Fawn
“Okay, baby girl. You wanna tell me what’s going on here?”
“Please, Dad, not now. I’m not in the mood.”
“Not in the mood to talk to your old man?”
"Not in the mood to get another lecture. You already dressed me down in front of three-fourths of the club. Don't you think that's enough for one day?"
“I don’t know, that depends. Do you think it made enough of an impression to keep you from running off half-cocked like this again?”
“Dad! Seriously! I just told you, I can’t handle this right now!”
“I know you did. So it’s a lucky thing for you that I didn’t come out here to give you another lecture.”
“Then why?”
“Because I wanted to check on you. Wanted to make sure you’re okay.”
“I’m fine, Dad.”
"You sure? Because I gotta be honest, you don't look entirely okay. I know talking to me isn't the same as talking to a mother, but I don't have one of those to give you, so I'm just about the best you've got at the moment."
It was so much more tempting than I would have expected to just break down right then and there. I could have spilled my guts, told my dad everything and freed myself of the burden of having to think about it, to worry about it all of the time. If I had slept at all last night, it didn't feel like it, and my entire body hurt with fatigue. There was a part of me, a big enough part to freak me out, that wanted to just put my head in my dad's lap and tell him anything and everything that came into my head. Probably the only thing that stopped me was the fact that if I did that if I told him everything that was happening and everything that had already happened, I would never be able to un-tell him again. It might feel better at the moment, but it would also make my dad's desire to keep a hawk's eye on me even bigger, and that was something I wasn't willing to put up with.
"Dad, I appreciate the concern, I do, but I don't have much to talk about. I'm just tired, you know? Just tired and trying to get used to the hormones. I swear to God, they make you feel like a crazy person, you know? Like, sometimes I'm doing something or saying something, and there's a part of my mind that is like, screaming at the rest of me to just chill, only I can't do it. Being pregnant is no joke."
"You're damn right; it isn't. That's why you need to take better care of yourself, Fawn."
“Dad, I take plenty good care of myself. I’m a nurse, remember? If anyone knows how to take care of themselves when pregnant, it’s me.”
“You know that’s not what I mean. I’m not talking about taking care of yourself with your freaking diet, Fawn. I mean not putting yourself in a position to get taken out by some dumbass with something to prove. You’ve gotta promise me, okay?”
“I know.”
"No, I mean right now. You've gotta promise me you're going to play by the rules from here on out. Even if you think it's stupid, sugar, you've gotta do it. Unless you're just out to kill your old man because that's what's going to happen. I can handle just about anything but something happening to you? That would be it. That would be the end of me."
"Okay, Dad," I whispered, all of my adolescent swagger long gone in the face of how genuine my dad sounded now, "I promise. Really, okay? I guess maybe I haven't taken this whole thing as seriously as I should have. I'll play by the rules from now on. I really will." My dad cleared his throat roughly and clapped me on the shoulder, standing quickly before I could get a look at his face. He was a hard man, not the kind to get emotional about things and to see him this way was jarring, to say the least. Maybe he was right. Maybe it was time to stop pretending that I could live totally separate from the life of the Carolina Devils. Maybe it was time to start admitting to myself that I was not only a part of it but that it was a part of me, as well.
“Fawn? Fawn, what are you doing out here?”
“I was talking to my dad, Dax. Is that alright with you?”
“Of course it is, but I was thinking. Don’t you think it would be a good idea for us to hash this thing out? We can’t keep doing this thing where one of us walks out on the other one when the conversation gets too tough. One of these days we’re going to have to talk it the whole way through.”
“Maybe, Dax, but this is not that day.”
“Seriously? Just no? Not talking about it?”
“Just no. I don’t have time for this right now, and not in a fake way like you tried to pull last night. Some of us have real jobs to go to.”
“Nice dig, Fawn,” he said dryly, his shadow looming over the curb I was sitting on and trying to keep from succumbing my usual bout of morning sickness, “way to get that in there.”
“It’s not even a dig, Dax. You don’t have a real job. I know you’ve got your gig with the Devils -”
"It's not just a gig; I'm the fucking vice president."
"Fine, vice president. But that's not a job that you have to get up and go to an office for, right? It's not like my dad is some kind of task master of a boss watching what time you clock in every day. He's just as likely to be too hungover to get up as you are. Some of us, though, some of us have real bosses who want us there at a certain time in the morning. I happen to be one of those somebodies, and I need to get to work right now. I just promised my dad I would play by his rules from now on, which means I need to have a driver take me there and make sure I don't get hurt. If you don't want to do it, that's fine by me but tell me now so I can get going."
“Of course I’m going to do it. Let’s go.”
I followed him to the dirt covered lot that acted as a parking lot for the Devils and slipped behind the wheel of my car. My entire body was shaking so badly that I was positive I was going to throw up everywhere and the strain of trying to look cool, calm, and collected when Dax glanced at me from his bike was almost more than I could handle. For all of his big, blustering talk about how well he knew me, sometimes it was painfully clear that he didn’t know me at all. He didn’t know, for example, that right now I felt like I was dying inside. He didn’t know that I hadn’t even had the chance to have nightmares the night before because I was too afraid to go to sleep. I didn’t need the nightmares, anyway, not anymore. Lucky me, I was living them all over again, going through them in real time instead of only inside of my head. He had pushed me and pushed me to tell him what was going on inside of my head and when I had caved and done what he’d asked, Dax had abandoned me, just the way I had known he would. I had wanted so badly for him to be a different kind of man than the rest that I had almost convinced myself it was true. Now I knew how foolish I had been. There were plenty of things about Dax that were different than your average man, but not when it came to the way he treated a woman. When it came to that, he was only another typical, asshole guy and I was the idiot who had decided to let him in. It was the only thing I could think about as I drove to the hospital, glancing out the rearview mirror every thirty seconds to see his chopper still driving directly behind me.
