XI

After close to two months of being away from all of my newly old friends and my now ex-boyfriend, I felt like I was finally over it all. Yes, it still hurt my heart to think about the events that occurred at the party, but I felt much better about myself than I previously had. I had to admit, I kind of missed hanging out with some of them at lunch, but I was confident that I had made the right decision in deciding to lose all contact with each one of them. Thankfully, very few awkward encounters with any of them had happened; seeing them in the hallways proved a little uncomfortable, but it was nothing I couldn't handle. Ethan had tried to talk to me early on, but I had informed him that I had no intention of ever speaking to him again, and he backed off. I kind of loved the new, assertive side of my personality.

Making new friends was difficult for me, but I was used to that, and I tried to work through it. I spent most of my time with some girls in my art class, and they were nice enough. They were kind of ditzy, which I pretended not to mind, but beggars can't really be choosers. At least they were nice and probably wouldn't support other people breaking my heart like my previous friends had. None of them were into partying or anything of the like, which made me breathe a sigh of relief. There was a slim to none chance of me ever attending a high school party again, and even though I was not going to give into the pressure like last time, saying no still would've been difficult for me. Sure, I had kind of found my voice in the past weeks, but I hadn't done a complete one-eighty. It was going to take me a long time to be able to not care at all what other people thought of me.

One thing I secretly enjoyed about having new friends was the fact that they didn't pester me too much. Spring Break was only a few days away, and I really just wanted to be alone. Sometimes I just needed some time to let my brain relax, because when I was around other people, I had what felt like billions of things running through my mind. Two weeks to myself was much anticipated and very much needed.

"Morgan, before you lock yourself in your room," I rolled my eyes at this, "I have to talk to you." I turned around and waited for my mother to speak. She was sitting on the couch with Jerry, and I knew something bad was going to come of it.

"What?" I asked as I sit down on one of the brown leather chairs, twiddling several strands of hair in between my fingers.

"So, I was talking to your father earlier, and we were discussing Spring Break…"

"No. I am not… No. I am not going there for my break! I've been looking forward to this, and I already told you that I'm not going back to Vegas again," I said, interrupting her. She sighed, as if she wasn't used to my quick reaction times.

"Just hear her out, Morg," Jerry said, trying to be the peacekeeper. I sighed.

"As I was saying, we were discussing Spring Break, and we decided that you're going to go visit for the second week. He told me that Catherine said you could spend a couple of the days that he is working with her," she explained, knowing that her last thought would make me a bit more accepting of the idea.

"Why can't I just stay here?" I whined. At this point, I knew trying to argue my way out of this would be a frivolous attempt, so I elected to resort to whining.

"Because you don't spend enough time with your dad. He misses you, Morgan, especially since you never call or make an effort to communicate with him. You're going, and you'll have a good time, alright?" Yeah, telling me that was really going to help.

"He doesn't miss me. He doesn't even care about me. If he cared, he wouldn't have sent me back here after the incident in the summer," I said. Even though I knew I couldn't get out of this trip, I needed to get my point across.

"Of course he cares about you. That was different, and you know that," my mother reasoned, and I rolled my eyes.

"It wasn't different at all! You don't even know what happened because you only listened to his warped view of what happened. If you listened to me, you wouldn't be sending me there," I replied bitterly.

"Morgan, honestly, stop being so dramatic. What's done is done. You're going, and somehow you're going to survive. You even get to spend time with someone else besides your father, so the two of you won't kill each other." I scoffed; just because I got to see Catherine for a bit of my dreaded trip did not mean there was any less chance of homicide occurring in my father's apartment.

"Whatever," I breathed, heading up to my room. I had vowed to never see my dad again, and now this was happening?

The first week of the break flew by since I was enjoying my alone time so much, and the second week was only a couple days away. I was doing my best to put a positive spin on it, and I would never tell anyone this, but a small part of me was excited. Yes, I would have to make awkward conversation with my dad for hours at a time, but I was going to hang out with Catherine, and that was awesome. Despite the fact that I had only actually met her once, the rest of our communication occurred solely on the phone or over email, she was one of my favourite people in the world.

Growing up, I had never had much of a female role model to look up to. Yes, I had my mom, but since I was young, we had never really been that close, which was kind of frustrating. I'm sure lots of girls would kill to even have a mother, which made me feel bad about not getting along with mine, but there wasn't much I could do. We were always arguing over something, and we could never agree on even the simplest of things. Sometimes, we would get along perfectly fine, like we had always been close, but then the littlest thing would be blown out of proportion by both of us and it would be back to a strained relationship. Catherine seemed to understand everything I was going through, and she didn't judge me about it like my mom did. I had given up on confiding in my mother about various things when I was little, because she always had a differing opinion on it, or she would unintentionally make me feel bad about whatever my issue was. Catherine never did that; she always just listened and then gave me advice. We could also just talk, something I couldn't do with either of my parents. Somehow, the adult I wasn't related to was the only one I would actually open up to. Before I had started talking to her, there was nobody in my life that I would willingly discuss things that were bothering me with. I still was occasionally reluctant to bringing up issues with her, but at least I didn't have a reason for it.

