't."

My lump in my throat grows and I try to find the words to say something, but I feel like one word, one syllable that will come out my mouth next will shatter me and I will break down in front of my greatest demon I need to conquer.

"I will be leaving tonight. I shouldn't stay any longer. Being back is causing you and Zoe pain and I can't bear to see it. I will tell your mother everything tonight and then I will be gone and I won't come back."

"Good." I croak out and tears pool up in my eyes. 

don't cry. 

"I-" I take a deep breath. I got this. I can do this. This is the one last thing I have to let go of. "I cannot put into words right now how I felt for the past 8 years you left me. I am too hurt, too broken right now to say it, but over the past 8 years, I have written letters to you about how I feel about you leaving me. Every day I wrote something or drew something, anything. There are 247 letters in this book." I put the book I have been comprising my letters to my dad in on the table. He looks down on the table at the vintage notebook that has my name on it.

"Read it, toss it, I don't care, but I have to let that go. I have to let you go. I need to free myself from you and that is the last thing. You want to know how much pain, hurt, sadness is in me when you left. You want to know what has happened while you were gone, read that book." I slide out of the booth and I stand in front of my father. I look at his face, just one last time. I look into his hazel eyes, the small wrinkles on certain parts of his face, his pointed nose, his everything.

Because this will be the last time I see my father. 

I want to remember every detail on his face because eventually the memory of his appearance will fade with time so I will cherish this one while it last.

"Thank you father for making me into a stronger person. Thank you for breaking me, crushing me. For throwing me into the fire so that I could rise from the ashes like a phoenix. I rebuilt myself and I am stronger for it. For a while I believe that I could never open my heart to anyone again and I did, but then I pushed the person away and I realize now that that was the biggest mistake of my life. I realize now that good things can happen to me without people leaving. I can't believe I am saying this, but I forgive you, but don't take my forgiveness as an invitation to waltz back into my life again. Leave and don't come back." I walk away feeling lighter than I have ever felt in years. Like a heavy burden has been lifted off my shoulders and a smile breaks out on my face. A real smile. Not a fake one.

A genuine smile. I feel happy and light and it is something I am going to hold onto with my dear life.