I Dream of Disney (Volume II)

Rattle the Starts [Jim Hawkins x Reader] Part IV

PART IV: Reality 

I had blown it. Bigtime.

And for what? An alluring new boy with dark eyes? 

In the very precise manner of a scientist marking out her apparatus, I considered what was about to happen and felt the blood drain from my face. There were too many scenarios and none of them appeared very good. I expected there would be a lot of shouting, screaming and yelling. Perhaps a few fluttery profanities just for embellishment. Then maybe some sulking: pouty lips; dewy eyes. One of those awkward, extended silences that droned on eternally and ended only when the door slammed. 

When I unlocked the door and stepped to the side to let Delbert in, I didn't know what to expect.

Instead, Delbert very calmly entered the room. I had been sitting on the edge of the bed, trying to kick off one of my shoes without undoing the laces. I watched as he drew out the chair from the dressing table, removed his coat and positioned it securely on the back of the chair. Now only in the long-sleeved white shirt and the peculiar cravat necktie in pea-soup-green. He undid the necktie and sat down in the chair with his hands on his knees.

"Are you still angry with me?"

He hadn't said a word until then.

"No," Delbert said, "I'm not angry with you."

I nodded slowly. Just as he started to speak, I interrupted him.

"Are you about to play the ultimate parent blackmail card?" I probed, " The 'I'm not angry, I'm disappointed with you" speech. Because if you are, I just want you to know that it'll have no effect on me. I didn't mean to stay out for so long," I added softly, "and I didn't mean to run away, either."

Delbert was watching me closely now. The intelligence that I once found so intruiging became annoying when it was suddenly all focused on me.

"Do you think you'll be happy here?"

I was startled, "What?"

Delbert repeated his words very slowly, "Do you think you'll be happy here, (Y/n)?"

I could think about the awkward conversations that he and I would be forced to have if we were going to have anything of a suitable father-daughter relationship. I could remember the squeamish feelings when I considered the über girly furniture, little girl bedspread and raggedy diary currently suffocating beneath the mattress. I could imagine the kind of interested but pretending-to-look-away experiences I would have with Jim as we watched each other and then looked away boredly, as if we weren't attracted to each other (which, duh, we kind of were). It was bound to be one jolting, nauseating, screwed-up and twisted part of my adolescent life that I could have avoided if I'd just stayed with my mom and soon-to-be step-dad on Thiria.

And yet. . .

"Yeah," I said honestly, "I think I will be."

Delbert nodded, "Good."

The astrophysicist then stands up, collects his coat over one arm and walks out of the room. I sit there, stunned out of my mind, and wonder why the sit-coms and dramas could've been so wrong. I thought about reaching under the mattress and starting to write some more but I don't know what I would write about.

 I was somewhere in the middle of misery and pity when I heard the sound. At first I assumed that it was a passing thing, perhaps the work of a nesting dove or the eeks of some rat-like creature as it crossed the drainpipe. It lost my attention as I returned to punching my pillow, throwing it across the floor and slapping it repeatedly in its soft, memory foam face (assuming, in fact, that pillows have faces and if that question was important enough for me to care).