Mitch left just after breakfast that day and Sawyer at midday and I was completely alone. Well except for my dad.

Most of the teachers filtered out the school during the day along with nearly all the Kings Bridge boys until it was just my dad, a freshman, two sophomores, a junior, two seniors and me that remained.

The corridors had an eery silence as did the dining hall and common room especially, which seemed wrong to be in without it being packed full of teenage bodies challenging each other to pool tournaments or watching films. I felt a strange sense of loss towards all the boys and the liveliness they brought to Kings Bridge. In the absence of their noise, manic movements and wild nature it felt like an entirely different place as if just by the lack of their presence all the colour had been drained out of the walls and light sucked from the chandeliers.

"Quiet huh?" Dad commented when I went to his apartment for dinner that evening, way to point out to obvious. His comment only made the silence become even more pronounced.

"Is it always like this?" I'd discovered he always stayed for the holidays when some students couldn't go home because he'd never had a family to go home to before.

"This is more busy than normal," he admitted, "usually only one or two boys stay, six is an improvement."

I wouldn't quite say improvement.

"What about when there is no one here, like in summer?" I questioned realising I didn't know where he lived when he wasn't at Kings Bridge, did he have a house? Where did he go in the summer? What was his life like outside these walls? I didn't know any other aspect of his world apart from this small section I'd been unwillingly thrust into and I was regretful of my lack of knowledge.

"I own a holiday home by the coast," dads whole face lit up, "summer is the only time I get any time off really. So I just go there each summer and sometimes at Christmas too. I can't wait to take you, I think you'll really love it there."

I smiled at how excited he was though the idea of spending the whole summer with just him made my stomach knot with dread. I liked that he wanted to share his life with me but there were so many layers of answerless questions that were preventing me from buying into it.

"Can't wait to see it," I give him a smile I hope he couldn't see was fake.

"Maybe we can even go there for Christmas," he smiled hopefully, "have you ever had Christmas by the beach?"

"No," I reply avoiding the truth that I've only ever had Christmas in a crappy hotel room eating Christmas dinner that tastes like plastic. The only Christmas I know contains a casino, a bunch of middle age drunk men and gravy with lumps in. He doesn't need to know that though.

"It will be so much fun I promise."

I stab my fork into the over cooked pasta he's made and try to think of a way to overcome the awkwardness.

Now it's just the two of us that remain here it feels like we've been pressed closer together in a confined space and the layers of friction between us have become more and more pronounced. I can feel them shift and dig harshly into my skin every time we speak.

"What did you usually do for Christmas?" He asks and I feel my heart squeeze.

I spent Christmas when I was younger sitting by the front door waiting for a card from him to come through it or I spent it hunting under the great Christmas tree in the hotel lobby looking for a present from him but finding only empty cardboard boxes. More recently I spent Christmas curled up next to mom on a bed ordering room service and watching all the Christmas films we could find on TV.

I want to scream all this at him but instead I just say it inside my head. "Nothing much," is what I actually tell him.

"Any traditions?" He pushes, why any he just let it go? Christmas is just another day of the year, I'm not religious so it means nothing to me. It did once until I stopped letting it.

I shake my head, lying. We had one tradition mom and I, we would always wake up early in the morning and set out from whatever hotel we were staying in at that time and find the closest bakery where we would buy two croissants each and then find a park bench somewhere and stuff our faces with the crumbling pastry until the sun came up. It was moms and my tradition and I wasn't ready to share it with anyone else yet, the wound was still too raw to be touched.

"We'll just have to make our own traditions then," dad pushed brightly but their was a falseness to it. I knew he could feel the friction as much as I could.

At least you'll actually be involved in the traditions this time, I thought.

"What traditions do you have?" It was probably my turn to give some effort to the most strained conversation I'd ever had.

"Early morning walk on the beach if I'm home or just around the grounds of I'm here," dads eyes fluttered shut picturing it, I could almost see the sun rising over the sea on his eyelids. "Going out to a nice restaurant to eat and watching the football in the afternoon."

It sounded so serene and blissful, the type of life I'd always dreamed of but had never been able to have because I'd spent all of it yearning for him. Yet he was right here only an arms distance away from me and I only felt rage towards him for depriving me of all those experiences, I wanted early morning walks on the beach and watching the sun set over the sea each night. I knew deep down it wasn't his fault I never got any of that but maybe if he'd just looked for me he could have seen the kind of life I was living and taken me with him.

