I Hate California

two

Sage sat up in her Dad's bed just staring into the darkness, thinking about what her friend had told her in school. Her friend Lily was going to attend a concert next week and had an extra ticket, wanting to bring Sage with her. Sage forgot whose concert it was and was trying her best to remember.

"Is my Princess awake?" She hears her Dad's voice as he turns on the bedroom lights, making Sage fall back into bed, blinded by the lights.

Joe chuckles and embraces his daughter picking her up and wrapping her in a blanket as they headed downstairs.

He sets Sage in her chair with a little snack tray in front of her consisting of some mangoes, a yogurt, and pretzels. As she started to eat, she watched as her Dad organized their fridge.

"Daddy?" Sage asks as she fidgets with a pretzel in her hand.

"Yeah boo?" Joe responds, but still stocking stuff in the fridge.

"My friend Lily wants me to go to this concert with her. I forgot who for, but she said she has a ticket for me." She says and Joe stops what he's doing and turns to her.

"I'll give Lily's Mom a call, do you want to go?" He asks her and she nods her head, still sleepy.

Joe situates Sage on the couch as he turned on another Barbie movie for her to watch as he headed back into the kitchen to give Lily's Mom, Anna a call.

"Hi Anna! This is Joe." He says when she answers the phone.

"Oh Hi Joe! I'm guessing Lily told Sage about the concert." She says and he agrees and she chuckles on the other end.

"Yeah, Lily and I will be attending Taylor Swift's Era's Tour next week and had an extra ticket since her Dad is going to be working and Lily wanted to see if Sage could go along with us." She explains.

Right as Joe heard that name, he froze. He didn't know what to do, he has barely ever had to tell Sage "No" in her life and this was an unfair reason to do so. Sage barely even knows who Taylor Swift is, unless she has heard her come on the radio, but other than that she doesn't know anything else.

"Oh, where are your tickets located? Do you think it's possible if I can buy a ticket myself?" Joe asks, if he was going to let his daughter attend, he wanted to be present.

"They're floor tickets, one of the first row and on the aisle, but I don't know, it was already hard enough trying to get us tickets, you could look on resell sites, but those are selling for way too much." Anna sighs.

Joe looks over at Sage who is fully engrossed into the movie.

"I'll think about it for a day, if that's alright?" Joe asks and Anna happily agrees.

After they hang up, Joe goes back into his messages and opens up the most recent contact. He wanted to give it a shot, but at the same time was scared to do so, for the sake of Sage.

Joe ends up resisting and phones his Mom.

"Mom." He says when she answers the phone.

"Yes hun, is something wrong?" She asks.

Joe shakes her head, "Not really, I mean, I don't know."

"What happened?" She asks in a more worried tone.

Joe sighs, "A friend of Sage asked if she could go to a concert with them. A Taylor Swift concert."

The line was silent, "Oh." was all Elizabeth could say after hearing that.

"What did you say?" She asks.

"I told her friend's Mom that I was going to think about it, the downside is, I wouldn't be able to go, tickets are hard to get, basically sold out." He explains to her.

Joe doesn't want to let his daughter down, knowing that this is probably going to be one of the most exciting things for her to experience this summer, he didn't want to risk it.

"It's up to you son, do what you think is best, for Sage." She tells him and he closes his eyes for a moment.

"I'll think about it." He tells her and they hang up the phone.

He walks back over to the living room where Sage is laying on the couch and lifts her so she's laying on his chest and they both watch the movie together.

Joe runs his fingers through her hair as he thinks about the situation he is in. He was terrified to say the least.

It was now night time in the Alwyn house hold and Joe had just finished giving Sage a bath. Now that she didn't have school, her bedtime was set a little later, which she was very happy about.

"Can I sleep with you tonight Daddy?" She asks him, looking up with her bright blue eyes that he could never say no to.

"Of course darling." He says and they both walk to his bedroom.

He gets Sage situated in bed along with her blanket and teddy. He watches as she reads her book, he would've read it to her, but now she insists on trying to read books on her own.

Sage stops in the middle of her book and looks up at her Dad.

"Daddy? What did Lily's Mom say about the concert?" She asks.

"We talked, and it's a Taylor Swift concert, do you really want to go that bad?" He asks her and she nods her head excitingly.

He couldn't not let her go, but at the same time he was still so worried. He was worried something might happen to Sage if he wasn't there. Now he wondered if he could ask Lily's Mom if he could attend with the girls instead.

He watched Sage's chest move up and down slowly as she was sleeping and was lost in his thoughts.

Suddenly he heard his phone ding.

"She's perfect." She replied to his text message he sent last week of photos of Sage posing with the flowers at Trader Joe's.

Joe stared at his screen, making sure it was actually there and that she had actually replied to him. He wanted to talk to her, he wanted her to meet Sage, but was afraid.

All he could think about was when she left him that night, Sage was only a month old, he was for sure he was never going to forgive her, for leaving their daughter.