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When you’re very young, everything seems so much bigger than you. So big, you could get lost.
That was the realization that slowly crept over the lone little girl in the middle of the clothing store. At the tender age of four, she had begun experiencing the primal fear of abandonment as towering adults walked past her, all of them faceless.
Even if they had eyes, she believed they were too tall to even notice a small girl like her.
Words failed the child. Uncertainty stole the very idea of what she could possibly say in that moment. The unfamiliarity of her surroundings did not help. She’d been to the clothing store before but only because her parents couldn’t leave her alone at home. She never shopped the packed rounders bursting with brightly colored clothes herself, didn’t know the layout of the store or even what the employees looked like.
The adults passing her by were nothing like her parents. Nothing like any adult she knew, not that she knew many to begin with. They were aliens. They were above concerning themselves with a silly little girl who couldn’t keep her parents together.
Where are my parents?
That singular spark of thought set off an inferno of emotions that raged hot behind the little girl’s eyes. Tears had already started to spill before she even realized they were there, welling in her eyes and making the unfamiliar area harder to see.
Is Daddy gone?
She had to be wrong. Her daddy was supposed to be right there by her side, holding her hand in his, keeping her close and safe. She looked at her hands as if needing to confirm they held nothing.
What had her dad been wearing that day? Blue jeans? Shorts? What about his shirt? Was it a tee shirt? Was it an open shirt or did he button it up? Was he clean shaved or not?
Could she hear him calling for her? Would she even recognize the sound of his voice if he called her name?
She only heard pieces of conversations from mouth-less heads, none of which had anything to do with her. She couldn’t even make out who was speaking and when. People walked past her, paying her no heed, not the least bit interested in a sniffling little snot-nosed kid who couldn’t even remember what her daddy looked like.
There was no other choice but to cry.
She shut her eyes tight and let out a single, helpless yell. Her empty hands clenched in tight trembling little fists at her sides. Her bladder emptied into her pants and socks, pooling in her shoes. Her face became wet in seconds as her yell reached every corner of the clothing store.
Not a single adult took notice. No one so much as slowed their walk to acknowledge the scared and lost little girl, even as she finally found her voice.
“Where are you, daddy?! I want to go with you! I-I-I want to go with my daddy!!”
So loud had the little girl’s yell been that it grew into an ear-piercing whistle, piercing the conversations of strangers around her and the walls of the nightmare she had been trapped in.
Libby Stein woke suddenly, but she didn’t dare move. The nightmare had already been turned into a foggy memory, like all her nightmares did after she woke up. Still, she was instantly aware that her eyelashes felt wet. Her neck was stiff from the way she had leaned against the window by her seat, watching the scenery zoom past her. The train whistled again, slowing to a stop at a station with a name she couldn’t make out until she rubbed sleep tears from her eyes.
It wasn’t her stop.
Moving into a proper sitting position, Libby was glad she had gone without the mascara. Wiping away tears with that on… well, it might have looked good actually, if she wasn’t going to something important.
Her appearance could have passed for something closer to society’s standards of normal than she would normally care about. No goth make up, not even black lipstick. Her nails were clear too, instead of painted their usual dull black. Her clothing was, acceptable. Not her usual heavy attire, she was showing skin today. She looked more like a lady, a normal girl. A good daughter, even. The spaghetti strap black summer dress left her arms exposed, which felt weird to her since she normally would wear sleeves. On the dress were bright yellow sunflowers. Sunflowers were girly, but they also meant loyalty and steadfast love, just the way a good daughter should be.
Leah wouldn’t call her a good daughter at the moment, but fuck what Leah thought.
Libby leaned back in her seat and crossed her legs, sheathed in black leggings. Her polished black boots shone from the sunlight.
The nightmare was already forgotten. It wouldn’t be long now until she was finally with her dad again.
The thought made her anxious, but only because she wasn’t used to feeling excited for something. The letter had come out of no where, but he had addressed it only to her, not Leah, because again, fuck Leah. He wanted only her, because Libby never stopped loving her dad like Leah had. It had been years, six to be exact, since Libby had last seen her dad, or heard from him at all. Now that he was a famous published author, it only made sense he was ready to call her back to him, teach her what he had learned in those six years away from her, and start their new life together at last.
It was going to be the start of their story.
Above Libby, in a luggage compartment, was a surplus duffel bag full of only the essentials: clothes, toothbrush, her journal, phone charger, some cash, switchblade, tarot deck, and her makeup. In the pockets of her dress were the really important things: her phone, and his letter, which she pulled out to read again for the hundredth time.
Hey kiddo!
Happy barmitsvah!
I’m going to be at the Bunch of Books in Knottsworthy promoting my finished book! You should come by.
-Dad
P.S. A frog for your collection.
The stuffed frog had been left behind, sadly. No room in her duffel bag, and she personally hated amphibians, but her dad couldn’t be expected to know that. The point was he thought about her and what would make her happy. He never stopped caring.
Folding the letter back up, she pulled out her phone, which showed fourteen missed calls from one Leah Stein and one Discord message. Libby unlocked her phone and swiped away the missed calls before clicking on the message.
