The chorus of cheering for 'SHOTS!' echoed throughout the still night air as goosebumps skittered across my skin in anticipation for what my father was going to say, or threaten me with to make sure that I came back home that weekend.

My father's voice came through the other end of the line, half panicked and half agitated, but I knew that ignoring his calls and texts had made him somewhat desperate to speak with me.

"Virginia, you are coming home this weekend, right? I don't need to remind you what will happen if you don't follow my rules."

Meaning, he would cut me off indefinitely until I finally did comply with his rules.

"If I come home, is Jared going to be there?"

He sighed, and I could just picture him straining to keep his cool as his face turned red and inflamed by the fact that I hadn't immediately reserved myself to doing as he said.

"You know that's not my call to make. If he is or isn't doesn't matter, we had a deal."

"Yeah, and you disrespect me every single time he stays the night with my cousin and I'm there. You all seem to forget we were together for two entire years, but the second he dumps me for Sara everyone just miraculously forgets and expects me to be okay with him being around twenty four seven? I don't want that shoved in my face constantly, especially not when I'm going through things that I'd like to remain private."

I was huffing by the time I was done ranting, but then, I wasn't really done yet, was I?

"Sara is not my daughter, but you are. Kara lives here with her daughter and this home as just as much hers as it is ours, and I respect her enough to make the right decisions about her child, and while I may have given her some input into the situation she took my words into consideration and chose to allow Jared to stay over. That's her right as Sara's parent. You, however, are my daughter and we had a deal. I pay for your college, your phone, your clothes, your car, your food, housing, pretty much everything that you need to survive. And I can turn that off in a second."

I had to play it smart. If I came and outright told him where he could shove all the things he paid for, then I wouldn't have a chance to save up enough money to afford those things myself.

I could finance a cheap vehicle and find insurance, get on a different phone plan, get on the financial aid food program at the school in New York, take out a student loan...anything to get out from underneath his thumb. I could even take on a second job...or I could win the hundred thousand dollar grand prize at the talent showcase later in the school year...

I hadn't even been planning on auditioning for the showcase, let alone attempting to win it, but I had to try. If I didn't, my dad was going to control me for the rest of my life. I wanted my freedom, I wanted agency in my own life, I wanted to be financially stable on my own.

"I'm aware that you think you're doing your best for all of us, but the truth is that I'm hurt, and it feels like you don't even care. Like all you care about is making me come home no matter what, and even when I'm home, we don't talk. You took Sara and Jared's side when they made up lies about me...why do you even want me to come back home in the first place?"

"I made a promise to your mother. I promised her that I would try with you, really try to work at our relationship and make it as strong as the one she had with you. I thought we were that close before you moved to college, but maybe I was wrong..."

Of course he had to bring up the mom card! It was true that I didn't remember having the strongest relationship with my dad before my mother's death, but if he was actually trying to fulfill some dated promise to my mother, then they must've spoken about it before her death, before the car wreck...but in the car right before, if my nightmare/memory was true, he hadn't been trying to work on our relationship one bit.

No, he was doing his best to singlehandedly destroy it in one night.

And if what I remembered in that nightmare was true, then he succeeded. He just didn't know it yet.

But I still needed more information, I couldn't go around throwing accusations at him in case it was just an overactive imagination fueled by angst from the fact that he'd taken Sara's side instead of mine.

"So you're only trying to have a relationship with your only child because of a promise you made to your dead wife, not because you genuinely want to? That seems like a cop out."

"Virginia, you are my daughter. I love you, but if you keep acting this way, acting out and being so...difficult, there will be consequences. Now, are you coming home tonight or not? I haven't spoken with Eli much this week, but he said he is still coming to stay in the guest house tonight so we could spend the entirety of Sunday working on drills and so I can monitor his progress. Will you be riding with him? I assume you are both at that party if the music in the background is what I think it is."

The disgust and disapproval in his tone when speaking about the party was evident, but there was something else he'd said that confused me.

"Wait. So now I'm allowed to have 'contact' with Eli? I thought I was banned from even having eye contact with him?"

Okay, my tone may have been a bit scathing, but I couldn't help it, the man was simply infuriating and hypocritical.

"I decided it was better that I had someone there with you at school that would keep a close enough eye on you. Someone who could make sure that you followed my ruled, left your car at school and rode with him on the weekends he comes, that way you will definitely be here at least every other weekend."

"What makes you so sure that I'll even go with him?"

"Oh, so now you don't like him?"

Dammit. He got me there. When I didn't respond and all he got was silence, my father continued.

