"Are you going to come back?" I whispered softly to my dad. He looked back at me with warm, black eyes, smoldering with truth, "Of course I will." he lied. I smiled at him and he smiled back and with that final, human expression, he exited the car. I watched as his back turned to me and he walked to the bus station. I turned as far as I could around to watch him as my mother put the car in gear and slowly pulled out onto the street. He didn't turn around to wave goodbye. No matter how much I fixated my eyes to his back, bored into him with all my might, he didn't turn around. Not a final wave or salute of his departure, just his back towards me.

I continued to watch him go as we drove away, his back still towards me, his lies echoing in mindlessly to me. I knew it was a lie, from the moment it danced off his lips and into my ears. I could sense it. My father was my everything and I dared to want to believe him. To believe his words that he would indeed be back. Calling me the next day to tell me if I was watching Shark Week or Charmed on the WB. Like we had done for the past months since he had been home. I thought that this time it was real. That he was back like he was just a few short years before. But I knew that all that he had said to me before were lies. And I could feel the lies tingle over my body like warm wax off a candle. A smooth burn, a smoldering burn.

I finally turned around after the bus station was no longer in sight. My eyes and cheeks stung from the tears that streamed down silently. I bit into my lip, hoping to catch the sobs in my throat, not wanting my mother to know that I knew the truth. That he was no longer coming back to me. That he was indeed not strong enough to stay for me, to wait for me. That the past months that he was sober were nothing but the fillers until the temptation over took him. Making him leave me once more. And as much as I knew that I would see him again, some day, some where.

I would have been a fool to not think so, but I knew that this was our final good bye. That this was the end and no matter how many more times I would see him in my future, he would never be the same in my eyes. And with that was our final goodbye. A goodbye that could never be washed away with a new hello, a new greeting. It was definite. Final. And to my young dismay, my abandonment.