DGurlR34247: So you didn’t even say goodbye to her?
It wasn’t the first thing Libby expected to read from the rich nerd bitch. She didn’t need to hear Andrea Davenport’’s voice to know there was no real concern in her question, just a curiosity about other people’s business with an undertone of jealousy for getting something Andrea couldn’t get even if she spent all her money.
MetalMacrochelys: Who? Spooky McGee?
Libby finished her reply with a smirking face emoji as she imagined Molly McGee actually somehow sadder than she already was, if that was even possible.
DGurlR34247: Your milf, duh.
“Gross,” Libby sighed. The message was quickly edited before she could reply.
DGurlR34247: Your mom, duh.
It was a weak save at best. Andrea wasn’t fooling her.
MetalMacrochelys: So she could stop me? Fuck that and fuck her.
DGurlR34247: She’s tracking your phone, you know?
“Fuck me,” Libby wanted to destroy her phone right there and then, but she still needed it. At least until she could reach her dad and start their new life together. She could toss it then, buy a cheap burner phone or something. It was too bad she couldn’t have kept her last burner phone before leaving Brighton, but the minutes had been used up and she hadn’t been expecting a letter from her dad.
MetalMacrochelys: Gonna toss it when I get to him.
DGurlR34247: Save the SIM card. But, like, you know this isn’t going to work? Like, she has legal custody and all that.
Minor detail. Her mind had been made up the moment she finished reading her dad’s letter the first time. Nothing Nerdrea could say would get her to turn back now, not when she was only a few stops away from where she needed to be.
Libby didn’t bother to respond this time. Another stop was coming, and she pulled up a different app on her phone to see where she was. Just one more stop away. It was almost time.
MetalMacrochelys: Way to wish me luck.
DGurlR34247: Best of luck on your mission to get the daddy of your dreams! I’m cheering for you, bestie! <3
That was a load of shit. Libby considered calling Andrea out on that, but decided against it. Her attention needed to be somewhere else now.
“Now approaching Knottsworthy’s station.”
Libby’s heart raced as she stood up. The train was already coming to a stop, people moving into position to get off. Single people, Libby noted. It hadn’t been a crowded train, but then how many people crossed state lines on trains anyway?
No one took notice of the lone minor with the huge duffel bag on her back and a look on her face of mild annoyance. Libby’s resting bitch face was effortless, her eyes looking straight ahead as she stepped off the train and into a small crowd of people. She saw only bodies, no faces. None of them mattered, none of them were worth looking at. Libby Stein had eyes only for one person, and he was just a twenty minute Uber ride away.
Libby’s destination was a sad half attempt at a community park, across from the second hand bookstore where her father’s signing had taken place. Barely a block in size, with a swing seat using rusty chains and a metal slide baking under direct sunlight. A few ugly wooden benches completed the appearance of a park, but what mattered most to Libby was the lone man sitting on one of those benches.
She didn’t go to him right away, and he didn’t notice her. His attention was on his phone, no doubt checking out something important from the way his eyes didn’t move from the screen. Libby couldn’t recall what her dad looked like last time she had seen him all those years ago. Her asshole mother didn’t keep pictures of the three of them together. She had nearly forgotten his face.
The stubble must have been new. Libby couldn’t remember ever feeling stubble when her dad would give her a kiss. She was pretty sure she didn’t remember the stubble.
He… certainly looked like he skipped leg day. Even while sitting down, she could tell her dad was a big man from the waist up. Maybe he liked to work out his body as much as his brain? Libby smirked, betting Andrea would love to know this detail about her dad.
Maybe she would send her a picture later. It was the least Libby could do for the only friend she had ever made back in Brighton, and it wasn’t like she was going to see that town or Andrea again after today.
Maybe not her only friend, Molly counted too, sorta. When she wasn’t being a weirdo.
With her heart racing in her chest, she readjusted the strap of her duffel bag and approached the man she had wanted to see so badly for nearly half the time she had been alive.
He never looked up from his phone as she got closer, with some nervousness, Libby knew she was going to have to be the one to make the first move. Setting the bag down, Libby found her voice and said the words she had been waiting to say for six years.
“H-Hi, Dad.”
The trepidation in her voice surprised her, but it got the man’s attention.
What happened next would stay with Libby Stein for the rest of her natural life. It would be the go-to feeling for whenever she asked herself what happiness felt like.
Libby watched as Matias Torres’s eyes lit up at the sight of his thirteen-year-old daughter. In the next moment he had stood up, arms open, ready to embrace her like she had wanted for years. Her feet moved on their own, and in the next moment she was being held, spun around happily in strong, protective arms, smelling a musky cologne that just screamed “this man is a dad”. Matias said words but Libby didn’t hear anything. She was too busy soaking up the moment into her soul, to hold it forever as a moment of triumph.
She and her dad were together again. Libby had her family back. She would be Libby Stein-Torres now, daughter of a famous writer and best giver of hugs in the world.
Holy shit, she was finally going to be happy.
When Matias finally set Libby down, he kept his hands on her bare shoulders as she appraised her.
