5 HEATHER: The Sign Heaven Sends

Eight years later...

"Where do you think you're going?"

Brand pulls my elbow when I'm about to grab for the door. I brush him off, turn around and glare up at him, showing him my anger. He backs off and raises his hands up in surrender before brushing his mouth with the back of his hand. That fucking sexy gesture just makes me scowl even more to hide my real emotions.

"Heather, I don't know what actually is going on in here, ok? Will you quit giving me cold shoulders and talk to me already."

"I am talking to you." I say in gritted teeth.

"That's not the way we talk." He says exasperatedly and blows a heavy sigh. "Sweetheart, look at me."

I don't. I turn around instead and pull the door open only to lunge forward when it closes back up again. I look up and see Brand has his hand over my head, pressing the door close to prevent me from going out. I turn again and look him in the eye.

"I'm of legal age, dad." I say coldly.

"I'm aware of that." Brand says, suddenly breathless as his eyes fall to my body that I only wrap with a tiny black dress.

"Then let me out. I'm meeting with my friends."

"Not after we talk what's going on with us." He insists which makes me really, really angry with him even more.

"I'll talk when I'm ready to talk about it. Not tonight." I tug his hand from the door so I can open it and go out of our house.

As I sit behind the wheels, my tears start falling down my cheeks. I stay there for a few minutes, pouring out my anger, frustrations and everything else. My body shakes as I wail without sound. I always cry without sound just as how I laugh in mute, too. But recently, I've been crying more than laughing. All because I'm hurting.

I graduated from high school last year and is ready to take on fine arts for college. I want to design houses so I thought I can proceed on taking up interior designing afterwards. But daddy Brand had an accident from his recent assignment and hurt his back pretty bad.

That's why I decided to take a gap year so I can take care of him. It's about time anyway to give back what he's done to me all these years. He's been very good to me. NCMEC tried to take me away from him but I cried and trashed so hard because I really want to stay with my new daddy.

They decided to have Brand keep me in his home so not to traumatize me even more. He's been assigned as my ward since then. I still carry my biological father's last name since Brand didn't legally adopt me. But he's done so much for me more than any father could ever do. And I'm very grateful for that.

However, during his third month at home for his physical therapy, someone came to our house and introduced herself as Nicole. She's his physical therapist. She dressed so little for a therapist, her long nails are painted in bloody red. Her touches with Brand are too familiar, too intimate to be called professional. She was too sweet and too nice, it's obvious she's flirting with him.

I can't stomach the woman. In fact, I can't take any woman posing between us. So I told him to let Nicole go because I can take care of him just fine. But Brand practically told me not to touch him because I'm not a therapist anyway and insisted he prefers Nicole for his fast recovery. He sounds really pissed that time and I get instantly upset. He's never raised his voice at me.

He needed another person more than he needs me. I know I'm not a therapist. Hell, what do I know about modalities and healing rotator cuff. But Brand could've just told me the truth right into my face. But no, he prefers to hide it. To lie to me. I only found out that he's been fucking Nicole under the pretense of their therapist-patient relationship.

It pains me that our relationship is very rocky right now. Maybe this is the sign heaven sends me to forget my feelings for the man I consider my dad. Heck, now that I'm an adult, I sometimes find it awkward to call Brand dad because he's just in his early thirties. And it only makes my feelings for him even more taboo.