I was four years old when I moved to Kentucky for good. I can't even remember saying goodbye to you.
Mom told me I once told doctors that you taught me to put things between my legs, and made a sex joke about me, even though I was four and your child. Is that why I'm so scared of intimacy now? Why I internally cringe when someone even brushes against me? I can't remember.
For years, we only had Facebook messages. Then, eventually, you moved to Kentucky.
Did you come to see me? No. Every single time we saw each other during the eleven months you lived here, I had to be brought to you. I had to make the effort. I had to visit you.
Then you disappeared back to Florida without even a whisper of goodbye.
I was thirteen.
You came back again in 2018 with Grandma. I was seventeen by then. I'd already had my first kiss, my first school dance, my first girlfriend. You missed all of it.
You talked to her online, sure. But then again, that's how you talked to me most of the time, too.
You stayed for a week, maybe. I had school—my sophomore year, because I'd been held back in sixth grade. You weren't there for that, either. I spent time with you after school whenever I could, and then you were gone again before I could get used to having you around.
I was eighteen when Grandma died.
You told me the only thing keeping you going now was me.
No pressure, huh? Being the sole reason a forty-year-old man I barely knew was still alive?
But then, why didn't I see you again for another six years? During that time, I dated someone just as inconsistent as you, who made me feel like I had to earn their love then cheated on me. You weren't there for that either.
By then, you were sick. You knew you didn't have much time left. Doctors gave you a few years left.
I was twenty-three when you moved to Kentucky for good.
By then, I had my own place. You stayed with me for a while, then with Mom and Dad. Even then, I hardly saw you.
Sometimes I wonder if it hurt when I called him Dad instead of you. Or if it hurt that, by the time you came back, I wasn't the little girl you'd left behind.
I feel guilty that I never called you Dad.
But why would I have?
You weren't one.
I was supposed to be the reason you kept going, yet you were so depressed that you stopped taking your heart medicine because you felt alone.
Am I the reason you're dead? Why was I not a good enough reason to stay?
You were never around for more than a year. And every time you stayed long enough for me to start getting used to you, you left without saying goodbye. I didn't get to say goodbye this time either.
I suppose this is the goodbye.