Learning to Fall

''Daddy!'' Sophia exclaimed, rushing over to me and jumping in my arms the second I stepped through the door. It was the best part of my long and excruciatingly tiring day.

''Hi angel,'' I replied, clutching her closely. Even though I spent a good deal of the day dripping from sweat due to delivering close to 200 boxes to random houses all day, she didn't seem to mind as she hugged me back just as tightly, and I adored her for that.

"Aww, Sophia, you look so pretty!" I gushed, as my eyes glanced over her. She looked all ready to go, in a pair of jeans with pink and purple flowers on the pocket and glittery designs here and there, with a light green shirt that had the same matching pink and purple flowers and glittery designs on it. That shirt was one of my favorites, it made her hazel green eyes sparkle, and her dark hair fell in pretty curls all around her face and down her back.

''Did you have a good day, sweetie?''

''Yes I did! I made you a present,'' she said with that gorgeous little smile, kissing my hand before she took off running towards the table, which contained her school bag. She rummaged for a second, before retrieving the present from within. She then rushed back over to me, grinning from ear to ear as she stood before me. I knelt down to her level and snatched her up, which made her giggle uncontrollably in my grasp.

I kissed her cheek as she calmed down, and she handed me a picture that she had drawn in class today. What I saw when my eyes scanned the paper brought tears to my eyes.

"Do you like it, daddy?'' she asked sweetly, eyeing me expectantly.

''Sophia... It's beautiful," I managed to squeak out, considering how gorgeous that little piece of paper was that she had just handed me.

''We had to draw a picture of our favorite person in the world, the one person that we love more than anything in the world,'' she explained thoughtfully as her eyes scanned the page along with me. ''...so I drew you.''

And draw me she did. She drew both of us, actually. Of course my head was enormous on the stick figure body, and all I had was a smile and big eyes for a face, but it was the most amazing masterpiece I'd ever laid eyes on. She drew herself too, with a big pink bow, and it appears that we are holding hands. On the top right of the drawing she had drawn a cute little sunshine with a happy face, and to the left of that, amongst the various butterflies and hearts that adorned the paper, in her cute little handwriting, she had scribbled "My Hero".

''It is the most amazing picture in the world, I love my present, sweetie pie,'' I replied, blinking my tears away as I kissed her cheek, which made her giggle yet again.

''Can we go by Ella's house now, daddy? Pleeease?''

She said that last part tucked carefully in a hug, because I didn't want her mother knowing exactly where we were going tonight.

''Shh, sweetie. We are telling mommy we're going by grandma's tonight, remember?'' I reminded her, giving her a wink.

''Of course I remember, daddy,'' she replied, trying her best to wink back at me but it came out as her blinking both eyes at the same time.

Just then, I realized that Angelica had yet to make her presence known. ''Where is your mama, anyway?''

''She's in the shower, getting ready for work,'' Sophia replied, looking down slightly.

I lifted her chin and brought her eyes up to meet mine, and gave her a silly face which made her smile. The second I did so, I heard Angelica moving around in her bedroom, which meant that she was out and I could have my turn with the shower.

''I'm going to go get ready. Remember, grandma's house, okay?'' I whispered, and she gave me a smile and nodded her head.

''But you better hurry," she told me, rather sternly. "I am ready to go, I have been waiting all week!''

I had no choice but to laugh at this, because I felt the same exact way since I'd had that conversation with Gerard a few nights ago. I had no clue how hard it was going to be, going back to my old schedule now that the guy that normally did Gerard's route was back, but I had my reasons for doing what I'd done. I just had no idea why it was affecting me this much, I never used to feel this way about work before...

''Let daddy go get cleaned up, then we can go, okay?'' I said to her, not missing that little pout she was giving me because we couldn't go right away.

Just as I was thinking of something to distract her with, we heard the Spongebob theme song from the living room television. ''Ooh, Spongebob is on! You better hurry, you don't want to miss him!''

