Blood singing in my veins and heart tripping over itself, I wasn't sure how I extracted myself from Eli's vehicle, but suddenly I found myself in the foyer of my house, searching for the culprit that had caught me with my lips on Eli's, hands on his body and fingers wrapped around his hair...

A cough from the corner of the darkened room pulled my attention from my heated thoughts and my eyes widened as I realized just who'd caught me in a compromising position with Eli.

"Not trying to make Jared jealous, huh? What do you call what you were just doing?"

I tried to put myself in Sara's shoes. She was dating my ex, and they had to come into contact with me every weekend. She had to be insecure, but that came from her own issues and the problems already rooted in the relationship, and none of it was my fault.

But...she was only seventeen, and had only had one boyfriend before. That didn't excuse her behavior, but it definitely explained her irrational and immature decisions.

"I call that living my life, on my own terms. It wasn't my fault you were looking out the window like a creep."

She huffed, crossing her arms across her chest after tying the ends of her fluffy pink robe tighter, as if to fend herself off from the words of truth I was speaking.

All I wanted to do was curl up in my bed and maybe scroll on my phone for a few mindless hours before falling into a sleep I wouldn't wake from until noon, but Sara had other plans for me.

"He's mine, Virginia. He might've been with you first, but we're together now. Nothing you can do or any tricks to try and make him jealous will work and make him leave me for you like he did with you."

My eyes widened in surprise at her words. I was almost positive he'd left me for Sara, but I hadn't received full confirmation until then.

While it stung a bit knowing that someone I'd been with for so long had left me for my younger, blonder and whiter cousin was almost a slap on the face, but not in the way I would've originally thought.

It was an inner shame that I had stayed with someone who would do that to me in the first place. It was a dig against myself, because if I had that terrible judgement when it came to Jared, then who else could I have terrible judgement about? Eli?

I hoped to everything holy that wasn't the case, because with the memories of that mind blowing kiss still swimming around in my head making my mind foggy and drunk on the taste of him still lingering on my mouth, I couldn't imagine having to walk away from him, especially not because I'd been wrong about his character and what kind of man he really was.

"Okay Sara, but I'm not doing anything to try and make your boyfriend jealous. I'm literally just living my life. Just because someone else came along after he broke up with me doesn't immediately mean I'm flaunting things in his face. If he's jealous, then that's a you and him problem."

I spied a bag of chocolate peanut butter cups on the kitchen bar behind her, lit up by the hanging pendant lights above it and while I was aware it was my father's peace offering, I didn't care. I only wanted to stuff my face with chocolate peanut buttery goodness until I almost exploded.

"Now if you'll excuse me, I've had a long night."

Sara's face contorted into half anger and half annoyance.

"Fine. But your dad is going to hear about this."

"Ooh, I'm so scared."

She rolled her eyes, stomped her foot like a brat, and stormed away from me in true toddler tantrum fashion.

I chuckled quietly to myself, and sufficiently gorged myself on chocolate while texting Eli, and then becoming increasingly more excited as we texted back and forth amongst ourselves.

There was a stupidly ridiculous smile plastered to my face because upon saying goodnight, Eli had also sent a winking-kissing emoji that had my heart fluttering much like it had in the car before he pulled me in for the best kiss of my entire life.

I'd never been kissed like that before. With Jared, it was lacking passion, like I only kissed him because it was an obligation in a relationship, but with Eli...

He stole my breath, and it physically pained me to not be touching him or kissing him in his presence, like he sucked all the air out of the room and only gave it back if my hands or lips were on his skin.

And, my god, those abs...

One sweep of my hands along the exposed skin of his lower stomach and I was sufficiently swooning.

Two pounds of decadent sweets later and I was completely lightheaded and definitely suffering from a sugar high, one that was completely earned.

I was two steps into my room upstairs after my sugar binge when I noticed something was...off.

Where my guitar had sat safely in its stand, emptiness swathed its usual cocoon. Where my recording equipment had once stood proud and dominant in the middle of the back wall of my room, miniature sound booth and microphone as well as my favorite mixing board and desktop monitor that held all of my recordings and countless other contraptions for my music...suddenly gone. Disappeared, as in without a trace.

I began pacing my room, nearly wearing a hole in the floor as I catalogued the entirety of my music necessities in my head, finding each and every piece missing.

Could it have been Sara's doing? I doubted she'd know where to hide my things that well, surely her mother would've found it...unless she was in on it too?

Could it have been my father, trying to teach me a lesson?

Whatever or whoever it was, I was starting to have a mental fucking breakdown as I realized with mounting dread that the desktop monitor held every single piece of music I'd ever recorded, from stupid little snippets to some of my proudest pieces, including entire songs drafted from thin air and multiple layered vocals and hand input synth and drum beats that had taken hours upon hours to learn and perfect.

Tears swimming in my vision, I had no idea what to do. I was effectively trapped.

My father had set this up, I soon realized. He had won, got me to return home, sugared me up with my favorite desert, and just like that snatched away the thing that I held closest to me.

He had hurt me because he could. It was a power trip, to show that if I didn't listen to him or do what he wanted then he could take everything away in the snap of his fingers.

