Fairy Tale

The front door could be heard all through the house, as it was slammed shut. The now seventeen-year-old girl ran up the stairs in tears, not even acknowledging her parents who were cuddled up on the couch watching TV. Sighing, Matt ran a hand over his face as he wondered what could be wrong with Vanessa once again.

Courtney turned to her husband with a worried expression. “I went last time, it’s now your turn.”

“But what if it’s a, you know, girl problem?” Matt groaned, tossing his head back.

She laughed softly and shook her head. “Sorry tiger, it’s up to super dad to save the day this time. Super mom is taking a break.”

“Okay,” He chuckled and said, “Super dad’s got this.”

He pulled away from Courtney and got up from the couch. He walked into the foyer and headed up the stairs, rubbing the back of his neck nervously. It seemed to be one thing after another these days with Vanessa, but she was a teenaged a girl, and it seemed normal for her these days to come running into the house crying. He and Courtney both took turns when it came to talking to her, and Matt sometimes dreaded it when it turned out to be an actual girl problem that he had to talk out with her.

He’d never forget when she was thirteen and she had been crying in the bathroom for what seemed like an hour. Courtney was on a week long business trip, leaving Matt and Vanessa home alone. He wasn’t sure what was wrong with his daughter, but he knew he couldn’t just let her cry.

“Nessa, baby, what’s going on?” He asked as her sobs echoed throughout the bathroom.

Vanessa took a few deep breaths as she blotted her eyes with some wadded up toilet paper. “Go away,” Her voice cracked. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Sweetie,” Matt sighed softly. “You’ll feel a lot better if you do talk about it.”

She rolled her eyes and sighed. She didn’t feel good, and she wished her mother were home at a time like this. “When’s mom coming home?”

“In a few days. Why?” He asked through the door.

A few more tears feel from her eyes as she licked over her lips. “I need mom! This is a…a girl problem.”

His eyes narrowed as he wondered what she was talking about. “Nessa, come on,” He said. “You know you can talk to me about anything. Just open the door and tell daddy what’s wrong.”

“It’s embarrassing!” She cried, shaking her head. She couldn’t believe this was happening while her mother was gone.

“Come on, honey. It can’t be that bad! Just open the door. You’re really starting to worry me.”

Vanessa wiped away her tears and stood up from the bathroom floor. Hesitantly, she turned the lock on the bathroom door and opened it. Matt looked at his daughter’s tear streaked face curiously. Before he could question it though, she was walking straight into his arms as more tears fell.

Matt immediately wrapped his arms around Vanessa and kissed the top of her head. “You ready to tell me what’s wrong?” He asked.

“My stomach hurts,” Her voice came out muffled as she had her face buried in his torso.

“Well what does that have to do with a girl problem?” He questioned, feeling completely and 100% confused.

“Dad!” She said as she pulled away, blotting her eyes some more. Sometimes she wondered about her father. “You’re hopeless!”

“What? How?” He demanded to know with a small goofy smile.

She shook her head and tucked a lock of her blond hair behind her ear. “I need you to go to the store for me,” She said softly.

“What for, Nessa?” He wondered as he raised an eyebrow at his young daughter.

She motioned for him to bend down lower to her height, and he complied by doing so. She whispered what she needed from store into his ear as her cheeks deeply reddened from embarrassment.

“Ohhh,” Matt said as he stood up straight. “Uh, okay. I…I’ll uh, you know, be back in a few minutes. You should uh; you should call your mom and talk to her about this. You know, I’m a guy, I don’t really know much about this girl stuff.” Vanessa ran a hand over her face as Matt rambled for a moment. “Okay, so I’ll be back, and you should take some Advil or something for your stomach.”

“Thanks, daddy,” She murmured, giving him a small hug.

“I love you, Nessa. I told you, you can talk to me about anything.”

She sighed and nodded. “I guess I forget that sometimes, but thanks.”

He never did forget that day. If it were possible, he felt that he and Vanessa had grown closer during that day. He knew it had been hard for her to open that bathroom door and tell him what was wrong, considering at the time she did find it absolutely humiliating asking her father to go buy her pads. Now things were different though. Vanessa knew she could talk to her father about anything, he had proven that to her time after time, but there were still some things that she only wanted to talk about with her mother, which he understood.

When Matt reached Vanessa’s door, he could her quiet sobs being muffled by her pillow. Knocking softly, he pushed open the door at the same time, seeing as she never locked it. Vanessa was lying on her stomach facing the other side of the room, with her faced half way buried into a random pillow on her bed.

“Nessa,” He said as he stepped into her room. He was sometimes surprised to see how clean it was, considering most teenagers rooms were a disaster.

“Go away, dad!” She said as she tried to control her tears. She knew he wanted to be there for her, and she appreciated that, but there were just some things that weren’t meant to be talked about between her and her father.

“Oh come on. Don’t be like that. I’m only trying to help,” He said as he sat down on the edge of her bed and leaned back against the headboard.

“You can’t help me with this one, dad. It’s not fixable this time,” Vanessa sat up slowly and sat across from her father with her legs crossed. She felt ashamed of herself for what she had done the night before, and she knew her father would be disappointed in her if he found out.

“You’re not pregnant are you?” He questioned, praying that she wouldn’t say yes.

He couldn’t handle that. Not now.

“Of course not, dad!” She exclaimed, wiping away a few stray tears.

Matt breathed out, relieved to hear that. “Then what is it, baby? You know I hate seeing you cry.”

Vanessa could only sigh as she locked eyes with his. “I fucked up, daddy, and I just don’t know what to do. I thought that I was okay with it, but I wasn’t thinking straight at the time. How could I know what’s right or wrong when I’m under the influence? I just don’t know what I was thinking. I wasn’t ready for that, and now I feel ashamed for what I’ve done,” She rambled, licking over her lips. “Tell me how to fix this, dad. Please, make it better.”