"That's what I thought. I'll see you tonight, and even if it is after midnight, I have your favorite brownies on the counter. My medication makes me sleepy so I might be asleep when you come home, but I will see you definitely in the morning. I'm not the bad guy here, Virginia. I love you and only want to spend time with you, I just wish you felt the same about me..."

Was he being serious?! Now he was guilt tripping me? I wished I could say that it didn't work, but when you've already lost one parent and the other was sick and in a wheelchair, the thought of disappointing them or hurting their feelings sent a knife right through your chest.

"You know that's not true. I want to spend time with you, I just want it to be because you genuinely want to spend it with me and not because of some promise you made to mom forever ago, or some misplaced guilt you might feel."

Or because it's your form of staying in control, I wanted to add, but I was too scared to go there yet.

"I am growing tired of this conversation, Virginia. I have already told you my motivations were pure, and I know that you will come home tonight so that is all that matters. I will see you in the morning."

And then the line was cut off. He only placated when he felt he was losing his battle, but knowing I'd already conceded he no longer felt the need for niceties or 'I love you's'.

The relationship I had with my father was like walking a tightrope above a New York skyscraper- one wrong step sent you careening towards the SPLAT on the sidewalk, but just to show you that he could, he'd place a trampoline on the street, sending you bouncing back up into the air, just for you to go crashing through the glass windows of the high rise next door, with nicks and cuts and bloodied palms to show for your intellectual and emotional tussle with him.

"Hey you okay?"

I stiffened as Maddie touched my shoulder, and I noticed that I'd been standing in the corner of the backyard staring at my blank phone screen like it was about to sprout wings and fly away.

"Yeah, just some...family drama," I finally said after pocketing my phone and searched the yard for Bea and Hazel, finding them perfectly safe with members of the basketball team basically eating out of the palms of their hands, both perfectly sober.

"Was it your dad? You know...Mike Bruins?"

My head whipped to Maddie in a millisecond of her uttering those words.

"I'm sorry, I...might've social media stalked you. Don't hate me. I guess I'm just wondering why you'd lie about who your dad was?"

I sighed while facing Maddie fully, her long coiled blonde hair pulled up into a high pony tail and face made up to the nines, matching her outfit of a tight red mini skirt with a deep thigh slit and white bodysuit, the outfit not dissimilar to most of the girls at the party, including Bea and Hazel.

"I guess I just didn't want to be treated differently, or for people to think the only reason I got the job at the gym was because of my dad. It was stupid. I'm sorry."

"No, I wasn't mad. I get that, you want people to see you for who you are, not for who your dad is. That's totally understandable."

"Thank you," I said, wondering why she was being weirdly cool about that.

"And look...I may have a confession."

"Okay..."

I wondered where this was going to go, but following her glance to Eli laughing with a group of guys to the left of us gave me a pretty good guess.

"I know I told you Eli was still with Mia, but she honest to god told me that they were still together, I had no idea he'd broken things off with her until she told me tonight. I feel terrible, Patrick told me how weird Eli had been acting all week and then seeing you guys talking tonight...well, anyways, I'm just sorry I warned you off of him. I was wrong about him."

"Yeah, you really were. It's okay, I guess I need to steer clear of Mia, though, if she's not being truthful about the two of them."

"Mia's not a bad person, swear to god, she's just-"

"Babe!"

Maddie was swept off her feet, quite literally, as Patrick came up beside her and attacked her with kisses and began swinging her around in the air much like he had the first time I'd met him.

"Okay, I'm gonna leave you two alone," I said with a slight laugh while Maddie couldn't stop giggling, Patrick tickling her stomach while she begged for him to put her down but I could tell it was something the two of them did often enough, even though if he didn't stop soon, the whole party was going to get an eyeful of her underwear underneath her very short skirt.

"They're so extra," I heard Mia say to a few of her friends crowded around her as I passed by her to get to Eli, who was currently searching the yard and smiled immediately as his eyes found mine.

Seamlessly, I melded to the side of his body as one of his arms landed perfectly on my shoulders and people did a few double takes, but for the most part we laughed and joked with his friends, taking pictures for Snapchat and playing a few rounds of beer pong (even though I refused to drink the beer). While most enjoyed a drink here and there, I had a tricky history with drunkenness, namely the fact that it had killed my mother, so I tried to steer clear of alcohol whenever I could.

Combatting warring butterflies in my stomach as his hand brushed my waist, the clock struck twelve and, like Cinderella, I had to dash away to make it back home, except this time, my prince came with me.