When All Our Souls Fell Apart

Fathers Day

"BEEP BEEP BEEP" goes my alarm clock as I am once again dramatically awoken from my peaceful slumber. I struggle to find the Silence button on my alarm clock, when I finally do, I roll back over and drift off to sleep again. My body decides it's time to get up thirty two minutes later. I wake up and for a moment, forget what day it is, until I realize...it's June 21, Fathers Day, and to make matters worse its also a Monday. Meaning I now have approximately 28 minutes to get ready for school. My body goes from peace to panic in an instant as I pace around my room fumbling around for something to wear, then the next moment I'm running to the bathroom scrambling for my makeup bag. Nine minutes to go and I still have to (1) brush my teeth, (2) get my shoes on and (3) get something to eat for lunch. I decide to skip the last step and in an instant I'm running out the door yelling "Mommy I'm leeaaaaving! I love youuu!" behind me. Ahh now here's the part of my morning that's a bit tricky, getting my tuba on the bus. The struggle is real for us band kids, I sigh. The bus ride is short and mundane, typical teenagers doing typical teenage things, cussing, complaining and kissing. But for all it's diversity, I've always kind of felt attached to my bus, like somehow were all connected because we live in the same area of Dayton, Ohio. But once we get to school, everything changes as we all go our separate ways. When I get to school I head immediately for the band room, maybe there I will find some peace. But instead of peace, I just keep worrying about what's going to happen after school. I don't think I can handle seeing my dad today. I need to find Elsie, my best friend, and possibly the one person in this world who at least tries to understand my situation with my dad. She's a good stress reliever, I can just sit in her presence and start to feel the anxiety slip away. We spend so much time together, it sometimes feels like we're the same person. Elsie is like me in alot of ways but she's also very different. She's very athletic, meaning she has athletics in the morning so I won't be able to see her until second hour, which happens to be English.

Im zoned out thinking about Tommy when Mr. Lait asks me a question. I jerk my head up, confused because I didn't hear a word he said except for my name. "Umm what?" I blush. "Could you please play your concert F," he responds. I play a low F into my tuba. He gives me the OK and goes to the next person. Band life sucks. I look at the clock again, 48 minutes to go... What do I do? How do I tell someone I've hurt so badly that I love him? I don't want to be rejected but...Ugh. Maybe I will write him something...no, maybe I will draw him something. Oh! Ill give him my notebook! I've been writing in the same notebook for about 8 months. It mostly contains song lyrics, "journal entries", and drawings of Tommy and I. Some of us dancing, some of us sleeping, some of us just sitting on a swing. Apparently my mind has more time than it needs. I hope he won't think I'm obsessive, but in all reality I kind of am. Is it obsessive to think about the same person 24/7 and have imaginary conversations with them? Oh it doesn't matter, I love him, and that's that. I think he may be the first guy I've actually liked for himself, not for the way he treats me, or the way he says my name...just for who he is. I just don't know how to express that to him.

Second hour and the preceding four hours pass by slowly and painfully. Elsie has made her mind up and is one hundred percent against me loving, let alone liking Tommy. She doesn't really have any advice on my whole daddy-situation though. I don't know if I can handle a surprise visit from him today. A part of me knows that I need to talk to him but the other part of me is screaming NO! I really don't like men. Well I guess I should rephrase, I really don't like the egotistical pigs who think they deserve the world because they are men. Which in fact they do not. But that is another story.

I've decided to bring my notebook tomorrow and give it to him at the end of the day. I need to tell Eli about my plan but I haven't seen him all day. "Elsie, was Eli even here today?"
"No he was sick. Didn't he tell you?" she says.
"Uh no he didn't..." I say a little confused. Eli usually tells me these things. I call my group of friends the E Squad. I'm not sure how it happened or how we all found each other but, were all best friends. Eli, the gay hilarious drama queen one, Eleanor, the reserved, short, pretty, keep-everyone-in-line one, Elsie, the athlete and my best friend, and me, Elaine. The tuba-playing, weird, crazy, emotional one. They dynamics of our group work quite well actually. It balances itself out.

I decide to stop by Eli's house on my way home, just to make sure he's okay. Sure enough, he's completely fine, he's playing hooky. Well that was a waste of time. But I don't really need my time right now. I get an awful feeling as I pull out of his driveway. The truth is inevitable. I must go home sometime. I pull into my neighborhood and see my dads ford in my driveway. Dammit. I take my time getting out, then slowly make my way inside, anything to speed the hands of time. When I walk in the door, my immediate family-consisting of my mom, her boyfriend and my dad-is sitting at the table staring up at me like I started World War Two. "We've been waiting for thirty minutes. I called you three times AND texted. "Where were you?" my mom condoned. "Eli was sick. Had to see if he was okay." As I was saying this my dad scooted his chair back and stood up, he reached for an embrace that I took coldly. "Hello Elaine. It's good to see you," he whispered. It gave me shudders. "Hi," I said flatly. I went to the kitchen to get a drink and he sat back down. My mom gave me the be-good-and-tell-your-dad-who-you-haven't-seen-in-a-year-Happy-Fathers-Day-look, to which I responded with the It-was-a-good-year-look. The rest of the evening went downhill from there.