In my fantasies when I was younger I'd always imagined him funding us and falling back in love with mom and whisking is both away to a magical house by the sea where it turned out he was a multimillionaire and mom would never have to play cards again in her life. Of course as I got older I got less naive hardened by all the Christmas's I'd had without him. Yet now I realise how painfully close I was to the truth yet also how far.

"I want to make our first Christmas together special," dad emphasised, "and our first thanksgiving and everything in between."

The anger inside me started to boil as the heat was flicked on under it and I felt my insides simmer and steam started to hiss out my ears.

How fucking dare he?

How could he say he wanted to make it special after all the years he'd missed? Why was he pretending that nothing had ever happened? Did he have his head in la la land? Was I missing something here? Or was it just him that had missed out on years of nights when I cried myself to sleep because his birthday card never came through the door?

"How can you say that?" I hissed, I had to let some of the steam out before I completely boiled over. I could feel my anger hitting its peak, "how can you pretend like you never missed 15 years of Christmas's?" I'm shouting now but I find that I really don't care.

"I'm not pretending Cara," he shook his head with a desolate kind of sadness that dragged his whole body over into a slump, "do you think I wanted to miss all those Christmas's?"

"You could have at least tried to find me," I was screaming now every ounce of anger that had built up over the years finally being released, "or even just sent a card if you didn't want to see me."

"I did try," dad say it so quietly I think I miss hear him for a moment.

"Clearly not hard enough," I spit furiously at him.

"Cara," he looks up at me his face so full of earnest I can't break my eyes away from his, "I regretted leaving as I walked out that door. I was stupid and angry and immature and I wanted your mom to apologise to me first. After a week of staying nearby I realised that wasn't going to happen so I went back to grovel and see you. I missed you so much Cara you wouldn't believe. But when I went to the hotel you were gone, the owner said you left the day before and had no idea where you'd gone to. I tried to look for you I swear but your mom didn't make it very easy. I tried to find where you were living for months. I was going insane hunting through every hotel I could find. I swear I tried to look for you Cara."

The fire inside me has been switched off sharply and the steam whooshes out of me in one great rush of emotions. I don't know how to feel, it's like everything has just been flipped around. It sounds so dramatic but as I sat there staring at him I could feel my very heart twisting trying to cope with this new information. My brain buzzed with it as I tried to wrap my head around it.

He'd looked for me.

All those hours I'd spent longing for him he'd been longing for me too. The five year old inside me swelled with an inexplicable joy at that idea. It was everything I'd ever wanted.

Then it hit me.

"Do you mean mom purposely made it difficult to find me?" An intense dread coursed through my veins as I waited for his answer.

He replied cautiously, "I can't speak for your mom Cara, I don't know what she was doing. But one thing I do know is that she didn't make it easy and that's not the action of someone who wants to be found."

Now I'm freezing. Shivers chase their way up and down my spine and my stomach hurls itself around my body crashing into all my bones and organs painfully.

I can't comprehend his words, not the action of someone who wants to be found.

Was she hiding me? Did she actually prevent me from seeing my dad? Was it all on purpose?

"Why didn't you mention this before?" I demand still hoping there may be another side to this story.

"I didn't want to change your view of your mom, she's still the same person you loved Cara," he insisted.

She wasn't though, everything had changed now.

How could she be the person who held me close on the night of Father's Day as I sobbed myself to sleep and stroked my hair telling me that my dad was a waste of time and space but be the same person who knew he was looking for me? How could she have watched me sit beside the phone every birthday knowing she was the reason he would never call?

"I have to go," I rise from my seat. The room suddenly felt claustrophobic and the scent of pasta stifling. I had to get out.

"Cara please," he implored but my hand was already on the door and I was pulling it open and scrambling free trying to duck in breaths of fresh air. My mind was too busy focusing on other things though that I couldn't concentrate on breathing properly.

I needed the boys. I needed them now.

They were gone as well just like my mom. Everyone just kept leaving me and I needed them to hold me together before I broke apart for good. But as always I was utterly utterly alone.