Call Me: Lady X ✔

8: Oh Shit! Father's Day...

As far as G.N.O’s went, mine was mild, yet reasonably fun. I used words like “mild” and “reasonably” because Claire is kind of a buzz kill. But that was okay, because, there were two sides to the G.N.O coin.

On one side, Claire and I were spray painting rocks illegally, it was vandalizing, and I loved the adrenaline rush. Every time a car came, we’d dive in the gravel and hide in the brush at the base of the rock. No police cars drove by oh-so-casually, so we were pretty sure that no one saw us. We’d parked the car in the driveway of my Cousin’s camp As long as the car was parked there, no one would stop along the road to inspect it. He didn’t care, and it was thanks to that camp we discovered the rocks we’d just vandalized.

 

On the other side, Claire didn’t tell me what we’d be spray painting. She made a big “t” and, at first, I thought she was writing something that started with t, or that it was a plus sign, and she was going to put her and Marco’s name on each side of it. But, when I was in the middle of my own spray paint masterpiece, she looked at me, and said, “Will you write ‘Lives’ for me? Just below this right here.” She pointed to the plus sign. “Yeah” I said, thinking nothing of it, “Where? Below it?” I wondered.

“Mmmhmm. But write it to the right.”

I did as I was instructed, and she put another word in front of “Lives”. She thanked me. I finished my masterpiece on the rock.“Thank you! Again! So, what did you write?” She asked.

“Xaviera was here.” I grumbled. My lips mashed together.

“What’s wrong? Didn’t you have fun?!” Claire gasped. I nodded fiercely, not trying to hurt her feelings. Overall, it had been fun, but…I turned around to look at what Claire had painted- and me, technically, once more, the source of my annoyance.

Jesus Lives!

 My loopy handwriting looked like it belonged. And the so-obviously-a-cross-cross stared back at me, burning a hole in my eyes. And, for some reason, my heart. When I went home, I wished her luck for the following day, and the same pang of annoyance hit me as she drove away to her family.

Ugh.

 After a dreamless sleep, thank gosh, I woke up to the smell of a large non-homemade breakfast.

A smile threatening at my lips, I pounded downstairs.

“Morning.” Mom said, and plopped 2 big pancakes on a plate. There was bacon in the middle of the table, and toast was steaming. I smelled Cinnamon.

“Yum! What’s the occasion?” I said excitedly, forgetting that there was indeed an occasion. Mom must have figured I’d forgotten, too, and was trying to distract me even more. That hurt me. She couldn’t cook a big breakfast- or, in her case, order it- to make me happy. A just because Mom thing.

Sigh.

“Nothing. You’re just my favorite daughter.” She lied. It was obviously a distraction now. I could see it now that I’d actually opened my damn eyes.

We ate quietly. Well, I did, while she blubbered, trying to fill empty silence with irrelevant topics.

“Talk about full.” She murmured when her plate was empty. My own plate was fairly devoid of food, also, but it had taken a large effort on my part. I stabbed the last part of my pancake like I was some “cereal killer”(I laughed at my mental analogy without humor) and shoved it in my mouth. Out of nowhere, I began talking.

My mouth full of pancake, I said, “You know what sucks? Not having a father. On Father’s Day for crying out loud. I mean, I don’t get this: you have your father for, say, fifty years, and then he croaks, and you got upset about it. Makes no sense whatsoever. What about people like me? Who don’t even remember having Father’s day with their father at all? Or people in worse predicaments than me- like, those people who are babies when their Father’s die, and don’t get one Father’s day with their Dad’s. Freaking wimps who get freaking fifty years. They think we should pity them. Well, you know what sucks? It sucks for them. Because they aren’t getting on amount of pity from me!”