If You Were Here.

I woke up at the crack of noon with something dull throbbing in the center of my head. It wasn’t a horrible headache, just an inconvenience. Shafts of light pierced my eyelids, and I groaned as I slowly, slowly I opened them. My room was the same as I had left it. Posters of the Misfits and Braindead Constance covered the walls, along with a few paying homage to my dad’s old band, and…my mom’s.
I didn’t make any effort to get up; I couldn’t fall back asleep though. So I just lied there as everything from yesterday came back to me, the afternoon of when I got back and everything after that. Then my stomach dropped with the realization that an apology was needed. What I said last night really wasn’t okay, guilt poked his pointy little fingers at me. God…I really shouldn’t have said that, I am still mad about that afternoon, but for me to bring up the past? That is so irrelevant to how I really feel. He is my dad, and he does have a right to worry…especially when I was using alcohol to cope. Walking in on my dad though…who wouldn’t try to erase that picture.
That has always been a touchy subject for him, and it is for me as well, and I had totally gone against that. I rolled over and covered my face with my sheets; they were still black and had little unicorns all over them with X’s over their eyes. Totally my thing, and through all of my regret I found it in me to smile at the familiarity, and the fact that I didn’t remember bothering to put the sheets over me last night. Someone else did. He was still my father tucking in his “little princess” and he didn’t totally hate me.
But I was still mad.
~.~.~
My dad wasn’t in the dining room or the kitchen, but he left the coffee machine on. Coffee has such a nice smell, it was like sitting in front of a fireplace with a mug of hot chocolate that has mini marshmallows in it. Or maybe it’s the same thing as being a young kid being tucked into bed after a bedtime story. Actually, it’s all of that except the way it slowly wakes you up instead of the other way around. Of course…after five cups of it you kind of start to become caffeine-drunk; this is never a good thing.
I made myself a cup, and pondered if eating now would be considered breakfast or lunch…brunch? Considering there were no dishes in the sink, or any other evidence of any sort of breakfast this morning, my dad probably didn’t have any. That’s really not unusual of him; soon as I got old enough to make my own breakfast he’d often forget about it, he’d be downstairs in his studio working.
Although I could feel the coals from yesterday smoldering, I decided that today I might want to try to simmer down, and not let my temper to the front of my mind today; the best way to do that was making us breakfast.
I checked the cabinets to see if any breakfast materials were still present. Everything was where I remembered it, and the fact that there were still ingredients for pancakes gave me hope that he didn’t always forget breakfast. Pancakes were always calming. No one gets mad at pancakes. Hell, I took extra care adding a bit of lemon juice and vanilla extract. Just how he likes them, I made each of us one blueberry and one regular and drizzled maple syrup on top. I carried both plates carefully to the basement door, after a deep breath and a mental “Let’s try this again,” I opened the door with my elbow.
“Happy weekly pancake report!” I half-shouted at the top of the stairs, and I only received a distorted grumble that sounded like it could have meant “Morning.” I took it as an invitation to tiptoe my way downstairs. Dad was laying face first on a storyboard he was working on. This was his ‘I-have-been-up-all-night-doing-this-shit’ pose.
“Dad, how much did you sleep?” I inspected like a disapproving mother, while setting his plate of pancakes on a spot unoccupied by work.
“Four…maybe five hours,” he grumbled into his desk.
“Gross. Why couldn’t you sleep longer?!” I accused, disapproving of his sleeping habits.
“I have a lot of my mind,” he raked his fingers through his hair. A sudden needle of guilt poked me between the shoulder blades, I took a deep breath and rolled my shoulders as if I could roll the feeling away.
“Oh…” I settled down in the ‘observer’ chair next to him…that mom and I would use to work in or watch him. We were the artsy family. “Maybe pancakes will help; breakfast is the most important meal of the day.” I chirped, watching him sit up to look at his plate, and to slowly take a bite. Soon his crusty, sleep-deprived face relaxed and he tossed his head back and groaned in delight.
“Oh my God, these are great. You’re right this is exactly what I needed,” he gushed, “I haven’t had pancakes in forever. You’re my favourite daughter.” He shoveled in another bite hungrily with a newfound energy.
