I just wanna make a little note here. School started for me today, and I'm a Grade 9 (Minor Niner, hehehe), so that means I won't be able to post this all the time. I'll try, of course, but it'll be hard. But thanks again to my wonderful reviewers! You guys rock! And this one will touch your hearts...
It was a long drive. So long in fact, Riley fell asleep. Ivy ignored him and stared out the window. This was the second time she had been stuck in the back with Nerdpants.
Shaw's cell phone rang. He answered it.
"Hello?" Shaw said quickly, passing it back to Ivy, "It's for you."
Ivy took the phone. Surely, it had to be Ian.
It was.
"How are you doing, Liberty? I do hope you had an enjoyable time at school."
Ivy scowled, "What do you want?"
Ian chuckled, "Still in need of an attitude adjustment, I see. Well I thought it might be interesting that you knew about your father."
"My…my father? What did you do to him, you sicko!"
"I didn't do anything. I just got a call from my sister-in-law about two weeks ago. My brother had a heart attack. He's dead."
Ivy froze. Her face turned white.
"Umm…" Ivy bit her lip, "Ok…bye."
She closed the phone and gave it back to Shaw. Leaning towards the window, Ivy stared out into space.
"I just…I can't believe Dad's...gone…" Ivy said softly. The tears she had held back for so long were now burning her eyes.
Riley was still fast asleep. He was in one of those deep sleeps, where you can still hear the voices around you, but you can't move. He couldn't figure out what he was hearing was real or not. Riley soon drifted off to slumber, and was in another world.
Ivy squeezed her eyes shut and suppressed a cry, but a tear escaped and ran down her cheek. This was it. Everything she had never wanted to be. The reason she had become a runaway, rebel...all of it. Right in front of the people she always tried to impress. Her life was ruined.
When she was little, Ivy remembered her mother would hold her when she cried. But her mother was not there, and she desperately wanted someone to embrace her. Desperate times called for desperate measures.
Her vision blurred with tears, Ivy leaned on Riley for comfort. It was his shoulder she chose to cry on, and she didn't care. In her mind, Ivy knew that Shaw and Abby weren't going to look back any time soon, and that Riley was fast asleep and wouldn't be aware of it.
Riley was surprisingly warm, and sort of cuddly. NO, he was just Nerdpants...the leaning post. Yeah, that was it. Ivy was not about to admit that maybe, just maybe, she didn't completely hate him…
Ivy cried herself to sleep, her head on Riley's shoulder.