BOYD HARRIS. 30. MARPOLE. Fry Cook. Father. Brother.
Iâm hungry and hollow and just want something to call my own. I couldnât make you love me and Iâm tired of pulling teeth.
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Biography for the Mobile Reader Crew:
Summary: Single father with an 8 year old daughter. Soft, sad boy who was maybe destined for greater, but sacrificed everything for his family.
Trigger warnings: divorce, child abandonment
Arthur  and Pam Harris were high school sweethearts, but before you ask â this is not a love story. Pam wore a maternity gown to both her high school graduation and her wedding, and three months later, Boyd Harris came into the world screaming. Three more little ones would pop out over the decade that followed, but like I said, this is not a love story...
Boyd grew up knowing only the essentials. As the first-born, he never had to suffer through the indignity of hand-me-downs, and he always had a warm bed and food, but it was a simple life, devoid of frills. His father worked, and his mother looked after the kids while also making a bit of extra money doing laundry or cleaning houses on the side. Boyd was never so naive to believe his parents were madly in love, but he thought they were at least stable. It rocked him to the core when they got divorced when he was 10. He wouldn't discover his father had an affair until many years later; all Boyd knew at the time was that it only took a few short months for his dad to find someone else and begin a new family, abandoning the old one in the process.
Again, this is not a love story.
Boyd quickly stepped in to fill the position as the man of the household. He helped his mother take care of his siblings, and as soon as he was old enough, he picked up a job busing tables after school to help with the bills. He would have dropped out of school if that's what it took, but his mother refused. Boyd was too smart to waste his talents by not going to college. They would get by on what they had.
He decided to stay local for college, living at home and commuting to and from UBC. Even with a scholarship, he kept the same job and from the moment Lila first stepped through the front doors of the restaurant, he was hooked. He didn't have a lot of healthy examples of love in his  life, but boy if he didn't fall for her... After a little more than two years of dating, she got pregnant, and despite being terrified of fatherhood, it was an adventure he was ready to take with her. He was almost done with school, and then he could get a good job â and most  importantly, he knew he would never abandon his family like his father had.
But this isn't a love story. Despite preparing for parenthood together, it wasn't long after their daughter, Matilda, was born that Lila bolted. Boyd had been so focused on not being like his father, he failed to realize she had never made the same promise. Boyd was forced to quit school with just one semester left in order support his daughter, and moved in with his best friend in order to afford rent and childcare costs. He was able to use his restaurant experience to get a slightly-higher paying job as a cook at City Brew Pub.
His daughter, Mattie (or Tilly, or Tilda, or any other silly nickname he can come up with) is now 8 years old, and Boyd loves her more than life itself. It's not what he expected or ever planned for  himself, but fine...
Maybe it is a love story.