“I’m your only daughter,” I let out a heavy breath that could be a laugh, and he mumbled in agreement. I took a bite of my own pancake, which melted on my tongue, I am the best. “Take this as my ‘sorry’ for last night. I was out of line.” I said as best I could through a mouthful of pancakes. He nodded.
“It’s okay…just you know, please don’t make a habit of it.” He nodded, taking another bite of pancake, before giving me a meaningful glance, “but you will be completely forgiven if you refill my coffee.”
“Lazybutt,” I sighed, pretending to sound aggravated, but grateful for his forgiving nature…which is something you lack. He smiled approvingly as I took his mug and ran back upstairs. I figured he was going to want to talk though, even after casual apologies and forgiveness; and that’ll be easier over coffee. Prepping our coffees was just another way for me to attempt to check myself. A spoonful of sugar for each cup was the tact I was going to need for this, and I added enough creamer to the nearly black fluid until it turned a soft cocoa colour symbolized me smoothing my anger out into something that wasn’t just disgust. Soon I was back down and next to him, he took his mug gratefully.
“…So,” I started off after a deep breath, pulling the trigger to launch this conversation.
“I didn’t mean to have you find out that way,” he said rather bluntly. “I also wasn’t expecting you home until this afternoon,” he looked up at me over the rim of his mug, awaiting my turn. Cool. Calm. Collected.
“Yeah…I didn’t expect to be home yesterday either until yesterday when I just wanted to come home already. No pit stops,” I stated with equal directness. He just looked at me, deconstructing my lines in his head.
“Did something happen? You said you were going to stop for a night at your friend Liz’s house,” he inquired, trying to piece this all together. Of course he remembered…Liz had been my friend since the beginning of middle school and moved a couple towns over before junior year, and we had kept in touch and became roommates in college. She turned off course, I don’t know when, but she went pretty far.
“Yeah, she’s not my friend anymore,” I huffed nearly nonchalant. He tilted his head to the side, like: Whaaat, you guys might as well have been conjoined twins. I hissed out a breath…I was going to have to tell this quickly.
“Basically, throughout the whole year she started mixing with the wrong crowd, she tried to bring me along and after five minutes I decided I didn’t like them at all. She wouldn’t listen, she wanted to be cool, and so I left her alone. Of course I didn’t realize just how bad it was, and I was packing up and I just noticed how my bed felt different…I lifted one side of the sheets and all the sudden all these little bags full of this—pretty illegal looking stuff just avalanched from the side of the mattress. I’m not stupid! I called the cops and busted her before she could bust me. They did a bit of inspection, and decided I was free to go, so I booked it.” I finished my little story as fast as I could with my palms raised like I was surrendering. My dad’s jaw was set firmly.
“I’m glad you set her in her place, hopefully she comes around,” he gave me a resolute nod, and I hummed in agreement. We observed each other over our coffee, testing the waters, using coffee as a lifeline. Coffee was such a great conversation tool, if you wanted you could get someone to drink five mugs and they’d never stop talking. It’s like a truth serum for some (and I’d know). We stayed like that for a while, too long in my opinion, leaving me to find holes in my logic and invisible fingers pointed at me. I have every right to be pissed, I assured myself.
“I should’ve called, but can’t you see why I didn’t? I just needed to get out of there.” I almost pleaded. Why was I pleading? He nodded and swallowed.
“Yeah, a call would’ve been really nice, but under those circumstances…I can see why. I was actually looking forward to catching up with each other once you got here,” he sounded almost bummed.
“Daaad,” I whined, “I come home on holidays and I call nearly once a week!” I tossed my still crazy bed-head back, mockingly exasperated, but grateful for the relief of tension. He chuckled, only lightly though, before he suddenly decided to become serious.
“I’m still not used to you being away from here, I feel like I’m missing things, I mean I lived with you for 19 years, that’s one more year than parents usually have their children under their roof, but it still felt so short…and you were going off to become more of your own person by yourself! Who knows what I could’ve missed…” he trailed off into a silent emotion of his. This was going to be a song now, I just had a feeling. Suddenly, there came more unwelcome emotions. Something tugging me on the inside like a nostalgia, but not quite. It was the same thing I felt when I left for college, except this was that feeling slightly matured.
“Stop it, you’re making me feel all these gushy emotions,” I wiped at my eyes, which were tearing up a bit. He gave a soft crooked smile.
“What’s so wrong with emotions?” He asked softly, I snorted.