Without thinking, I pulled my phone up and my email app blurred in front of my eyes from the tears threatening to fall.

The message wasn't hard to draft, it was the sending that was the hard part.

Surely, they wouldn't still hold my scholarship, but maybe the New York Conservatory of Music and Fine Arts would look past my deferring and allow me to audition for it again? There was no way that I was staying one minute in this household with my father, without my freedom.

If there was one thing that he shouldn't have messed with, it was that.

He knew that my connection to it stemmed from my mother, my interest piquing at a young age listening to her crooning away in the kitchen while she cooked me blueberry pancakes and danced along to the beat while making up funny lyrics to songs we already knew all the words to.

At the top of her lungs, she'd perform like a superstar in the car on the way to soccer practices and spelling bees, but never around my father. Maybe he didn't like the loudness of her voice, but that was the quality that most drew me to her.

It was in her strength of her vocals that she was finally able to be heard, something that it didn't seem she was able to accomplish in her marriage...

Well, I was going to be heard, dammit, and I didn't care if that meant severing the strings that kept me tethered to him.

If he wanted to act the bitter man, I'd give him something to be bitter about. He banned me from seeing Eli, then took it back within a week of me not speaking to him? Imagine a month, two, without ever hearing from me? I wonder what his tune would be then.

After pressing send on the email, my fingers clumsily dialed my grandmother's phone number, and she answered on the first ring.

A sob caught in my throat.

"Ahyoka, what's the matter? It's nearly three in the morning?"

Her voice was raspy and laden with sleep, but before I could feel bad about it, everything came pouring out- from him holding my entire past, present and future over my head, taking Sara's side over mine, possibly being romantically involved with Kara, allowing my ex boyfriend to stay the night at our house when I was there, doing nothing while I was having a panic attack/mental breakdown, and finally this. Taking away my recordings and musical instruments like I was a bad child and he was punishing me by withholding my most important belongings.

It was a mouthful, but she sat patiently and quietly as I spoke, taking in every word until I was done, and then it was her turn to speak, and I held my breath waiting for what she would say.

"You know if I lived closer, I would invite you to stay with me in a heartbeat, but since we moved to New Jersey..."

"I know," I sighed, figuring a quick shutdown of my feelings was about to happen, and dreading it immediately.

"But you said your father isn't feeling well? That he is on new medication? He must not be able to drink with it, and that is what's making him not himself."

"Why would you bring up him drinking?"

"I...well, I'm not exactly sure that it's my place to say anything but when Em- your mother, would speak about him, he was either amazing or the devil, there was no in between. I know their relationship was made harder because of his alcoholism."

"Alcoholism..."

Slurred words, red, bloodshot eyes..."Okay, okay, juss lemme get through this stop light. See? It's green, green means go-"

"Ahyoka? Are you still there?"

"Yeah, yes I am. Sorry, I just...guess he hides it pretty well."

"You mean you weren't aware of his problem? Maybe that's for the best. Perhaps he's changed his ways and this new way of him acting towards you is because he's losing control and doesn't have you under lock and key, something Emily used to have issues with from him as well. His narcissistic tendencies flare up when things don't go the way he wants."

"Narcissistic?"

Was my dad a narcissist?

"Your mother and father went to couples therapy, and the counselor had concerns that your father exhibited narcissistic traits. Withholding love and affection if you or your mother didn't do things as he intended or strayed from his instructions, shaming and guilting you if you didn't display a 'perfect' family image to the outside world necessary for his basketball career, manipulating you into doing what he wanted by saying what you wanted to hear and then immediately going back on his word...there are far more examples but those are the ones I remembered her speaking most about."

"I...can't believe you just described my father down to the letter, and you haven't even ever lived with him."

My mind was spinning with all the different signs I'd missed that my father was a manipulative father.

How long had I deluded myself that we'd had a strong and communicative relationship, when in reality, I was just falling in line with exactly what he'd wanted me to do in the first place?

"I'm so sorry, Ahyoka. I wish things were different. I wish...well, no changing the past. Go and get some sleep, and rest up for your day ahead. You have much to apologize for if you want your things back."

"Wait, apologize?!"

"Yes. You must beat him at his own game, play everything how he wants and make him give you your things back, then when you have them, take them with you to your dorm and never give him access to the most important things you own ever again."

I had to admit, it wasn't a bad plan. Not in the slightest...

"Yeah, I can do that. Beat him at his own game."

"Of course you can, you are my granddaughter. Now, call me when you have those recordings back, I want to have a listen."

"Of course. I'm...I'm sorry for waking you up so late, I just felt like I was going crazy and that no one would understand or even believe me about this."

"I am always here for you, always. No matter the time nor day. I am so thankful you reached out. We have so much time to make up for."

"Yes, we do. I...I love you."

There was a pause on the end of the line, and then she shuddered a breath like she was holding back tears.

"And I love you, my Ahyoka. Goodnight."

"Goodnight."

So, I would be playing games with my father tomorrow, except this time I knew I was a player and what the stakes were. I only hoped one of the shots I took didn't involve Eli, because if it came to sacrificing what I was building with him or beating my dad, I'd choose Eli a million times over.

And that scared the hell out of me.