Dreams

I woke up and stretched my arms out in front of me, my eyes still heavy with sleep. Someone shifted beside me and I instantly froze, vainly attempting to remember where I was and who that could possibly be.

Turning to my right, I see Conrad passed out beside me on his couch, one arm wrapped around my waist and other thrown over the arm rest. Unwillingly a smile tugs at my lips before I glance at the clock and nearly have a heart attack. It was six in the morning, and I was supposed to be home five and a half hours ago.

Standing up quickly, I grab my purse, barely even noticing some movie still playing on Conrad's TV, and run toward the front door of his apartment - yanking it open and running toward the elevator.

After jabbing my finger on the down arrow multiple times, impatiently waiting for the doors to ding open, I check my phone expecting to see five hundred messages from both mom and dad, reprimanding me on my disobedient behavior and grounding me for the rest of my life, but there weren't any.

Just as I shove my phone back into my bag, the elevator doors open and I get inside, pressing the "1" button. Only a few levels after I got on, though, the elevator stops and lets someone on. Distractedly, I look up and see my father getting on after saying goodbye to some blonde in a bathrobe.

I feel my jaw drop, probably somewhere around me knees, and watch his smile fade as he takes in my disheveled appearance and my eyebrows raising as high as possible. He practically jumps into the elevator and jabs his thumb on the button that closes the doors.

"What are -- who was -- Dad, what the hell?" I stutter, unable to form complete sentences. "Why are you cheating on...Do you even know..." Tears brim my eyes and I get as far away from him as possible, resting my hands on the bar that lined the inner perimeter of the little room.

Silence fell between us and cliched elevator music blaring from a speaker above us made the tiny room feel suffocating. I felt my stomach drop when dad ran a hand through his hair and looked at me with pleading eyes, and the pit in my stomach wasn't from the elevator moving downward, either.

"I could ask why you were here as well, but since I know that there was a party last night, I'm going to ask this instead: did you use protection?" Dad refuses to look at me, instead studying his reflection in the stainless copper doors.

"Excuse me?" I hiss, "You think I got drunk and hooked up with some guy?"

"Well what am I supposed to think when I see you in some apartment complex elevator after there was some party last night?" He scolds.

"No," I growl, "You are not going to lecture me when your fucking someone behind mom's back."

My father turns toward me quickly, grabbing my wrists harshly, "Do not talk to me like that, young lady. What I do is my business and you are still my daughter, do you understand? Do not go off swearing at me when you're just barely a legal adult yourself."

"I'm sorry if I'm getting mad about my parents' marriage falling apart!" I rip my wrists from my father's grip, "And just so you know, I was with my boyfriend last night, alright? Nothing happened: we watched movies and fell asleep on his couch. But why would you care, you cheating son of a --."

The elevator doors opened to the lobby then and I didn't finish my sentence, not wanting the entire lower floor to hear how I was going to insult my father. I hike my bag higher on my shoulder and quickly make my way toward the front door, pushing it open and sprinting toward my car before dad had time to find me.

But he did anyway.

His work tie whipped over his shoulder in the light South Carolina wind and he narrowed his eyes at me, "No matter how much you hate me right now, you need me to get past your mother and not get punished. I'll just say --."

"And lie some more, right?" I spit at him, staring him down.

"Do not push me right now, Sara. Do not." Something in his voice told me not to say anything so I kept quiet. "As I was saying, I'll just say that I took you out for coffee, that is if your mother is even up at this hour. Understand? And so help me God, you utter a word of my...situation to her, I will have no trouble telling her where you were last night. Do you hear me?"

"Yes," I mutter, whipping open my car door and shoving my keys in the ignition before speeding away from Conrad's apartment and my father.

On the way home, the waterworks started and I wondered how long my father had been sneaking around like this. How long he had been lying to me, to mom. But mostly, I wondered what could have driven him to rip our family apart with a meaningless affair.

After twenty minutes of the icy silence in my car, I pulled up next to father's car just as he got out. He gave me a warning look, reminding me of our deal, and I cleaned up my eyes before getting out myself.

"Don't expect me to talk to you otherwise," I mutter as I pass him and move inside the house. I hear him snort and with my hand on the door knob, I wonder what happened to the man I used to call Daddy, who hugged my mother whenever she walked in the room, who was always smiling.

What happened to him?

