Chapter 33 Lottie

Chapter 33

Lottie

I couldn't stop thinking about what Nolan had said during our conversation in my office. We'd managed to be a little less awkward with each other during practice that day and then during the conference championship game. We'd slipped back into our familiar partnership that we formed early in the season. But even as the team celebrated their win and the fans went wild, all I could think about was whether he was right or not.

Did I need to forgive my father to move on with my life?

Was he holding me back?

I hated that I couldn't even fully celebrate that we were going to the Super Bowl because of that man. He never deserved another inch of space in my life, yet here he was still taking up residence in places I didn't want him to be. He'd invaded my head during the few recovery days the team was given after the conference championship game. There were two weeks between the conference championship game and the Super Bowl.

This year's Super Bowl was to be played in Los Angeles and we would fly out to start practices there this coming Sunday—three days. I knew that I had to take care of this feeling building inside of me now or I'd miss my chance.

My sister picked up on the third ring. "You're interrupting my rewatch of Vampire Diaries . What do you want?"

"Oh, hi. Nice to hear from you, Lottie. I love you, too," I mocked, fighting the urge to roll my eyes at her.

"Yes, hi. I love you. What do you need?" Olivia asked again.

"Can you send me our father's address?" Silence met me on the other side. For a moment, I thought the call might have dropped.

Finally, she replied, "Are you sure?"

"I have something I need to do," I told her.

Olivia sighed. "If you're sure."

"I am," I told her. After thinking about it nonstop, I realized that if I wanted to try to move forward with Nolan—if that was still even a possibility—I needed to speak with him. I needed to see him. I hoped that once I finally told him how badly he hurt me, the scars on my heart would start to heal.

The notification for my text messages sounded. "Thank you," I told her.

"Lottie?"

"Yeah?"

There was a long pause on the other end of the line. "I've just been thinking. Dad didn't make you unlovable and Nolan proves that. Just remember that for me, okay?"

I stayed silent as I mulled over her words. Part of me wondered if she was right. Because I was starting to believe it.

"Talk to you soon?" I could hear everything she wasn't saying in that sentence.

"I'll call you later."

Once I hung the phone up, I tapped into my text messages and stared at the address that was on my screen. Now I knew where he lived. I'd taken the first step and I needed to see this through.

It was comical that all these years he only lived on the other side of my town. I could have run into him a hundred times, but I'd only ever managed to once. The odds had always been stacked against me, but somehow, I'd managed to beat them all for quite some time.

Before I could talk myself out of it, I pulled on all my layers to fight off the cold. The snow had finally let up this week. As I drove across town, my fingers gripped the steering wheel tightly, the color slowly leeching out of them. I had to count my breathing as I inched closer to the address plugged into my GPS system because I was afraid that the second I stopped focusing on it, I would hyperventilate and crash before I even got there.

The building I pulled up to was run-down, but there were signs of warmth within it. Some of the balconies were still decorated with Christmas lights. Front doors had welcome signs and nice entry mats. I spotted the number of the apartment I was looking for and all that work I'd done to count my breathing slipped away from me as the air in my lungs caught in my throat.

What will I say?

Why did I do this?

Do I want to do this?

A million questions raced through my head as I tried to regain the courage that had gotten me here in the first place. Once my mind was quiet, only one thought remained.

I wish I could tell Nolan I was doing this.

I hated that I couldn't pick up the phone and text him about this because he was right. I needed to do this for myself just like he needed to figure out what he wanted for himself. Maybe then—and only then—would either of us be whole enough for the other, if there was anything left between us when that happened.

The apartment didn't have a buzzer like mine, only an old-school knocker on the front of it. I reached out, my hand shaking, to hit the knocker against the door. There was a scuffle on the other side, as someone hurried to answer.

For just a moment before the door opened, everything froze in time. I remembered the last time I saw my father at Olivia's graduation. How he'd been checking his phone the entire time for updates on his favorite NFL team as the new draftees checked into the team. When he read about his favorite player being cut, he grew so angry that he had to leave the ceremony before Olivia even walked the stage. I didn't even bother asking him where he was going because I knew he'd end up at a bar somewhere in the city, drinking his sorrows away. My mother had sat next to me, her back stiff as she weathered the curious glances of the parents around us. They had just finalized their divorce and that outing was the first time they'd seen each other since the proceedings.

The door opened and there in front of me stood a man I barely recognized, the same man from the grocery store. It had been almost a decade since I'd last seen him, but he looked like he had aged a lifetime. His hair was a shock of white and there were deep lines around his lips from smoking.

We both stared for a few moments. Both of us realizing that we were standing in front of each other.

My father was the first to speak. "Charlotte?"

I flinched when I heard my full name. I felt like I was ten years old again, being chastised for having not thought to make dinner while he had stayed later than he was supposed to at work when it was my mother's night to work late.

When I didn't say anything right away, he spoke again, "Is it really you?"

"Can I come in?" I asked him.

My father's eyes grew big with surprise before he hurried to open the door wider for me. I shuffled in uncomfortably just inside the threshold and watched him rush to tidy up his home. I wasn't sure what I had expected my father's place to look like, but a matching sofa set, with a nice rug and actual decor, was nowhere on the list.

"Do you want to sit?" He gestured to one of the couches as he hovered, waiting to see what I would do so he could follow my lead.

This was not the man I remembered. Suddenly, my rehearsed plan didn't apply to this situation. I thought it would be easy to get everything off my chest. To tell him how he had ruined so much of my life. But I hadn't expected to see the man I'd watched come home angry after a bad loss and take it out on his family to be wearing a pair of jeans with a nice pullover sweater and loafers.

