I'm a Fighter and He's the Hottie

Chapter Four: After Thoughts

When I got back inside my lightless room, I immediately aimed for the bed. The springs squeaked in protest to my weight when I lied down. Somehow I managed to get my legs under the blanket, and then I spent the next few minutes looking up at the ceiling, thinking.

First a feeling of hollowness swept throughout my body as I thought about my “Mother” abandoned our fragile family when we were so young. That feeling soon washed away as I thought about how she could have visited us anytime during our lives. It wasn’t like we had some type of restraining order against her. But she chooses now to come back to us? My Mother waited twelve and a half years before she wanted to willingly contact us? Just the thought of seeing her now made my blood boil with rage.

Then there was a small prickling feeling of annoyance. For the most part, I tried to shove the thought away from my mainstream of thinking, but somehow it managed to slip in every now and then. I was annoyed for one reason. The stupid, idiotic, narcissistic Tristan was the cause of this emotion. Honestly, I could name a few more not so nice words to describe just how I felt him.

Seriously, what kind of person thinks they can just make someone magically fall in love with them?

Already nipping at the corners of my brain, a headache began to form. I rubbed my temples, as I sighed for about the hundredth time today. Hopefully, this headache wouldn’t be too bad. Instead of listening to protest of my pounding head and going to bed, I thought about my Dad and what we talked about twenty minutes early.

“Do you know why she wants to come now?” My Father inquired, his face looking thirty years older than normal.

“N-No, at least, not that I know of. Cristy didn’t seem like she really wanted to talk about it.” I shifted my weight from one foot to the other. “What I don’t understand is why does she want to see us now? After twelve and a half years?”

“Well,” a wry smile crossed my Dad’s face. ‘Your Mom’s always been like that. She was kind of a heavy procrastinator, so it would make sense that she wouldn’t give us a sign until the last second.” He laughed, but it was a humorous one, it was a forced and it sounded funny.

“Dad, if you’re not comfortable with seeing her, we could just tell her we don’t want to see her, you know?” I suggested, hoping that he would agree with me on this.

“No, I can’t do that, that would just be out right selfish. What if Cristy wants to see her? And besides, I can’t help but want to see her again.” Dad finished his sentence in a quiet voice.

“Dad!” I exclaimed, feeling my hands ball up from anger. “Why would you want to see her? After what she did to us? The truth is she left us. She left us like we were a piece of crap!”

I could feel my body shaking from rage, but I could also feel the tears brimming on the edge of my eyes. My Dad watched me from the couch, feeling helpless.

“Maddie, I know how it feels. Remember it happened to all of us, but I just want to know why she left us. Just knowing would make me feel better, even if it wasn’t a good reason. I just don’t want to live the rest of my life thinking that maybe somehow I could have done something better for her. I don’t want to think that I just...wasn’t good enough for her.” He sighed, bringing up a hand to his face.

I shut-up then. I couldn’t blame him for wanting to know the reasons. It wasn’t like I wasn’t curious to see how she was thinking when she left us. However, that feeling was overshadowed by the emotion of rage. I’d rather not see her at all then actually ask her for the reason why she left without a word to anybody.

Before I knew what was happening, tears streaked down my cheeks and dripped off my chin. My breathing went from deep breaths to ragged sobs. I couldn’t hold in the emotions anymore. It was like they had all piled on top of a switch, and that switch had just been turn on. All those years of never hearing a word being uttered from her voice, all those years of never feeling a warm embrace from the one who gave birth to me was erupting all at once.

I used my shaking hands to cover my face. I wasn’t supposed to be acting like this in front of my Dad. The strong one in this family was me. I’m the one that’s supposed to put on a strong face even during the worst times. I’m not the one who’s supposed to be crying.

This just wasn’t me.

My body crumpled in on itself, my knees touched the hard wooden floor. It didn’t take long before a pair of large arms enveloped me into its warmth. My Dad gave me a comforting hug, one that I hadn’t in the longest of times. He usually gave me this kind of hug to calm me down, but this one had the opposite reaction. I cried even harder.

I didn’t know when Dad started crying, but I could feel the soft shake of his shoulders and the feeling of something damp seep through the fabric of my clothing. Time seemed to slow down as we let out our emotions without words. What seemed like ten minutes to us may have only been half of that. When cries turned into hiccups, we pulled away from each other and wiped the remaining tears that we had.

“I guess I have no choice but to see her, but I’m only doing it to give my Dad and Cristy some back support.” I tried to joke, but it was blubbery sounding. I wasn’t even sure if he even understood what I said.

“Thanks Hun. I’ll definitely need you there tomorrow.”

“I’ll need you there too Dad.” I smiled through my now puffy face, giving him a hug.

"I’ll be there. But for now you need to get some shut-eye you have school tomorrow." Dad said, regaining his fatherly voice.

"Yeah, crying that much really takes a lot out of a person." I said rubbing my eyes and yawning.

"Yes it does. Now give me a hug." Dad said opening his arms wide.

I smiled and hugged him. "Love you Dad."

"Love you too Hun. I'll see you after school; I should be able to get off work early tomorrow." He said squeezing me slightly.

He finally let me go and we said goodnight. After watching my Dad walk into the kitchen, I began the trek upstairs into my room.

Here I was, thinking even though I was supposed to be sleeping. It made complete sense why my head was pounding like there was no tomorrow. I’m pretty sure I had enough surprises today to last me my entire lifetime or even more.

Out of nowhere, a picture of Tristan popped in my mind. I shook my head side to side quickly, despite my drum beating head, and willed the picture of him to go away. Every time I thought about him my blood ran hot. He’s such a jerk!

First of all, why the heck does he think he can make any girl he wants to toy with like him? Yeah, okay, maybe there are a lot of girls who thinks he’s all “hot” and “sexy”, but I know for a fact that I’m not even remotely similar to those girls. Any girl with a damn brain would know for sure that he is some egoistic jerk that has way too much confidence.

I could hear his voice clearly, almost as if he were next to me, repeating the one sentence that got on my nerves. “This is a challenge I accept, Madison Storms, I will make you fall in love with me whether you like it or not.”

I shook my head over and over again. This has got to be the crappiest day of my whole life! Being stupidly confessed to by a jerk and supposedly going to "fall" for him. And then to add icing to my poo cake my “Mother” is going to be coming here tomorrow to eat dinner with us for God knows why.

My life absolutely sucks.

I thought I’d never get any sleep with all the thinking I was doing, but eventually I felt my eyes begin to close involuntarily.

The last thing I remember was two words coming out of my mouth in a quiet whisper.

“Stupid Jerk.”

***

Morning

"Maddie! Wake up!! Come on this is the second day you've woken up late!"

"Ughh...Mmm Cristy is that you?" I muttered.

"Yes! Now wake up!" Cristy said shaking me.

"Okay, okay." I said sitting up slightly. "What time is it?"

"It's seven-forty!" Cristy exclaimed, getting off of my bed.

"Aww man! Not again! This is even worse than last time!" I sat up, realizing that we’d have less than thirty minutes to get to school.

"Ya think?" Cristy said before leaving my room.

This is was how my worst day ever began.