Easing the door open, I'm met with silence. After tip toeing around the bottom floor and realizing she's not here, I exchange a look with my father and sprint upstairs, only to see mom with a basket of laundry under her arm.

She takes in my appearance and I give her a small smile, hearing Dad come up behind me. "Hey, Mom," I say, fighting back the tears threatening to escape my eyes. "Dad just took me out for a cup of coffee and a donut before work today..."

She gives me an easy smile and pats my shoulder, "I was gonna say...I thought you were just getting home! I didn't even hear you come in last night, I must've been so out of it."

I laugh, swallowing the sob that began tearing at the back of my throat, "You know how you get when you get into a deep sleep."

Glancing back at my father, I don't understand how he simply grins at his wife and envelopes her in a kiss when only hours ago he was sleeping in some stranger's bed. "Hi honey, how are you this lovely morning?"

I excuse myself to my room quickly, not being able to stand around my father and his lies any more than necessary, and bury myself in my sheets - the tears streaming freely. After a while, my pillow case is soaked and I glance at the clock, swearing when I notice I only have a half hour before Brenna swings by to pick me up for work.

After taking a quick shower, I blow dry my hair and throw on some shorts with an AE t-shirt Brenna bought me with her employee discount. Just as I slip my flip flops on, her car horn sounds outside and I run down the stairs, taking two at a time, and grab my purse and cell phone. I slam the door behind me and jump into the passenger seat quickly.

"Whoa, Speed Racer, what's the rush?" Brenna asks, popping her gum and adjusting her Ray Bands.

"Sorry," I reply, buckling myself in as she speeds down our road, "I just didn't want to keep you waiting, and I wanted to get out of the house before my dad had any time to talk to me."

She glances over at me, her eye brows raised. "Why didn't you want to talk to your dad?"

I debate on whether I want to tell her or not and decide against it, not wanting to dive into that entire story yet. "Just a small fight, no big deal. And sorry for leaving the party last night, after Chad punched Conrad I went back to his place and helped clean himself up."

"Whoa," Brenna says, slamming on her breaks when the street light turns red, "Who punched who?"

Oh, man. She didn't know. "Well, um, Conrad took me to the back porch to talk --."

"Aww!" She squealed, "You two are so cute together."

"Well, he's probably mad at me after I ditched his apartment this morning without waking him up..."

"You stayed over his place? Did you guys...you know...?"

"No, we did not, thank you for asking," I roll my eyes and continue to tell her the whole story from the kiss last night to this morning -- excluding the part where I caught my father with another woman.

I finish talking just as we pull into the employee parking lot, and notice Conrad getting out of his car. I tell Brenna and she grabs the closet space to him before practically pushing me out of the car.

"Go talk to him!" She yelled at me after I looked at her as if she had ten heads.

Hiking my bag over my shoulder, I ran toward him - well as fast as I could in flip flops - and tapped his shoulder.

"Conrad?" I breathe, trying to catch my breath after sprinting. Only showed I needed to get in shape...

He turned around and smiled slightly before cocking his head to the side and hiding off his emotions from me. "Hey."

He was upset I left without telling him.

"Look, about last night...well more or less this morning, I woke up at like six and knew my mom was gonna be pissed at me so I practically ran out of your apartment and didn't think to leave you a note or anything until just now as I was talking with Brenna and well, I'm sorry. It's been...a really long morning and I had so much fun last night and I don't want you to get the wrong idea that I wanted to ditch or --." He pressed his index finger to my lips, a smile stretching across his face.

"It's fine, Sara. I understand. So did you get in trouble with your mom?" We start walking toward the mall entrance now, an arm wrapped around my waist and my head leaning against his shoulder, when I sigh, "No...and that's partially why I had a really long morning. If...if I tell you what happened, can you promise to keep it a secret?"

I didn't know why i was entrusting this information with Conrad, someone I met barely a week ago, but I needed him to know - I needed him to tell me everything was going to be alright.

"Of course," he answers. "What happened?"

After taking a deep breath and gathering all the right words together, I told Conrad of my morning -from the minute I saw my dad with that other woman all the way to Brenna picking me up. When I was finally finished, we were standing outside American Eagle and Conrad looked at me, his eyes unsure.

"It's fine," I practically whisper, "You don't have to say anything. I just needed to get that off my chest..."

Conrad shakes his head for a second before quickly taking a step forward and kissing me, "Everything's going to be fine." He pulls away and gives me a lazy grin, "Trust me."

I smile back at him, "I do."