Daddy's girl

I'm 16 and I just got home and I'm soaking wet. I walked home in the rain after running out of the house with the intention of running away, of never ever going back to HER house. Things with my mom never went back to being good, to having a loving mother-daughter relationship. I carried the anger towards her with me and each time she attacked me, or ridiculed me, or ignored me, or falsely accused me, I added it to the anger pile.

I don't remember the fight, the reason that I ran out of the house. I remember going to my friend Lisa's house, down the hill about a mile. It was late afternoon, early evening when I started walking to her house and the dark clouds were just starting to roll in. I'd left everything behind and I didn't want to ever go home. I hated her and couldn't breathe in that house. I sat in Lisa's bedroom, crying, being angry and trying to figure out how to get the hell away from her. It was during the week, a school night even and Lisas mom came in and said it was time for me to go home.

It was dark and it was pouring. I wasn't offered a ride home (I had a truck & Lisas mom didn't know I hadn't driven over) and I didn't ask for one. I didn't know where I was going to go. I started walking up the hill, thinking that my great grandma lived half-way between Lisas house and our house, also that my grandparents lived just over the hill from her. My aunt and uncle lived at the bottom of the hill. I knew that whichever place I picked, they would all take me home, so I kept walking up the hill.

I got home and stood on the street, in the rain, looking at the small tan house. The lights were on casting a delicate glow around the closed curtains. I sighed and went through the gate, walked up the cement path to the porch, took a deep breath and opened the front door. My mom and dad looked up, my dad jumped up and started walking across the living room and my mom started yelling. My dad looked over at her and told her to just stop. He wrapped his arms around me and hugged me, then walked me over to the rocking chair he'd been sitting in, sat down and pulled me onto his lap and just hugged me. He told my mom to go get towels and he held me, telling me that he was sorry, that he loved me, that he didn't know how to undo my hurt.

My mom threw the towels at us and I remember flinching. My dad wrapped the towels around me and we sat like that for what seemed like hours. I remember starting to feel achy and hot. He walked me to my room and I laid on my bed, in my clothes, and he covered me with blankets. He asked if I wanted him to stay with me, I don't remember answering him. I felt like a little tiny girl, small and helpless, defeated almost at having to go back to that house.