''Okay!'' she piped up, suddenly very enthusiastically. She left me smiling after her as she scurried back over to the couch to watch our favorite show. No matter how hard it was for me to tear myself away from the episode where Spongebob rips his pants, it was time to get ready to go to Gerard's.

Once I made my way back to my room, I placed my present on my dresser, and smiled at it once more before I ducked into my bathroom so I could have a shower that would make me feel like a human again.

As hard as I tried to honor Sophia's request to not take so long in the shower like I normally do, I really had no choice. A bunch of random thoughts were swimming in my head.. such as, how much I hated to make Sophia lie to her mother. However, that was just in case Angelica asked where we were going. There really was no reason to lie to her, considering I wasn't doing anything wrong, but still. I know that if I told her that I was going to a friend's house, she would either ask a million questions, guilt me into not going, or worse - try to come with.

So, considering how much my mother and mother of my only child hate each other, 'going to grandma's' was a suitable excuse that posed no questions, guilt trips, or possible tag alongs. Besides, it was Friday. She was always one for going out on the weekends with her girlfriends, because 'she needed a break, too', but that in no way meant that 'I was stuck at home on a Friday night having to watch the kid'. When Angelica went out and left me at home with Sophia, it meant that I always spent my Friday night having a blast with my little girl, catching up on time that we'd missed out on during the week.

The only thing better than hanging out with Sophia, would be hanging out with Gerard. That's when it hit me, I got to hang out with Gerard tonight! I quickly finished washing my hair and rinsed the sudsy solution out, and scrubbed my body really good because yes, I was incredibly dirty because my job makes me fucking filthy. Every time Gerard has seen me, I wasn't dirty yet, because I'd deliver to his place of employment first, so I didn't have a chance to get dirty yet. And then those afternoons when we hung out, I somehow managed to get all my deliveries done extra fast so I could head home to have a shower. I didn't want to pick up Sophia all filthy that first day, and I certainly didn't want to once Gerard and I had become friends.

I shut off the water and stepped out of the shower, damn near killing myself as I tripped on one of Sophia's rubber duckies, but thankfully caught myself just in time. I wrapped a towel around my waist without even drying myself off, and headed down the hall to my room.

I picked out a random pair of boxers and my favorite pair of jeans, the ones that fit me kind of loose but didn't look too baggy, the ones with the rips at both knees and a few little ones here and there, that were the perfect shade of faded blue. I threw those on along with my favorite black belt, the ones with the silver music notes that adorned the entire way around my waist, then finally sighed as I peered into my closet.

Here comes the hard part. Picking out a shirt was always difficult for me, mainly because I made it difficult. I figured a band tee was a bit too cliche, I mean I had one of every single band that I loved the most, but maybe he was expecting me to show up in a band tee. So I decided to wear a fun t-shirt, and began to rummage through my collection of superhero and various other cartoon character shirts, because let's face it, I had a ridiculously huge pile of shirts that never had the chance to be worn but definitely deserved to be worn as much as possible.

I had my heart set on one of my Nightmare Before Christmas shirts, but as I filtered through the pile of shirts, my eyes focused on a Snoopy t-shirt. I took the shirt out, and smiled at it. I used to love Snoopy, and when I saw this at the store for a mere ten dollars, I just had to snatch it up. It was a tad bit big for me, but I liked it anyway, and for some reason, this shirt seemed to match the mood for tonight just perfectly.

As I migrated from my room back to the bathroom, I decided that I really didn't see the need to get all snazzied up, considering all we were going to be doing was hanging out at Gerard's, and to be completely honest, I was too exhausted from working all day to worry about my physical appearance. I quickly towel dried my hair so it wasn't soaking wet anymore, and decided to just leave it alone, figuring I'd let it dry on its own. I studied myself for a minute, and decided that I kind of liked the way I looked tonight. No eyeliner, nothing special, just Frankie.

I grabbed my wallet, phone and keys and shoved them in my pockets, then made my way back out to the living room. I peeked my head over the couch, to find that Sophia was fast asleep. I smiled down at her and ran my fingers through her hair, massaging her scalp gently as I called out to her.