While I was home alone, the phone rang, which was one of the things that I hated most in life. Answering the phone was terrifying, and if there was nobody around, I couldn't pass the responsibility onto someone else. I had to muster up every ounce of courage to pick up the ringing device every single time, and it never got any easier.

"Hello?" I said, praying it would be a telemarketer so I could just hang up.

"Hey, M, how are you?" Ugh, the worst variable of them all; my dad. I groaned internally, wishing I had never picked up.

"Fine. You?" I asked sharply, not particularly caring about the answer.

"Good. Is your mom home?" he asked, and this was one of the ways I could tell he didn't miss me like my mom said. If he wanted to talk to me, he would try and make conversation, even though he was hopeless at it, much like me.

"No, I'll tell her you called," I said, hoping that would be the conclusion of our conversation.

"Oh, well, I'll tell you what's happening now. So, it's been a madhouse at work lately, and I'm behind on a lot of stuff. I think we're going to have to take a rain check on next week," he explained. I knew that his reasoning was a lie. He just didn't want to have the extra responsibility of me being around; he was perfectly content working double and even triple shifts while I was there.

"Oh. Okay. I'll tell her. Thanks," I replied, unsure of how I was supposed to react.

"I'm sorry, M. Maybe you can come and visit for a weekend or something sometime. We'll figure something out. Just tell your mom I called, alright?" I sighed.

"Yeah, it's no big deal. Did you tell Catherine? You said to mom that she said I could visit her, too," I said, the tiniest ounce of disappointment filling my voice.

"No, not yet. I will. Listen, M, I have to go, okay? I'll talk to you later," he replied. My mother was truly delusional for thinking he actually cared about me and wanted to spend time with me.

"Okay. Bye," I said icily, feeling my usual anger that occurred whenever I had to speak with him build up. I heard the click of the phone from his line, and I sighed as I hung up my side, too. I tried to push all of my thoughts from my mind, and just focus on the fact that I had another week to relax.

Later, as I heard my mom arguing with my dad on the phone about his last minute cancellation, I resorted to my old technique of hiding under blankets to muffle the sound of yelling. I really hated hearing them fight; it was almost always because of me, and it was simply just unpleasant. I could still hear my mom's angry tone, and I pretended to ignore it. The thing was, she wasn't fighting with him because she knew I was disappointed; she was fighting with him because she probably just wanted to get rid of me for a week. I didn't really mind that much; I got kind of sick of me too sometimes.

Knowing full well that I shouldn't feel disappointed about my cancelled "vacation", I still did feel a bit upset. I wasn't going to get to see Catherine, and I was kind of psyching myself up for that. It probably wasn't going to be as exciting as I thought it would be, anyway, but it still sucked a little. I could still talk to her on the phone and email her, though, right? It would be essentially the same as seeing her in person. If I had my way in the first place, I would never have been taking a plane to Vegas, so this was just like I had made my choice on my terms. Well, it wasn't really, but that's what I was telling myself.

I would never admit this, ever, to anyone, including Catherine, but a small part of me was disappointed about not seeing my dad, as well. We never got along and we never had anything to speak about, I know, but he was my dad after all. Throughout my whole life he had always been caught up with work, which always gave me a small desire to want to be closer with him. It was stupid, because he probably didn't reciprocate this in the least, but as much as I denied the fact that I wanted to know him better, it didn't go away. I sometimes wondered what it would have been like if we had a close relationship, and every time the thought passed through my mind, I had to convince myself that the way things were already were just fine. I'm sure most people wouldn't agree with me, but I didn't really agree with me, either.

Just because my dad cancelled didn't mean he didn't love me, right? He was just being his usual extremely anti-social self, which just also applied to being social with his daughter. I should have totally understood his actions, because I didn't really want to see him, either, but then there was that small part of me that did. He never really made an effort to be involved in my life, but it's not like he hated me, or at least I hoped not. No, there was no way he hated his only daughter. Or maybe he did. He probably did, I guess. I would ask for Catherine's advice, but then I'd have to admit that his actions were affecting me, and there was no way I was going to do that. I could figure this puzzle out by myself; I was good at that.

Thank you so much to everyone who reads/reviews/favourites/follows/etc., you guys all make my day:) I have one more chapter already written and then my next update might take awhile because of exams :(