Spinning at the Seams

The week was a blissful blur for me. Adam walked me to nearly every class much to the disgust of Marc, who had never walked his girlfriends anywhere other then the football fields. Marc was very good at making chivalry look dead. Hunter had agreed to go to the game with me, just for appearances. He wasn’t quite thrilled about going, as he said sports really weren’t his thing. He would go though, mostly to see the band, apparently their previous performance had given him some sort of inspiration for a story he was writing for his creative writing class.
I pulled into the stadium early, Adam had wanted me to wish him luck and I was all too happy to oblige. Besides next Friday we were on Thanksgiving break, and he wasn’t going to be in town.

“What do you mean your going out of town?” I had asked him Wednesday pouting as he told me. I had wanted him to have dinner of some sort with my family, minus mom of course. She had signed up to work double shifts, she was getting paid extra, money she said would go towards buying us extra Christmas gifts. Gifts she wouldn’t see us open, but gifts we would receive nonetheless.

Adam laughed as he kissed the pout away, “I’m sorry but my parents want to go visit my grandparents in Texas for Thanksgiving, we’re not getting back till Monday, so take good notes for me in Chem.” I had rolled my eyes, even without my notes he would pass. I was snapped from my happy memories by a hand waving in my face.

“Hello, earth to Toni! Are you listening to me? I’ve been trying to get your attention and all you’ve been doing is standing there with a silly grin on your face.” I jumped slightly at the sound of Sophie’s voice. She was standing in front of me, the hand that had been waving in my face now sat on her hip giving her a fierce look, Tyra would be proud.

“Sorry, I was just thinking.” She rolled her eyes.

“Of course you were, I could tell, be glad I’m not Tristan, he would be having a field day with this.” She said shaking her head. I just laughed.

“I’m glad your not Tristan for a lot of reasons, Soph, mostly because I think the world can only handle one Tristan.” Sophie laughed and nodded her head, agreeing with my assessment.

“So what had you wanted to talk about?” Sophie sighed and made a face.

“It’s Luke, he’s driving me crazy! He won’t make a commitment; all I want is for him to say that I’m his girlfriend, that’s it. But he refuses and I’m getting tired.” I frowned, this wasn’t the Luke I thought I knew, the Luke I knew would have jumped at the chance to declare Sophie his girlfriend, not walk around it. I sighed, this was not my area of expertise.

“I don’t know what to tell you, Adam hasn’t made it official either of that helps. I would talk to Hunter, he writes the advice column for a reason.”

She shrugged, “I guess, I just find it odd to talk to a guy about a guy problem.” I laughed.

“Hunter is not your normal guy.” Sophie nodded, then walked away, probably to find Hunter. I walked in the opposite direction towards the locker room.

Adam was standing outside as I approached, he had his cell phone to his ear, and I only heard the conversation, as I got closer.

“Yeah, I’ll be there.” He paused and looked annoyed. “No, I don’t know if I’ll be able to.” His face softened as the person on the other end spoke. I moved to the side, he hadn’t seen me yet, and this conversation sounded important. “I’ll try okay, but I can’t promise anything.” In my focus on his conversation I didn’t see where I was going until I bumped into a trash can, knocking it over and causing a loud crash. Adam looked up suddenly, and ended his conversation quickly, which must have made the person on the other end angry, because he snapped the phone shut quickly after.

“Hey I was starting to worry you weren’t coming.” I blushed as he walked closer inspecting the trash can as he went. “This sport must be in your genes, have you considered trying out, because with what you can do to a trash can accidentally imagine what you could do to a linebacker.” He stopped in front of me and pulled me closer, wrapping his arms around my waist.

“Um probably nothing, seeing that I’m 5’3 and can barely take a poodle out. I really don’t think I could knock the wind out of a 6’2 linebacker.” Adam grinned as he leaned down.

“And yet you knock the breath out of me every time you walk by.” He kissed me at that, and I felt my world fall out from under me, he then pulled away and gave me a wink before heading to the locker room.

We lost the game, but not by as much. I wrote the article and Hunter, said he would type it later while I was on my date. He was sitting next to me in silence, looking around bored. He’d ask a question here and there but otherwise was quiet. He seemed deep in thought and I’d leaned a long time ago not to disrupt a thinking Hunter.

After the game I left with Adam for our date. He took me to a movie, letting me pick. I chose the Twilight movie, only because Hunter told me I had to see it, and had threatened to kidnap me if I didn’t. It was okay, but I liked the Edward character, he reminded me a lot of Adam.

That Saturday the paper was canceled giving me a chance to sleep in, or so I hoped. Di knocking on my door had destroyed any plans I had of sleeping late.

“Hey Toni,” she sounded nervous, I groaned and turned to my alarm clock, it was 9 A.M. I had been up till 2 A.M. last night talking to Mallory about the Twilight movie, and talking to Hunter about “my” truth article. That talk had turned into three hours of Hunter telling me to read some book he had just finished reading about gypsy sisters, and giving me reasons why I needed to read it. It had also turned into four hours of Mallory going on about Rob Pattinson.

“What?” I asked turning to look at her body in my door, she looked very uneasy.

“Um, what do you remember about when Dad left?” I was shocked, we rarely talked about Dad, and if we did it was all about how wrong it was that he left us.

“Only that I came home from school one day to find the door open and all of dad’s stuff gone.” I had also found Mom sobbing in her room, but no one knew that except me and Marc, who had come home after I called him, he had been annoyed that he had to leave soccer practice early. He had helped me calm mom down, but we agreed to never talk about it again, afraid it would scare Di and Olivia. We especially didn’t talk about how I found Julia in her room screaming, and sitting in a dirty diaper. Di nodded and kept up with her questions.

“Do you know why dad left?” I sighed, I didn’t think we would have this conversation yet, she knew the basics everyone in the family besides Julia knew, but I knew she wanted an answer.

“He left because his secretary got pregnant with his kid, and he left because he finally had a reason to leave. Mom and Dad had been fighting for a while before he left. This just gave him an out, and he took it.” She had flinched at the mention of the secretary and at the mention of him wanting an out.

“Did he ever try to contact you after?” She didn’t look at me as she said this, but rather at a photo that was partially covered up on my wall.

It was a picture taken when Marc and I were three, Mom had been a few months pregnant with the twins. We were sitting on my dad’s lap, he was reading the newspaper, and my brother and I were pointing things out. I was pointing out the headline, and Marc was pointing to some person playing football. My dad wasn’t looking at the camera. Instead he was looking toward the door behind him, an anxious expression on his face. It defined our relationship, so I had kept it.

“Yes, but I never responded. He sent a letter to me and Marc a few months after he left, but I tore it up before anyone saw it, I never even opened it. Marc knew about the letter but he didn’t care, neither of us wanted anything to do with him.” She looked sad at that.

“Didn’t you ever want to know why he left?” I flinched, I didn’t want to talk about that, but I knew she wouldn’t leave without an answer.

“No, all I knew was that he left me to pick up the pieces that shouldn’t have fallen. He left me to take care of everything and forced me to grow up before I was ready. I don’t remember really having a childhood, it was spent raising you, Olivia, and Julia. He left me when Marc and I needed him the most. He ran away, and no explanation of why he left would ever change that or make it okay.” She nodded and then left, muttering something about needing to get ready, she looked ready to cry. I tried to go back to sleep but couldn’t, all I could think about was why he left. I didn’t know that I was about to hear the explanation from the man who walked out on me himself.