“Wow kiddo, you were a little thing last I saw you. Look at you now, you’re practically a young woman.”
Libby drank in the praise from her father like the gods drank ambrosia. Her smile actually felt like it was hurting her face.
“Yeah, well, I have been barmitsvahed.”
Libby chuckled, realizing how stupid that sounded, and hoped her dad wouldn’t notice.
“C-congrulations on finishing your book!”
Congrulations? I can’t even fucking speak anymore?! Libby screamed in her mind and her left eyelid twitching in the way it did whenever she got extremely frustrated.
If Matias had noticed, he was kind enough to pretend he hadn’t.
“Thanks! I saved a signed copy for my favorite gal.”
Matias presented Libby with a hardback copy of the book that had taken him away from her for years. She almost hesitated in taking it. Her somewhat painful smile nearly faltered at the sight of it. Still, she took the book, glanced at the front cover and realized it was something she herself would never have noticed if she had been browsing the shelfs for a book to read. She actually had no idea what kind of author her dad was now.
Libby opened the book to the first page, where her father had written his message to her: “Keep reading. Keep Dreaming.”
What?
It was, certainly a choice. Libby tried to decipher some hidden code or meaning in the message. She did like to read, it was a hobby for her. Dreaming… well, her dad couldn’t be expected to know that Libby more often than not had nightmares whenever she dreamed.
“Uh, thanks,” Libby kept her smile up and closed the book. “So now that you’re finally done with your book, we can start spending some real time together. I know you’re going to have to travel a lot to promote the book and all, so I made sure to pack light.”
“Pack? For what?” Matias asked.
“For…? Uh, you know, for traveling together.”
“Aren’t you still in school?”
“Yeah?”
“Libby, you can’t miss school. I didn’t ask you to travel with me. In fact, there’s no way you could. The publisher is super excited about the book, we are thinking it’s going to be a trilogy! So I’m going to be busy for a while…”
Libby was still trying to process what school was and why it mattered, before realizing what her dad was getting at.
“I mean, I’m going to have to develop a new direction to take the series, research new locations in Europe, workshop some new characters and that’s to say nothing of the updates and revisions I’ll have to make to my lore bible…”
Matias continued to pour on excuse after excuse, and as he spoke Libby felt her chest grow cold, then hot. Very hot. She could feel herself sweating, like a fire was raging in her chest, threatening to cook her from the inside out. She had no words for this feeling, but never got the chance to voice her thoughts before Matias was already standing up, phone in hand and up to his ear as he turned away from Libby.
No. Don’t leave me again.
“Yeah she’s here?” Matias spoke in the phone, turning back to the now pale face of his daughter, eying her discarded duffel bag, her face once more, and then turning his back on her. “No, I didn’t. How did you even get this number? It’s been years. What? No! Absolutely not. Maybe if you paid more attention to her your daughter you would have realized—“
Whatever else Matias had to say, Libby couldn’t remember. She would insist she didn’t remember much of that day at all when looking back to it. That was how panic attacks worked; they build, they hit, and they steal time away from you. Like a case of fourth contact with extraterrestrial entities, one moment you’re being hugged by your dad, the next moment you’re in the passenger seat of your mom’s car, with no idea how you got there or what happened.
Libby felt cold and clammy, and her mouth was bone dry. Her legs felt rubbery, her boots too heavy. She looked around her mom’s beat up car as if seeing it for the first time. The seatbelt had already been strapped for her. Her mom herself was looking straight ahead, both hands on the steering wheel. It didn’t feel like they were moving.
Libby then noticed the key wasn’t in the ignition.
“Drink some water,” Leah told her.
Libby noticed the bottle of water in the cup holder of the car, already twisted open for her. She didn’t make a move to reach it.
Silence filled the car, before Leah took a breath and spoke again.
“You’re grounded.”
Leah spoke the words flatly. She had never yelled at Libby, never even raised her voice once, despite all the times Libby knew she had upset or disappointed her mother. In fact, it didn’t even look to Libby like Leah was all that mad at her. This wasn’t like the time Leah had caught Libby smoking, or when she skipped school for three days straight.
“… that’s it?” Libby asked dryly.
Leah frowned. Libby could see a range of emotions swirling in her mother’s head. Questions she likely demanded to have answered, accusations about what a horrible daughter she was and what a struggle it was to raise her all alone and keep a roof over their heads and clothes on their backs. Maybe even a few I told you so about how bad of a father Maitas was how stupid Libby was to think they had any kind of future together or that the son of bitch even wanted her at all why would he want an ugly goth moody little trouble maker lik—
“You’ve been punished enough already,” Leah spoke softly, almost in a defeated tone, interrupting Libby’s thoughts. She sounded as if she was the one in pain. Like she had had her heart torn out and stepped on. Like it had been her hopes and dreams for the future that just went up in smoke.
It was at that moment, as Leah squeezed her hands tight around the steering wheel, that Libby noticed the white mark around Leah’s finger, where a wedding band used to be.
Leah wasn’t wrong, Libby decided, before taking the room temperature water bottle.
So much for chasing miracles, Libby decided.