True Blue ✷ Leo Valdez.

10: Let Me Know You.

     BLAIRE SULLIVAN KNEW SHE WAS only dreaming. Or at least, the more rational half of her subconscious being knew she was only dreaming. However, she couldn't stop herself from wallowing in the absolute joy that her supposed current situation brought forth.

  She was trapped in the past—in the reminder of what she once was fortunate enough to call reality. A reminder of the life pretaining normalcy that had managed to slip between the crevices of her youthful fingers before she had the sense to properly grasp it with all of the might her girlish body could withstand.

  Blaire Sullivan was merely six years old. She was six years old and unharmed by the treacherous veracity that was life. She was six years old and she was happy.

Her most prominent worry wasn't death. Nor was it the cryptic promise of her prophetic downfall. Instead, it was the impending threat of her bedtime, the upcoming absence of cartoons.

  "Daddy," Blaire whined, the flushed apples of her cheeks turning upward into a toothy grin. Her wayward hair was falling free from the pigtails she'd previously sported, for the complex knot of her pink ribbons were coming undone. "Ten more minutes, please."

  The aforementioned elder man peered down at his young daughter. The edges of her wide grin were stained from the remenants of dinner, spaghettios— without meatballs. Blaire never liked the meatballs.

  "You've got school tommorow, B," Ben Sullivan reminded the small child with a playful shake of his head, "You need your beauty sleep."

Blaire pouted, jutting her bottom lip out dramatically. She clung to the denim leg of his trousers, her rosey cheek pressed flush against the rough fabric. "Daddy, pretty please?"

The racket of some outdated VHS tape playing on a boxy television located mere feet away from the small family rang above the girl's pleas, dialing back the sincerity of her requests. A static cartoon occupied the scarce area of the television.

"Tell you what," Ben began, kneeling until he was eye level with his daughter. His Blaire. "I'll read to you. If you agree to sleep now, I'll read to you."

Blaire thought for a moment, her large-doe eyes wide with silent question. "Can you do the funny voices?"

"I can do the funny voices," Ben confirmed, eliciting a shrill-joyous giggle from young Blaire. The sound ricocheted off the bare walls, gracing Ben's emotions with such jubilation, he couldn't help but chuckle.

  Without having to be told, Blaire Sullivan hurried to the flimsy pull-out bed she became acquainted to resting in, flopping backwards onto the matress with a yawn. Meanwhile, Ben fingered through the small stack of storybooks piled on a nearby shelve with great focus.

"How's Humpty-Dumpty sound?" He quiered, glancing over his shoulder at Blaire, who watched him with a coltish smile.

"Good," Blaire told him, holding a purple-painted thumb up in comformation.

  He made his way back over to his daughter, perching himself atop the arm rest of the furniture, beside Blaire, who was awaiting him eagerly. The man lay the book in his lap and reached down to pull the colorful sheets over his child, covering the floral pattern of her nightgown and protecting her from the low temperatures prevading the stale air of the small apartment. He'd not been able to pay the most recent bill required to keep the rustic heater running, therefore the November chill had begun to seep past the walls of their home.

  "Are you cold?" Ben asked her, wiping the tad of sauce residing on the corner of her mouth away using his thumb. "Need another blanket, Bug?"

   Blaire shook her head rapidly in denial, furrowinf herself further into the sheets. "No. Please read with the funny voices now, daddy!"