Chapter Fifteen
Tank
The girl looked like an angry angel. Her eyes flashed like she wanted to hit something. Then they found mine and a soft, silky look came over them. As if she were finally able to relax.
I swallowed hard. It took everything inside of me not to go to her and pull her into my arms. I had been so worried about her. What she was going through. How upset her family must be. It had pulled at me for three days.
Gathering myself, I looked at Marla’s mom and said, “Mrs. T, can I talk to you and Mr. Turner.”
She looked back at me for a long moment. A sudden surprise washed over me when I realized she wasn’t staring at me with pure hate. Maybe I could do this.
“What is it Molly,” Mr. Turner asked as he stepped up next to her. He saw me and his eyes instantly took on a hard look. Like he’d just spotted a rat in the pantry.
“Jim,” Mrs. T said as she gently laid a hand on his arm. I could tell she was silently holding him back from saying something he would regret.
Marla kept glancing back and forth between us. Fighting desperately to understand what was going on.
“If you have a minute,” I said. “I need to explain.”
Her father looked at me for a long second then nodded and said, “In here,” as he turned and walked to the living room.
“Michael,” Mrs. T said to her son doing his homework on the couch. “Go outside and play.”
“Oh, Mom,” he whined, obviously upset at missing all the action.
“Do what your mother says,” Mr. Turner growled as he turned and watched me follow him into the room.
“Marla,” he continued, “you go to your room.”
She put her hands on her hips and stared back her father. Pure lioness, I thought.
“If you think I’m letting you talk about me without me being here, you’re crazy,” she said as she dared her father.
I noticed that the corner of Mrs. T’s lips twitched. Almost as if she was trying to hide a smile.
“Sir,” I said hoping I could avoid a big blow up between the two of them. “This will only take a moment.”
He looked at me, his eyes penetrating and steady. He slowly nodded his head, giving me a chance.
I took a deep breath and tried to hold it together. Everything was going to turn on these next words.
“Sir,” I began. “I am in love with your daughter.”
Marla’s gasp behind me made me hesitate for a moment. In the thousands of scenarios that had run through my mind as I prepared for this. I had never thought about Marla being in the room.
Jason stepped forward. “Listen to him Dad, this is Tank we are talking about.”
“Did you know about this?” his dad demanded.
Jason laughed. “What, that Marla’s been in love with this idiot since she was six years old? Sure, I knew. I also knew that eventually, at his own pace, he’d figure out how special she was and fall for her too.”
“Why didn’t you tell us?” Mr. Turner asked, as his brow creased in a heavy frown. He looked as if Jason had betrayed him somehow.
“Because it is their business,” Jason said. “Besides, I figured that with Tank, I didn’t have to worry about Marla ever getting hurt. Tank would die before he ever hurt her. Think about it. You can’t keep her locked up in her room for the rest of her life.”
“If I could figure out a way, I would,” Mr. Turner mumbled under his breath.
Jason ignored him and said, “Be honest, can you think of a person you would rather she be with?”
I hadn’t expected Jason to stick up for me.
“She’s too young,” Mr. Turner said as he shook his head.
“Jim,” Mrs. T said as she stepped up next to him and slipped her arm into his. “They are the same age we were when we met.”
He looked down at her and said, “Exactly.”
Mrs. T. blushed slightly, but she didn’t back down. She continued to stare at him, silently demanding that he give in.
Swallowing hard, I continued, “I promise you, I didn’t plan it. It just happened. I never wanted to disrespect you or your family. But, I can’t stop the way I feel.”
He looked at me for a long moment. The silence dragged on forever, and I knew that he wasn’t sold. Not yet.
“I realize that I can’t stay here anymore. I’ll move over to Nick’s. At least until I can find my own place. But that isn’t going to change the way I feel about Marla. Nothing will ever change that.”
“She is sixteen. I am her father,” he said, his voice rising. “I still have some say in what happens to her.”
“Dad,” Marla said as she stepped forward. I could feel the two of them staring at each other. Neither willing to back down.
I gently touched her shoulder and shook my head. I didn’t need Marla sticking up for me. This was my fault, my problem. She had to let me deal with it.
Her eyes got soft for a moment as if she understood what I was trying to tell her. She nodded slightly and stepped back, but not so far that I couldn’t feel her, right there next to me if I needed her.
“Yes, Sir,” I said. “And, I will respect your rules.”
“Ha,” he said. Obviously thinking about the times, we had gone behind his back.
“I will respect them. I will not talk to her. I will remove myself from her life.”
“No,” Marla whispered.
“But,” I continued, “you will be ruining any chance of either of us finding true happiness in this life. I know in my heart that we are meant to be together. I think I’ve always known it.
“If we are not together. Or at least not given a chance to find out. There will always be a cloud hanging over us. A question of what if.”
I held my breath, everyone held their breath as a heavy silence fell over the room. This was the moment. My life hung in the balance.
Mr. Turner stared at me for a long minute, then over at Marla. My heart pounded in my chest.
At last, his shoulders slumped, and I was able to exhale.
“You are living at Nick’s?” he said.
“Yes, Sir.”
“And if you get her pregnant ...”
“Daddy,” Marla gasped as her face turned redder than the city’s new fire truck.
“ ... I will shoot you, you understand?” he finished. Giving me a hard stare to let me know that he was deadly serious.
I exhaled slowly.
Marla looked back and forth between her dad and myself. Her forehead scrunched up in a row of furrows as she tried to understand what it meant.
“What it means,” I said to her. “Is that if you will have me, I get to be your boyfriend.”
Her eyes got as big as a harvest moon as a wide smile broke out on her face.
“That is what I have always wanted,” she said as she buried her head in my chest and hugged me like I was the most important thing in the world.
I hugged her back, making sure my hands stayed where they belonged.
She smiled up at me and I knew to my very soul that she and I belonged together. Like long lost halves that finally come together to make a whole.