Ladybug [h.s.]

1

Delilah

~~~~~~~~

"Delilah, toast popped!"

"Thank you, Daddy, I'll be right down." The sunlight filtering through the curtains burns into my back as I tie a red ribbon around my ponytail. Rejuvenating; relaxing. Warming and blanketing peace across my room. The girls insisted that we take advantage of the first true spring day to go to the park, ringing bright and early to tell me they'll pick me up half past eleven.

I skip down the stairs, holding the edges of my skirt firmly against my thighs, to find my father, plate in hand. He's dressed down for once, hair relaxed against the top of his head with a gentle cowlick at the back from sleeping on it. As the manager of the bank downtown, he's always rushing away in a sleek suit and arriving back home late with deep bags darkening the space below his eyes. It's refreshing to see him so peaceful - like he just got back from a weekend trip to see the orchestra, or planted a new bed of flowers in the garden. The ridges building mountain ranges in his forehead eroded away to basin fields. The stress tensing his blue eyes to ice having melted to drippy tin roof rainfall.

"Cinnamon-ed just how you like, baby girl." He grins, bright and wide, as I take the plate into my own grip. "'Was gettin' cold with how long you were taking up there getting ready."

I roll my eyes, biting the inside of my cheek to keep from smiling at his teasing.

"What trouble are you girls going to find today?" He asks, following me to the dining room table and pulling his coffee mug into his palms. His thumbs rub against the rim of the warm ceramic while he waits for an answer.

I pretend to think as I take a bite of my breakfast. "Maybe burning rubber at the track - oh! Maybe we'll go drag racing and then go pick up some studs at The Station."

It gets a laugh out of Dad regardless of the fact that it's not entirely a lie. What I don't tell him is that the bartender at The Station and the stretch of my breasts that spill out of the neckline of my tops are very well acquainted. Wandering eyes and forgotten payment. Condensation beading against the countertop like footprints towards my elbows perched against the cool wood. Sketching a dirt path trail toward the dip of my cleavage. Roadmap directions to persuasive skin.

I don't tell him that I've hidden in the trees to watch the racers, feeling their adrenaline course through my own body as the hollers of crowds propel their jacked up cars forward. The ripe smell of tires grilling into pavement sparking something somewhere deep in my chest. Some sort of adrenaline bursting like fireworks and unleashing violent color to scatter through my insides.

I don't tell him that I'm going to go to The Station tonight, without the girls, after him and Mom go to bed. I don't tell him that I'm going to climb under the screen of my window and shimmy down the tree beside the house, clothes hugging tight to my body and showing off more skin than he'd ever stand for. Sleek outlines of curves tracing shadows against the night. Treasure map trails for pirating touches.

It's his turn to roll his eyes at the incredulous idea of his Delilah being anything other than a perfect, innocent girl. "Oh no, my baby's going to change and never come back to me."

My lungs twinge at his words, the pool of guilt resting in the base of my stomach rolling like an ocean tide. I don't want to disappoint him. No matter how tightly the invisible constraints coil around my body, spider web spreading to twine my limbs in the translucent silk, I would do anything to make my father proud. Anything.

I've always been his little girl - his only girl. We'd go to dances together and I would stand on his toes while he swayed us around the room. He'd take me to get ice cream after school, and would pay extra for a banana split after tests. He learned all my favorite songs growing up to hold me securely in his lap while he sang and sang and sang. Mom always joked that I replaced her as his favorite girl, but, as time went on, I wasn't so sure it was ever a joke.