"Sophia..."

She squirmed a bit as her eyes shot open, a wide grin sweeping across her face as she sat up and asked excitedly, "Is it time to go yet, daddy?"

"Yes ma'am," I replied, grinning at her as I lifted her off from the couch. "We just need to say good-bye to mommy."

She gave a brilliant smile, and laced her fingers through mine as we walked hand in hand towards her mother's room. I slipped my head through the doorway which was opened just a crack, so I could peek in.

Angelica was seated at her well-lit vanity, in front of the enormous mirror with endless amounts of makeup and other beauty products lying around. She had enormous hair rollers in her hair, and it seemed like she was only about midway through with her makeup, even though I knew she had plenty more to put on. I actually can't remember the last time I saw her natural face...

"Frank?"

Her voice brought me from my thoughts, as I returned to reality and realized I was still peeking in through her halfway closed bedroom door.

"You can come in, you know," she replied, giving me a smirk that I was all too used to receiving. The one that told me I was being an idiot, and she was far better than I was. So, I inched a bit closer, and actually managed to smile at her.

"Oh, sorry," I replied, trying my best to show her that her smirk phased me very little. "Me and Sophia are going to my mom's, just wanted to let you know.."

"Oh, that's where you're going?" She asked, giving a sarcastic laugh as she continued to brush powder across her cheeks. "Well, give me my baby so I can kiss her good-bye."

Sophia scurried past me and on to her mother's lap, where Angelica proceeded to 'kindly' scoot her off of her.

"Sophia, please no jumping, what did I tell you about jumping?"

Angelica said rather harshly as she quickly brushed Sophia aside, and continued to apply make-up to the annoyed look on her face.

"I'm sorry, mommy.." Sophia replied, but just before I went to her rescue, I noticed Angelica glance ather my little girl in the mirror, so I held back for a moment just to see what she was going to do.

Angelica immediately put a wide, fake looking smile on her face and pulled Sophia into a big embrace, kissing her cheek before she let her go. I actually had to hold back my laughter because her attempt at having a motherly moment with Sophia was actually quite comical, but I suppose she gets points for actually putting in the effort.

"Okay yeah... we're gonna go now," I said quickly, extending my hand out for my little darling to take it, which she did, with a big smile on her face. It was a nice change compared to the bewildered one of shock she wore once Angelica hugged her the way she did.

"Okay, sweetie, have fun at grandma's!" she said overly excited to Sophia as she walked somberly out of the room, apparently brought back down by her mother's voice. Angelica then switched her glance to me, and added, "You too, Frankie. Tell your mother I said 'hello'."

I didn't miss the sarcastic tone in her voice, the smirk on her face, or the huge kiss that she blew me once she turned around to face my reflection in the mirror. I merely waved and shut the door behind me.

I slumped against the closed door, shutting my eyes and sighed deeply. A sniffle made my eyes snap open as I saw Sophia crumpled against the very same wall, whimpering and a bit wounded in the exact way that her mother had left me. I think I knew what was wrong, which made me smile as I crouched down in front of her, and lifted her chin so her eyes that were identical to mine could meet with my own.

"Hey munchkin, hop on," I said, grinning at her as she allowed a tiny grin to grace her pretty face as well. I gave her a hand to help lift her back to her feet, and within seconds she was perched on my back with her arms wrapped around my neck. I picked up her Spongebob tote bag that carried the essentials, just in case, and we headed out to the car with Sophia riding piggy back.

When I opened her door to let her in, I knelt down so I could gently place her back on her feet, and took her hands in mine as I told her, "You can always jump on me."

Her face lit up and she threw her arms around me, almost knocking me down in the process. "Thank you, daddy.."

"No problem, cutie pie," I replied, kissing her cheek before I let her go. "Now let's go to Gerard's!"

She let out a squeal of excitement as I opened the door for her to help her in, and before long I was finally settled in next to her, and we were finally on our way to what we had both been looking forward to all week.