Here comes the third chapter guys! Hope you like it.
Week with dad
Peter loved hanging out with Etta, he loved when he pretended to be the responsible dad and he had to set rules, he loved when he could just talk to her, and he loved it when they just hung out watching movies or sports.
Peter had felt completely destroyed when Olivia left him. And he knew he deserved it. He had been so obsessed over Walter disappearing that the one night he was supposed to take care of Etta, he had failed to check on her often enough and it happened to be a night she had a fever. He realized what an idiot he had been on the way to the hospital, when Etta was barely conscious. Olivia never blamed him for that, but he did.
Olivia had left him, she had made it clear thousands of times that she would never get back with him and he ended up respecting that. Not that he didn't miss her every single day of his life, but every single day he thanked the heavens that Etta was there, a little piece of him and Olivia. She was so smart, she had talked before the year and walked around the year and two months. She had read physics for children with her daddy and had built a rocket ship when she was five. Peter encouraged her in anything. She had wanted to be an astronaut and he had gotten her everything she needed. She had wanted to become a chemist, and Peter talked endlessly about Walter and chemistry. And now she wanted to become a writer and Peter, although a bit less enthusiastically, supported her nevertheless.
He looked at his coin and didn't understand why it had appeared out of nowhere, but he felt so much better with it in his hands. He remembered what he said to Olivia and blush crept to his face. Why did he still try to flirt with her, even when he knew how she always reacted? It was as if he didn't have any common sense. He shook his head as if to get rid of the thought and opened the fridge to make a special grilled chicken. Etta, that had followed him, sat on a chair with her cell phone on her hands.
"What do you say to chicken?" he asked.
"It's fine dad, I eat everything you make, if you haven't noticed"
"I'mt's okay with 'fine, dad', kiddo"
She sighed, "what I meant to say is that I like your food"
Peter was beaming with excitement at what she had just said. "So, would you say I cook better than your mom?"
She stared at him, "Why do you care?"
"Well, you already like the way she drives better"
"Dad, why did you divorce mom? I know you're going to tell me I'm too young to know about this, but I think it's time. I'm almost fifteen"
Peter almost spat the water he had just drank.
"This is so sudden, we were just talking about food!"
"And I will tell you whose food I prefer, if you answer my question!"
"Oh, so are you blackmailing me?" hHe smirked.
"You could say so" She looked so much like Olivia, with her arms crossed in front of her.
"You got that from your mom"
"I didn't get it from you, the conman?"
"Yeah I guess so, but until a moment ago she had been the only woman who had ever blackmailed me"
"Can I know that story too?"
"Classified, kiddo"
Etta made an angry sound and stood up to grab some soda. She sat at the table again, still fuming. Her dad would never answer her.
"Kiddo, why do you ask that question?"
"Because I just want to understand. I mean, I don't know what's up with you two, except you act so weird all the time.. "
"Etta, sorry, it's just, things didn't really work out. I mean, I loved your mom, but life happens"
"Is that all you got for me?"
Peter still felt embarrassed over everything during that time, so he nodded, feeling guilty. Etta just sighed and stood up to go to her room.
"Dad," she said from the hallway. He looked at her, "I like your food better. But if you ever tell mom I will take your head off." Peter laughed at that.
-.-.-
Etta waited until her father was out of the house to go snoop on his things. She would never do this to Olivia, never. But for some reason she didn't care that much on her dad, maybe because she knew he would never realise. She wanted to find a diary or something like that, but who was she kidding? Her dad didn't keep a diary. She opened his sock drawer and felt something between the socks, it was round. She took it out, it was a bullet inserted in a chain.
She had a brief memory of her dad showing her the bullet and she trying to catch it, her mom was laughing on the background.
This was something and without thinking about it very much, she took it and put in on her neck. She left his room as if she had found the most fundamental piece of the universe, or of their relationship, and she didn't really know what it was.
