Mafia Guard Loves the Daughter

6

6

Paradox of a Teenager

Ehryl

I couldn’t sleep, either from guilt or shame, it didn't seem to matter, it kept me awake all the same. I stared at the ceiling. My usual wandering mind seemed stuck inside the four walls of my room. A dork like me don't linger about emotions, or rather my own emotions long, but I haven't kept a secret this big before, nor this important. Someday she’ll figure out what I’ve done, and it'll hurt her as much as it did me. She’s going to feel so betrayed and heartbroken. I can already imagine her face once she discovers what I’ve done.

Her face and the words she would say kept me up, and they still rang through my ears in the morning. I went to school early and on foot. So early that I left a letter on the breakfast table, which I do from time to time, whenever I felt like catching a glimpse of the planet in the early mornings, or I wanted to go to school early for the Astronomy club, or some other club.

No one would suspect anything.

School was a two-hour walk from the house, but it didn’t feel like two hours. It felt like a week as I tortured myself and barely cared how my feet started to ache from all the walking.

I need to exercise, I wryly thought.

It was windy enough that any sweat I shed was already gone by the time I turned on the next block. I reminded myself that she'd understand someday. I didn’t want to be burdened with debt and the possibility of being too far from her. I don’t want to leave this small town. I like the people around me, even though some of those people don’t.

Dani was already waiting for me by our lockers. She was reading through War and Peace on one arm and noticed me when she smelled my perfume.

“You smell… more than usual” She smirked teasingly.

“Yeah, well, I thought building muscle would be nice.”

“Honey, I think it's too late for you to build muscle and a possible sports career.”

I smirked. “God, we’re such unathletic people that we call a sports career a sports career”.

She laughed, and the thing about Dani is that she has the most infectious laugh ever. I can’t help but laugh along with her. “So… you know it's our last true year as teenagers, right?”

I opened my locker but eyed her suspiciously. I already knew where this was going, but I went along with it. “Yes…” I trailed.

“There’s a party for us to go to later.”

I made a face.

“Please! Come on. We never really hang out at parties, and I get tired of going with strangers when I have an awesome and pretty best friend who has been on edge lately. Don’t think that I haven’t noticed.”

I blinked.

She’s right. I have never really truly gone out to parties before. I did drop her off at parties or pick her up just to be an alibi. She always tried to convince me to go with her, but I always used the excuse that at least one of us needed to go home without the smell of alcohol or being drunk.

What does it really mean to party like a teenager? All my life, I ducked my head down and studied. My mom always told me to live like a kid from time to time. She even encouraged my hooky yesterday. A drink does sound nice to calm my nerves.

“Okay”

Dani took a step back. Then, with a face filled with shock, she screamed. “What?!”

Everyone looked at us, and I suddenly felt daggers stabbing under my skin, conscious of the attention directed at us. My face burned. “Shush!” I covered her mouth with my hands. “What the hell Dani!?”

A few snickered at us.

“mfff mhh mmm” She pried my hands off her face. “I’m sorry! It’s just that… I didn’t think you’d say… yes” She whispered the last part as if it was a conspiracy between us. “Are you serious?”

I sighed. “I’m serious. It’s the last time we’d ever be teenagers.”

In the next second, she beamed. Her excitement came out of her in squeals and small stomping, while she tackled me with a hug that would have made both of us crash to the floor if I didn't manage to keep my footing.

“This is going to be so great!” She squealed near my ear. Almost bursting my eardrums.

I patted her back. “We’re in public,” I whispered gently to her ear. My whole neck tingled with embarrassment, and even the tips of my ears felt like pinpricks of heat.

“This is going to be great, you little shy grump.”

I tried to share her excitement. But all I could think of was a way to get drunk enough not to remember the guilt. Who knows, maybe I lie better with alcohol.

Dany and I went back to her house.

It’s the usual smell of her front porch that permeates like a miasma. It wafted out like a specter, with a mind of its own. Waning and breathing around us as we went deeper. The stale scent of beer and a slight hint of vodka. Her father’s choices of drink. He never really got over his wife’s death, but he wasn’t a mean drunk. Alcohol often shows the part of you that you hid deep inside, and he was just a sad, sad man.

Dany was often at my house. Living under our roof since we were kids. She was the first kid, before Dieth, to come to our doorstep. She still loves her Dad. He still goes to work for her allowance and bills and mortgage and debts. But Dany knows she reminds him of the wife he lost, and she doesn’t want to hurt him in that way.

Unknowingly and unconsciously.

The two still interact. She helped him around the forest. He’s a ranger who often looks out for the environment, or if there are any lost hikers. Their bonding always consists of camping and hiking, where he often does not sleep. There were times I sneaked out on our camping trips, and he would just follow with a flask to make sure that I was safe, and we both stargazed.

He knew how hungry I was for the sky. Dany warned him about me years ago, and now, it has been a silent agreement between the two of us that Chris would let me sneak out of our campsite as long as I waved at him by the fire before scampering off with my telescope. Dany was often left snoring in our tent.

I realized early on that he was a good man.

Just broken and missed someone to literal death.

It was then that I realized that you could never love someone as much as you miss them.

He was already sprawled out in his work uniform on the living room couch. He lay in the dark, but Dany and I pulled a blanket over him. I took the bottle of beer he was holding and neatly put it aside, along with the others, in the trash. Dany went to the bathroom, took out a wet towel, and cleaned his face.

Our families were close. Why else would my mom allow me to camp with him and Dany out in the thousand-acre wilderness? Mom told me that she knew his wife and knew him before he met his wife. It’s also the only reason Dany feels comfortable leaving for college. My mom would look after him, and he would look after her.

I let out the stale air by opening the windows, throwing away the bottles of alcohol in the trash, and taking them out on the curb. Dany spruced up the place while I dragged the double-bagged plastic outside, and by the time I got back in, it was infinitely better, and her dad, Chris, was lying on his back, cleaner than before, and looked innocently sleeping even in his work clothes.

I tiptoed towards Dany’s room, where she was already rummaging through her closet.

“We need to wear different clothes.” She pointed at me and then to her own outfit. “This doesn’t really incite normal teenagers at a normal suburban party.”

I plopped down on her bed. “Then you should stop saying incite. Kids our age don’t say that.”

“urr, inspire?”

“Better”

Even a nerd like me knows that you should never come up to a party on time or early. The only option is to come late. Fashionably late. Too late, and you have missed the good booze or any sort of fun that mattered to Dany. She wanted to flirt with drunk enough guys who still had enough common sense to remember her name or face. She gets bored easily, but we both know everyone is just a prelude to the boy she really likes.

And he doesn’t like going to parties like that. He prefers actual adult parties. Clubs and pubs in town. Both of us felt safe to walk to the party, Dany lived in the suburbs, and the party she had been invited to was just a few blocks away from her house.

Plus, our parents would never think we’d be at a party.

Our lives were the perfect teenage paradox.