“First, it ain’t punk. Second, they fuck you up, and finally, I am mad at you and this emotion that’s—,” I felt a tear slip halfway down my cheek before I caught it. Shit. I continued, “Raining from my eyes isn’t because of anger, it’s all mushy-gushy inside, and I don’t like that.” I looked up at him, and surprised myself to see him looking sad, in a far off way, like he was piecing together a very depressing puzzle.
“Bandit…you’re wrong.” That shocked me. He never told me my feelings were wrong. In fact he and mom had both told me that feelings were NEVER wrong.
“Excuse me!?” I nearly slammed down my coffee causing the liquid to slosh onto the desk a little bit…staining a corner of a drawing of his. His face twitched, before jumping up to save his art.
“Bandit, be careful!” He moved a pile of papers to safety, “and it’s probably not something I should discuss in full detail right now, but first, punk is all emotion, and emotions are good, and you shouldn’t block yourself to them, but that’s a very important conversation for another day. Why are you mad at me?” He went back to his thinking space, eyes unfocused toward a wall but you could see that something was working inside his mind.
“Seriously?!” Like he didn’t know why I could possibly be mad. He only gave an abstract nod, and I knew him well enough to know that he was listening. This was a sudden turn from sappy parent-child-college-blues, this was throwing the beef out there and watching the dogs circle it. We already circled it last night, today was for pouncing. So I let it rip, forgoing any rational thought I had this morning. “It could have something to do with the way I walk in on you and a guy, like, maybe another woman would’ve been one thing, but this? It’s totally unexpected! You never told me about anyone in the first place, like how long this has been going on?!” I exclaimed, splaying my fingers everywhere like I was putting out the blueprint before him. I was ready. He stared down into his half empty mug.
“I thought it’d be best to tell you in person, and well, this man and I have been together for six months now, and I didn’t want to tell you about him yet because I wanted to wait until…it felt right.” He picked at a chip in the mug. What!?
“…’until it felt right’? So until you felt gay enough?” I scoffed, and his fingers suddenly clamped down upon the mug. “Dad when have you ever been gay!?” I nearly shouted at him. He set his coffee down, and pressed his mouth in a tight line, and then he spoke, shooting words like they were blow darts.
“Until I felt it was serious enough, Bandit! You know how I feel about this, I don’t take relationships lightly!” He almost snapped at me, and he rolled his eyes up to glare at the ceiling and took another sharp intake of breath, like he was a bull gearing himself up to take another charge at the torero in a bullfight. “And Bandit, it doesn’t matter whether I’m gay or straight, I love the man, from his heart to his soul, and you are the last person who I would have ever thought to even care about sexuality. I didn’t raise you like that!” He whipped his words at me, we were both losing it. I jumped to my feet, I am not an asshole.
“I’m not a fucking homophobe, dad! Half my friends are varying kinds of queer and some get around town by riding unicorns that shit rainbows as they fly into the sunset! I think it’s pretty cool! I love rainbows! But what about mom, dad! I thought you loved her! And now you’re running off with some guy that you expect to take her place!? He’s not mom! He’s never gonna’ be mom, you’re forgetting her!” My voice rose and I felt my arms flail, and suddenly a mug was hurled at the floor, and dad was towering over me with utter rage sparking in his eyes. Shit.
“Bandit.” He was struggling to keep his voice even, he clenched and unclenched his hands and I fell silent. All my fight had just abandoned me and left me dizzy, so I was just wobbling around in one spot staring at him with wide eyes. Would he hit me? I thought about it. I knew it was a stupid thought. My dad wasn’t violent, but I had never seen him fling a mug of coffee across the room before. Suddenly I was scared, the way he ground his jaw, and the way he stood over me tall with burning eyes. The air between us was worse than last night, it didn’t stand still, it was gone.
“Please just get out of my studio,” the politeness was formidable. I didn’t waste time slipping around him and tripping up the stairs several times, and when I shut the door behind me I heard him collapse into his chair and another sound that sounded something like a man was breaking.
Shit.

Notes

Sorry it took a while to update, it was part laziness and writers block and I felt the chapter flowed wrong. I'm still not sure if it's okay but I didn't hate it. Sorry if it's shitty.
Thank you for reading, and subscribing you're all beautiful...you all deserve coffee (if that's what you like) --->