Untypically in Love: A New Start

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Read the full story, chapter by chapter here.

Some names and events have been changed to protect the identity of certain individuals.

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Chapter Twenty-Two
A New Start

The devastation left behind after my Grandmothers death took it's toll on the entire household. I often wonder how things would have changed had she survived. Would those final years of living at home turned out better? Easier? Less . . . empty?
For the most part, everything went on like normal. Paula and Fred still had to go to work every day. Kristine and I still had to go to school. Something was missing now. Some piece of my soul that didn't bring joy to my life like it had before. Something inside of me was dead.

I didn't know how to mourn properly. I wanted to reach out and depend on others, but I felt almost completely alone in my grief. Everyone else in the family had their own anger and sadness to deal with, and I had already separated myself from my friends at school by what were supposed to be positive changes I was making. In an act of desperation for a parent figure, I reached out to someone I shouldn't have.

I called my father.

There was a reason he hadn't been around for much of my life. He and my mother had been high school sweethearts. Old love letters confirmed that while my birth may have been an unplanned pregnancy, it was certainly not unwanted. They'd write back and forth to one another, calling each other "babe". Talking of names for their future children and how their love was going to last forever.

But even the best of starts doesn't always end happily ever after.

I wasn't even two years old when my parents divorced. Custody was given to my Grandmother. Once a month I would visit my Dad and he'd lavish me with affection and presents. Until I was eleven and I received a phone call telling me that he'd been arrested.

Then the stories came, like a broken dam, flooding memories of my childhood with unwanted truth. Two years later, when he was released, we tried to build our relationship again, but I was growing up. Desperate for connection I reached out to him, and due to misunderstandings, outside influences and the scars of a father-daughter relationship not strong enough to withstand the storms, the call ended badly.

In the darkness I wrote. And wrote. And wrote.

And I depended on Matt, a lot.

He filled in the missing piece of me. When I couldn't rely on myself, I relied on him. When I no longer had friends to cry with, he was the shoulder I cried on. When I had lost my own family, his had taken me in. His mother and I developed a relationship that was very close. She took me out to lunch and we would make scrapbooks together. We had dinner together, as a family, at their home every Sunday after Church. Matt's father even began poking fun at me, an initiation of sorts (that still hasn't let up).

I became overly sensitive toward others. The security that was broken down when my Grandmother died was being replaced by an emotional wall with no entrance or windows, and I was leaving all the building to Matt. We began fighting. Stupid little arguments that people usually wait until marriage to have. We weren't spending enough time together. He played too many video games. He wasn't being serious. Why wasn't he telling me what was on his mind? Why would he say something like that if he didn't mean something else? Bits and pieces of crazy hormones leaked into my head compelling me to argue until my last dying breath.

I was pushing him away.

Christmas break was a time to repair without the distractions of school and our peers. When New Years Eve rolled around, we both committed to making things work, despite not knowing what the problem was to begin with.

Paula and Fred were going to Vegas for New Years, as they often did. Kristine had decided to stay with a friend and I was content to be home alone. But it was 1999 and Y2K was a worry that some people were taking seriously.

"What do you mean home alone!?" Matt's mother asked me when I informed her of my plans for New Years.

"It's okay. They go to Vegas a few times a year. I'm totally used to it."

"Well not this year." She shook her head. "Who knows if what they say about Y2K will actually happen. What if there's a disaster? No, you'll stay with us at least for New Years Eve."

"Really?" Matt responded with a grin.

"Don't get excited. She'll stay in the den." She narrowed her eyes. "Wipe that grin off you're face or you'll be sleeping outside."

So we attended the New Years Eve dance that the Church held for the teenagers. We still technically weren't supposed to be dating, so several minutes before midnight, Matt somehow convinced his mother that it would be terrible to NOT kiss when the ball dropped. It was tradition after all, and after the year I had, I deserved to start 2000 off on a good memory. Sympathy won in the end.

"C'mere," He said and grabbed my hand, pulling me in for one last slow dance to 'Nothing Else Matters', before the DJ began playing the typical 'Party Like it's 1999'. Then, the countdown began.  

"Next Year is going to be great." He insisted. "I promise."

10 . . .

"Couldn't be any worse than this year." I frowned.

9 . . . 

"You met me this year," He pointed out.

8 . . .

"Technically I met you last year. Last December in fact." I smirked.

7 . . . 

"Well Happy Anniversary," He grinned.

6 . . .

"I'm sorry about everything," I sighed. "I'm such a mess. You deserve better."

5 . . .

"Nothing to be sorry for. I love you."

4 . . . 

"I love you too."

3 . . .

"Happy New Year." He grinned at me.

2 . . .

"Happy New Year."

1 . . .

>>> Chapter Twenty-Three