Maybe there were women out there who could make a man love them for real. From the few times I had heard Dax talk about Lillian, I had an idea that he'd loved her enough to do whatever she wanted from him. It was me that was the problem. It was me that was the problem, and that was something I was going to have to learn to live with, but there wasn't a shot in hell that I was going to do it while settling for a guy who would never truly love me. It was the thought I couldn't shake, and by the time we arrived at the hospital, I felt an eerie sense of calm overcome me, replacing the panic and tension that had filled my body only minutes before.
“Yo, Fawn!” Dax called out, rapping his knuckles firmly on my window, “You planning on just sitting in there all day? This some kind of a test to see if I’ll do my job the way I’m supposed to?”
“No, Dax, I just needed a minute. Will you get in the car? Just for a minute, I promise.”
"I thought you were in some big hurry to get to work," he grumbled, slumping down into my passenger's seat and slamming the door a little too hard, probably because he knew I hated it. It was almost hard to be mad at him when I saw him that way, staring straight ahead and refusing to look at me. It reminded me so much of how he had been when we were kids, how he had been when we were teenagers, and he was always getting into some terrible kind of trouble. Dax just was who he was, and there was nothing that was going to change it. Seeing that helped to deepen my calm, to show me that I was on the right path.
“I do need to get to work, but I need to tell you something, first.”
“Cool. Here we go again. Just do me a favor and give me a heads up if you’re going to start yelling again. I’m going to get whiplash from all of the changes in personality and conversation you’ve got going these days.”
“You’re right.”
“I am, am I? And?”
“What do you mean, and?”
“And there’s got to be more to it than that. Guys like me are never just right. Anyway, the look you’ve got on your face right now? You didn’t ask me to get in your car just to tell me I was right. Why don’t you tell me what’s going on? Maybe we could even keep things civil this time, too. Seems unlikely but hey, worth a shot, right?”
"Right again. About all of it." I took a deep, shuddering breath, asking myself one last time if this was really what I wanted to do. I didn't have to. I could just keep my mouth shut and let things go on as they were, go with the status quo while we pretended everything was okay. People could do that kind of thing for months, for years, even. It could be ten years before I woke up and realized that far from being friends, Dax and I didn't even like each other as much as we would a stranger on the street anymore. By that point, there wouldn't be any friendship left to salvage, just an empty husk of a relationship that never should have happened in the first place. It would have been easy to let things go that way, but I just couldn't do it.
“So then if I’m right, why are we having this conversation?”
"Because Dax. We made a mistake."
“How so? The fighting?”
“No, not that. All of it. Everything from the minute I got back into town. All of it’s been a mistake. I should never have let things go so far. We need to backtrack.”
“Backtrack? How the hell are we supposed to do that, Fawn? We’ve got a baby on the way. It’s a little late for pulling out, wouldn’t you say?”
"Classy. And not actually funny, in case you were wondering. Obviously, I don't mean backtrack on the baby. I'm keeping the baby no matter what. If you don't want to be a part of its life after this -"
“Do me a favor and cut that shit out, will ya? I’m not going to tell you again. You can try and kick me out of my own kid’s life all you want to, but I’m not going anywhere. That baby is as just as much mine as it is yours. You can’t take that away from me.”
“Fine. That’s fine, Dax. Like I said, I’m not trying to argue with you. I don’t want to do that anymore.”
"So then tell me what you mean by backtrack? Please, Fawn. I don't know if you're trying to mess with my head, but you're doing a damned good job even so."
"Like I said, this was a mistake. We should never have gotten together. Not the first time and certainly not again after that. The sex was a mistake, and the rest of it was even worse. I don't know what we were thinking, trying to pretend like we were a legitimate couple or something."
“Fawn, come on. You don’t mean it. You don’t need to say these things. I get that I screwed up.”
"It's not about that, either. We both screwed up, I guess." The tears were starting to coat the inside of my throat, and I knew this needed to be speeded up or else I was going to break apart before I could get through everything. "That's what I want to avoid. We'll only keep screwing things up if we let this charade keep going. You may be okay with that, but I don't think so. You just want to be the good guy, the guy who stays with the pregnant girl."
“Christ, Fawn! That’s not what I’m doing!”
“Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t. Either way, you don’t have to do it anymore. I’m calling it.”
“No, you aren’t. You aren’t the only one who gets a say in this, got it? There are two of us in this relationship, goddamnit.”
“There is no relationship. That’s what I’m trying to say. Whatever this was, whatever it was going to be, it’s done. I’m not doing it anymore.”
“Just like that? You’re just going to run away from everything?”
"No," my words were so chocked I almost couldn't say them, but I wasn't backing down. That was something I knew I would be able to be proud of when I was alone at night, and it hurt so badly that I wanted to call Dax and take this all back. "Not just like that. And I'm not running away. I'm doing what's best for the both of us. And just so you aren't surprised by it, I'll be asking to have somebody else act as my bodyguard. I don't know how we're going to work things out in the future, sharing a kid and all, but for now, I need not to be around you. I need not to see you, Dax. If you ever cared about me at all, you'll respect that."
No answer and he was out of the car so fast I couldn’t have stopped him if I’d wanted to. He slammed the car door. Opened it back up, and then slammed it again, this time so hard my entire car shook. That was when I started to cry for real.