"Uh, sure," I told him as I sat on the edge of one of the couches. My father followed suit and sat down in an armchair that looked like it was his usual spot.

"How have you been?"

I stared at him and wondered how he could sit here and act like a changed man as if he hadn't caused so much harm to me and Olivia.

How could he act so casual?

I struggled to remain the confident woman I'd grown into. As I sat in front of this man, I wanted to shrink myself. But I was no longer that same little girl.

"I came here today to try and fix some part of myself that you ruined all those years ago, but I guess I'm just having a hard time right now. I hadn't expected you to look like …" I trailed off.

"Healthy and with no anger issues anymore?" My father supplied.

I nodded.

"After you and your sister cut me out, for good reason I might add, it was a wakeup call. I realized how badly I'd messed my life up and how far it had all gotten. I knew I needed help, so I went to a program." He reached for a framed certificate displaying his achievement. My mouth dropped open.

The man I grew up with never would have admitted he had done something wrong. He had always been too proud to do something like that. Nor would he have taken necessary steps to make himself better.

"I'm sure that might come as a shock," he continued, as if seeing my father look like a respectable human being should be far more normal than it was. "I'd always meant to reach out sooner, but I hadn't felt ready. I've been working with my therapist, and we've been developing a plan for me to talk with you and your sister—"

All the pain I had to endure as a little girl played out in my head as my father tried to right his wrongs with just one conversation. But the hurt ran too deep, and the apology became too much.

"Please stop," I told him as I held up a hand.

The rest of his sentence died on his tongue as he watched me struggle to get my thoughts together.

"I came here because I need you to know how badly you hurt me," I started. "You forced me to be an adult far before I was ever meant to be. You were supposed to be the one to show me what it meant to love someone; except I watched you degrade my mother into less than a human being."

My father's skin paled as the words started coming out of me faster and faster.

"I've never dated anyone seriously because you made me feel like I wasn't worthy to be loved. I'm a raging workaholic because I needed to feel like I was good at something. You made me feel worthless, so I've always searched for my worth in everything I do. I hate you for that."

At this point, I was practically heaving the words out as my body edged me closer to sobs. The first tears slipped down my face as I repeated the words, "I hate you."

Heavy silence filled the room. Even though I wouldn't be leaving this conversation with forgiveness, I would be leaving here having let go of the past and the baggage I carried with me.

"Rightfully deserved," my father replied softly. "All of it. I deserve all of it."

He reached for a half-drunk glass of water on the end table next to him before he spoke again. Sweat had broken out on his forehead.

"I'm sorry that I failed you as a father and forced you to be something that you weren't ready for. You deserve to have someone who's going to treat you like you matter every single day. Not just when it's convenient for them. I only hope eventually you and Olivia will give me a second chance. Whenever that is, I will be forever grateful for it."

Part of me had expected to feel the holes in my heart mend while I was here with him, but instead I only felt like every piece of myself had been thrown to the wind and I was scrambling to put it all together again. I had known that hurt for so long that it had become part of my identity.

Why does this feel like letting a piece of myself go?

But the only way to fully move on from this and allow myself the grace to move forward without his presence looming in my life was to relinquish the hold he had on me forever. The work he'd done to improve his life was evident simply in the tidiness of his home, the lack of alcohol bottles on top of the kitchen cabinets that I could see in the back of his apartment, and his genuine desire to start fresh with me.

I must have taken too long to fill the silence because my father eventually filled it for me. "I've followed your career," he told me. "You should be proud of what you've accomplished, and I take no credit for that. You did all of that on your own. I know you'll find someone who celebrates all those qualities in you because you were never one to settle. If you wanted something, you always found a way to get it."

Too many feelings were swirling around inside of me as I sat there and let them run rampant. I stood suddenly and my father followed suit. I was overwhelmed and his home felt suffocating. I desperately wanted to leave, but there was a piece of my mind willing me to stay and see this through.

"I need you to know how proud I am of you, Charlotte. How sorry I am for how I treated you. I'm sorry I didn't love you the way I should have, but I'm hoping I can make up for it."

"I hope you realize how difficult coming here today was for me and while I'm not sure I'm ready to move on as if nothing happened, I do see how much you've tried to work on yourself." I scanned the pictures on his walls of me and Olivia when we were younger. They were framed and hung to be displayed proudly. "Maybe the first place to start is if you could call me Lottie. I've never really liked Charlotte. It always makes me feel like I'm getting in trouble."

My father's eyes widened at my small peace offering. I was insinuating that there would be another time where he could call me by Lottie and that we'd see each other again. "I can do that, Lottie."

I gave him a short nod before I slowly started walking toward the door. But just before my hand landed on the doorknob, I noticed a framed photo on the wall next to the door. It was a picture of me and Nolan this season, celebrating a win after he'd come back from his injury. It felt wrong that he had a picture of the two of us in his house. He was the man who broke my heart and Nolan was the one that loved me despite my brokenness.

"I know you were working mostly with Nolan Hill this season. I've been trying to keep up on the team, if only to stay up to date on you." My father looked at me sheepishly. "I gave up watching football after everything that happened. The program told me to treat it like an addiction. I only follow along in articles the day after the games."

"Thank you for letting me stop by," I told him. I hesitated once more. "I am happy for you and what you've done with your life."

"Of course," he hurried to reply. "That means a lot, by the way, to hear you say that you can see that I'm making an effort to change."

I took one last look at the picture on the wall before I walked out of my father's house with a new realization. He was right. If I wanted something, I'd find a way to get it. Because the man who broke my heart was never going to be the one to heal it in the first place.

That was all up to me.