Ariel POV
Three days later
As Henry drives me down the road, many thoughts flood my mind. It’s afternoon, and I scheduled a meeting with Mr. Daniel at a restaurant, or should I say he was the one that scheduled the meeting? Well, it doesn’t really matter who did.
“Are you ok, ma’am?” Henry asks as he glances at me through the visor, and I quickly nod my head, even though it’s written clearly all over me that I’m not fine. I’m nervous and also scared of what we are going to discuss there. I am meeting my dad for the first time in my lifetime, so it’s only normal to be nervous, yeah? Yes, I met him a few days ago, but we didn’t get to talk, so it’s literally the first time we are going to be meeting today.
We finally arrive at the restaurant, and I hop out of the car before I walk into the fancy restaurant. I spot him sitting on the other end of the restaurant, and I take a deep breath, walking over to him afterward.
“I’m sorry for stressing you all the way here,” He apologizes once I sit in front of him, and I nod my head. I don’t know what to feel toward this man. Whether I should be excited I finally found my dad, or sad that he showed up after he abandoned me for so long.
“Hmm. It’s fine,” I nod my head, and he sighs briefly.
“Uhm… Do you care for anything? I will call the waiter to serve you,” He offers, but I shake my head.
“No, I’m fine,” I reply to him, and he slowly nods his head. Just like myself, he looks nervous too.
“Why did you leave?” I ask him after a long silence, and he bites his bottom lip as he throws his gaze away.
“Didn’t you love Mom? Why did you have to leave her?” I ask again even though Mom already told me some of the things that happened in their past.
“I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you when you needed me the most… I never meant to abandon your mom. I loved her with everything in me, and I was ready to spend the rest of my life with her. Believe me, it never crossed my mind to leave her for any reason…” He pauses and takes a deep breath.
“Her life was at stake then… My mom was going to hurt her if I didn’t leave… She was going to destroy the woman I love if I stayed by her side, and I couldn’t even protect her. I wanted to protect her, and when I couldn’t, I knew I had to stay far away from her…” A drop of tears slides down the corner of his cheek as he speaks with pain in his voice.
“I was hoping getting her pregnant would solve everything… I was hoping my mom would allow me to be with her if I got her pregnant, and that was why we resorted to making love, but that seemed to be the beginning of my miseries…” He pauses and takes a deep breath, trying to hold back his tears, but they came falling freely down her cheeks.
“Mom found out about it… She was the first to know that your mom was pregnant, but she hid it from me, and when she came to tell me, she lied to her that I traveled out of the country… I was inside the room, watching her in pain and I couldn’t even go close to her, because it would only cause her harm. When the pain wouldn’t go away, the urge to always see her was still there, I decided to finally leave the country and maybe then, I would be able to get her off my head… Ten years later, I found out I had a child with her,” He explains to me, and I gulp down nothing. My cheeks are already wet from tears, my heart hurts to know that my mom was through this shit in her past.
“When I came back, I tried to reach out for her, and when I finally saw her, she told me to stay far away from her and her child. She told me that I was going to harm them if I decided to hang around, and I had to stay away for some time until I couldn’t take it anymore,” He further explains to me, and if this is really what happened, I feel bad for him and mom, because it was none of their faults. He never wanted to leave her, he tried his best to be with her, but he also had to protect my mom from being harmed by his mom.
“Your mom… Why did she hate my mom so much?” I ask the question that has been lingering on my mind ever since he started talking. I don’t want to assume that it’s because of their status. Because mom was poor, and he was rich. That is crazy, and I don’t even want to imagine that.
“I don’t know… She never told me the reason behind her chronic hatred for her, even though I asked her several times why she was doing that. She always told me she wanted the best for me, but she never agreed to tell me why she had to do that,” He replies to me, and I sigh briefly.
“I’m sorry for everything, Ariel… I’m sorry for not being there for you at the time you needed me the most. You deserve a good father, but I was never one for you. I should’ve been braver to stand up for your mom… I shouldn’t have been a coward,” He utters sadly, and I sigh.
“It was never your fault. You were just trying to protect her,” I reply to him sincerely, but will Mom ever understand this? Will she ever believe what happened?