The It Girl [COMPLETED]

Chapter 16 - "You stole the happiness out of the peanut butter."

Courtney slathered peanut butter onto her piece of toast. Peanut butter fills the cracks of the heart, go away pain.

Okay, maybe the quote was a bit dramatic for seven in the morning, but facts were facts, peanut butter was happiness in a jar. Courtney was simply choosing happiness by adding it to her toast.

"Morning, Sunshine," her father said, walking into the kitchen.

Courtney took a bite of her toast. Yup, peanut butter was the best decision she'd made in a long time. If only life's decisions were as simple as what to put on top of toast.

"Dad, what do you do when you feel like you are losing a client?"

"The talk with Lynn went that bad, huh?"

Wow, not even a breath of hesitation before seeing through that. He was good.

"It was all right. I don't know. It doesn't feel the same as it used to."

Her father leaned against the counter and snagged her toast, taking a bite. Traitor! How dare you steal my happiness!

"Then give her time," her father said.

"Can't I send her a fruit basket instead? I feel like fruit always patches things up nicely."

Oh no, he's giving the I-see-what's-hurting-inside-and-will-address-it look. And he still has my peanut butter toast so there's no comfort there.

"Courtney, you're a lot like me," he said.

I know, I have the ridiculously weird thoughts to prove it.

"But you're also a lot like your mother. You want there to be neat solutions to everything. And when it comes to people, neat is not something that happens often."

Yes, but if we all became robots that would be a different story. I've heard robots are extremely neat. Also, there's the lack of emotions that solves 85% of the problem.

"People are complex. The choices they make might make no sense to someone on the outside, but to that person, even if it isn't rational, it makes sense to them. The best you can do is try and look at it from their point of view and be responsible for your actions."

Courtney snatched her piece of toast away from him.

"I still think a chart should be involved in some way."

"So does your mother. She made a pros and cons list before she accepted my proposal."

"Seriously?"

"Yes, it took her ten seconds in her mind but those ten seconds were the most terrifying of my life."

"And that doesn't worry you that she had to think about it?"

He shrugged and scooped out a spoonful of peanut butter. "No, because it only took her ten seconds. Some people work that way. Doesn't make them strange, just different. They are run by logic more strongly than emotions."

"So say if, someone didn't cry when a person broke up with them but instead, quickly analyzed the situation and took the best course of action, that wouldn't make them heartless?"

Her father smiled at her as he ate his spoon full of peanut butter. "You didn't cry when Aiden broke up with you?"

This Father superpower thing has got to stop, can't a daughter have any secrets!

"No."

"Have you cried since?"

Courtney ate some of her toast, come on peanut butter work your magical happiness magic!