[COMPLETE]
Emerson Castell loves facts.
Enjoying the how and why of everything, she never fails to let her obsession seep into every aspect of her life, including her relationships - or lack thereof.
Leo Caruso is no stranger to a busy social life...
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There had been a brief moment a little over a week ago where I'd thought I'd been close to making up with my father.
My phone rang, and his name showed up on the caller ID. I didn't have time to overthink it, because if I did, the call would have gone to voicemail, and I knew I wouldn't have called back.
So I accepted the call and exhaled my doubts. I heard the beginning of a crackled "hello," and then the line went dead.
And so did my desire to speak to him again.
I didn't blame him for the call of course, and it was my fault I didn't pick up when he rang again, but there was something I was waiting for. Something to soften my hardened heart and let him in.
Something to make up for all the times I wished he was there when he really was there.
It was the second of December, meaning it was nearing six months since I had left New York. A lot had happened between now and then.
I was happier. A smile crossed my face more times than a frown. I didn't feel that constant void inside from the people I surrounded myself with because they were long out of my life.
I was healthier. I hadn't touched a cigarette since I'd made the decision to quit. To say it was easy would have the biggest fucking joke in the world. It was an uphill battle every day not to give in, but one that shrunk in magnitude each time I resisted.
I'd always liked winning, after all.
And I had developed those little pesky things called feelings. As much I wanted to admit I was immune to them, the past six months made me go from mostly heartless asshole to much less heartless asshole.
But I was still an ass to my father, maybe because that's the only descriptor I'd used for him in my mind for years. His life consisted of different women every other month, women who sometimes never even knew I existed, probably because my father pretended like I didn't exist when they were around. And if he spent a rare evening at home and not at the office, he spent it drowning in alcohol and staring at old pictures of my mother, as if looking at them hard enough would bring her back.
So that's why every time I opened my phone, I couldn't bring myself to call him. Yet I pathetically kept an old text message he'd sent before one of my games last year.
Maybe I wasn't that heartless.
I shoved my phone back into my pocket before the teacher assumed I was trying to cheat. I had already finished the quiz ten minutes before everyone else, and it was sitting face down on my desk, waiting to get out of my sight. If there was anything I was excited for in college next year, it was being able to leave after quizzes and exams at the end of class when I finished.
"Leo, if I see that phone out again, you're going to be having fun in detention," the teacher snapped when I handed in my quiz at the end of class. I let out a huff and added another thing I couldn't wait for in college: no detention.
