KY$ ✓

Twenty-Five | Cheetah

SOTC: Hollywood Whore by MGK

July 4th, 2012

"RAWR!"

Dad tagged me and I back flopped on the freshly mowed yawn, scream-laughing. He joined me by hopping on his end and laying his lanky figure beside me.

"Are you a T-Rex?" I barely got out from amusement.

"Why yes I am, Claire Bear. I'm the scariest T-Rex of all with skinny legend arms and thirsty appetite for... you!" Dad began to tickle my belly and I screamed again in bursts of euphoric child giggles.

Suddenly, he grunted and clasped where my hand flailed out and hit his chest.

"Daddy, what's wrong?"

Dad exhaled, running a large hand through his pale hair. "Nothing. I just have a spot there," he said with a curve tugging the corners of his mouth upward, one able to illuminate the spinning globe where the Sun's rays couldn't touch.

"Look, you have a spot under your eye, too!" I gasped with the brightest smile as I pointed at the red crescent under his left one. "Daddy, you see it?"

"That's because I'm..." He paused before smiling again. "I'm turning into a cheetah."

"A CHEETAH?" I gasped.

"Yes, lil ma'am."

"THAT IS SO COOL!" I shouted, shooting up on my knees. "Can I be a cheetah?! Can I? Can I? Can I?"

"Claire Bear, I don't want you to be a cheetah," he said, his voice quieter than his last words.

My face dropped. "Why not?"

"Because... cheetah spots hurt whenever you touch them. Plus, you know, you have to cover them up because no one can know you're a cheetah."

"Like a secret ingenuity?"

"Identity, but yeah, sumn- something like that."

I sighed in defeat, crashing my back on the grass and ripping out a dandelion.

He paused again. "You need to find someone that can make you an animal... without spots."

"What do you mean find someone?" The whininess rattling my vocals evoked a chuckle from him.

"Someone to... marry."

"DADDY, MARRIAGE IS GROSS!" I shot into a sitting position, earning a large, echoing laugh from Dad.

"Because people kiss in marriages?"

"DUH!"

He threw his hands up. "Ok, I surrender to your philosophy!" Chuckles erupted from him before finally put them down. "Just promise me that if you do get married, find someone who nearly makes you as happy as this." He pointed at my and his covered soulmate scar. "Love means that they are a better addition to yourself."

"Did your parents love each other like you and mommy did?"

"Um.." Dad paused again, his eyes shifting before looking back at me. "Most importantly, even in disagreement, never will they harm you mentally or phy—"

"Channing!"

We both whipped our heads to Mom by the opening garage door, storming out of it as it opened, holding baby Hannah near her pregnant stomach.

"Get in the fucking car, we're going to be late for the barbecue! And if you rave about Communist blonde drunks again I swear to God I'll make you pay for it aga—" Her rant halted upon seeing me, and her teeth clenched before she just growled, "Just get in."

Dad's straight face suffocated in numbness burned into my memory.

So was the way his eyes soulessly brightened when he found my gaze, and a wide curve formed on his face as he said, "May we go, Lady Claire Bear?"

I fistbumped his newly tattooed knuckles reading, 'CLARA' I loved so much, grabbed his hand and happily skipped to the car.

Next Chapter Teaser: Zoe Banadax does something unforgivable to Clara...