trepidation | h.s

01: harry and daisy

MISSED YALL!!!!

Lydia Styles

Curled up on the couch, I was enjoying my final moments of my Friday at home alone. Harry was at work while the kids were at school, but the work and school days are approaching their end and soon my alone time will be over.

When the front door unlocked, in came my family. Will, who's 11 now, barrelled through the door. He went to go up the stairs but I stopped him.

"Hey, homework first." I say, making him pause and groan with his head thrown back. He steps off the stairs and trudges to the kitchen table with his backpack hanging off his shoulders.

Next to come through the door were Daisy and Harry. But when I expect to see a smile on both their faces upon returning home, Daisy just immediately stomps up to her room without saying a word and Harry looks sort of pissed.

I give Harry a puzzled look as he shuts the front door and kicks off his shoes, unbuttoning his shirt a bit while giving me a look of distress and a slight head shake.

"Everything okay?" I ask as he comes into the kitchen where Will and I were.

"How come Daisy gets to be in her room." Will complains from the table, pulling sheets of homework out of his bag.

I sigh, realizing that it is kind of unfair that I've made him stay down here.

"Fine. Fifteen minutes upstairs and then you come right back here to do that homework." I tell him as sternly as possible to make myself clear.

He smiles and leaps out of his chair, rushing up the stairs to his bedroom where he'd probably go strain his eyes on video games.

Harry huffs, returning to our conversation. "We got into a bit of an argument and now she won't talk to me."

I furrow my brows. "An argument? About what?"

He leans against the kitchen counter, rubbing his face with his hands. "She wants to have a sleepover this weekend...at her friends house. Not here."

Ah.

Daisy's twelve...which is around the age that most girls start having sleepovers away from home, if anything she's a bit older than that age.

We let her have sleepovers, but they're always here at our house. And that's because Harry is still on edge about sending her away from home for a night.

Because of our past.

"I told her she can have the sleepover here and then she started getting frustrated because I apparently 'don't let her do anything'." he shakes his head as he quotes our daughter.

I step in front of him, putting my hands on his shoulders as I look up at his tall frame.

"She just wants to experience teenage things, baby."

He looks down to the side, biting his cheek. "I don't know if I'm ready."

I bring my hands delicately to his cheeks, holding his face in my palms to make him look at me.