Matt felt as if his head was spinning as he listened to her ramble. He had no earthly idea as to what she was going on and on about. “Nessa,” He said. “I can’t fix anything if I don’t know what’s broken in the first place.”

Vanessa twiddled with her fingers and looked down at her lap. She just couldn’t admit such a thing to her father, her mother maybe, but not her father. He was man who she looked up to and loved to death. He was a man who happened to not only be just her father, but one of her best friends too. She didn’t want to disappoint him, and she certainly didn’t want him to look at her differently because of it.

Matt watched his daughter’s behavior closely and knew something must have been really wrong for her to be acting that way. And her not willing to tell him, made him even more nervous. She usually didn’t mind talking to him about anything. Patiently though, he waited for a few minutes as she struggled to find the words for what she was going to tell him.

Vanessa looked up at her father with a small smile as she remembered what he used to tell her when she was a little girl. “Do you remember when you and the guys taught me that all boys are jerks?”

He chuckled and nodded. “Your mother almost killed us for that. You kept getting in so much trouble at school for fighting with random boys who never did a thing to you, you only beat them up because of what we told you.”

“I know, and now a lot of those guys won’t even come near me.” She said with a small laugh.

Matt stared at his daughter for a moment before saying, “Vanessa,” A small sigh following.

The young girl looked up at her father curiously. It wasn’t normal for her to hear him call her anything other than Nessa. He had been calling her that her entire life. The only time she ever heard the name Vanessa come from his mouth, was when she was in a lot of trouble, which was rare.

“I’m sorry,” She felt the need to apologize. “I know I seem a bit all over the place tonight.”

“Why don’t you just tell me what happened last night?” He suggested, motioning for her to come lay beside him. “That is what this is all about, right? Last night?”

Vanessa nodded before moving across the bed and sitting beside him, her back rested against the headboard. “Well,” She sighed. “You know that Ethan, Collin, Lyric and I went to that party last night at Stephen’s.”

Matt nodded. He knew that she had gone to a party the night before. Hell, he had given her permission, because he knew that she was going to be with Ethan, Collin, and Lyric. He trusted those three just as much as he trusted Vanessa, considering he had known them since they were born into the Avenged family as well.

“I’m not gonna lie to you and say that I didn’t drink, because, well, I did. Not much, but enough to get me to the point where I could barely think for myself.” Vanessa told him, and he raised an eyebrow at her. He knew that sometimes she drank a little with her friends, but she was never one to get out of control with it, which is why he trusted her. As long as she never drove under the influence, he didn’t mind.

“I’m guessing there’s a lot more than that, right?” He asked.

Sighing, she nodded, “Yeah.”

“All right,” He said. “Please continue then.”

“Dad, I’m just gonna be blunt, okay?” She said as her heart sped up.

He didn’t say anything; he just gave her a small nod.

“Ethan and I sort of,” She bit down on her lip before spitting out the rest of her sentence, “had sex last night.”

Matt nearly choked on his spit, not believe what just came out of his daughter’s mouth. He ran a hand over his face and did his best to stay calm; reminding himself that Vanessa wasn’t that ten-year-old little girl anymore who used to throw temper tantrums. Instead, a grown, seemingly responsible seventeen-year-old filled her place.

Vanessa starred down at her lap as she fiddled with the end of shirt, waiting for his response. He hadn’t jumped up in anger and ran out the door to hunt down Ethan and kill him, so Vanessa knew that he wasn’t as angry as she thought he would be.

“Honey, I’m glad you felt that you could be honest with me and tell me that,” He said, glancing over at her. “I just have two questions.”

Vanessa held back a groan, her imagination running wild as she thought about what those two questions could be. “Okay, shoot,” She breathed out.

“One, why are you so upset about this?”

“Well because I was a, you know, virgin, and I don’t know,” She sighed. “I guess I just didn’t want it to happen that way. I love Ethan, dad, I mean I really love him. I don’t regret him being the guy; I just regret not fully being aware of what I was doing. I had always thought something like that would be sort of like a fairy tale moment, but it wasn’t,” She explained. “And don’t worry; Ethan was just as gone as I was. He didn’t take advantage of me.”

“Nessa, everyone makes mistakes. And although this may be one that you regret, you’ll learn from it some how and some way. Ethan loves you just as much as you love him, Nessa. So think about it this way. What if it hadn’t been him, and instead it had been some random guy you barely knew?”

“I’d probably feel like some dirty slut,” She frowned.

“But you’re not, and you don’t feel that way, all because it was with a good guy who loves you and knows how to treat you right.” He said to her, hoping she understand. “And hey, there is plenty of more time for you to have a fairy tale moment in that way.”

Shifting on the bed, Vanessa laid her head on her father’s muscular arm before tracing the outlines of his tattoos with her fingers. “Thanks, dad,” She murmured. “I get what you’re saying.”

Matt kissed her forehead and ran his fingers through her hair. “I love you, Vanessa.

Vanessa laughed and smiled. “I love you too, dad,” She repeated those same words back to him like always, and he grinned.

He loved to hear those words flow out of her mouth. It meant so much more to him than she could ever know.

“Did you use protection?” He finally asked the question that had been stuck in his head for the past few minutes of silence as they lied there with each other.

“Dad!”

“What? It’s a legitimate question,” He defended with a small laugh, shaking his head.

“We weren’t drunk enough to act like fools and ruin our lives,” She stated.

He took that as a yes and smiled to himself, glad that he and Courtney had raised such a bright, smart young girl. Vanessa was truly one of a kind, and he couldn’t have been happier to have her as his daughter.