Daddy's Little Ragdoll

Chapter Nine

Chapter Nine

    Gosh, I can’t believe we’re having this fight. Again.

    Stephen is picking up her bag off the floor, stuffing her clothes back into it. During our fight she started packing everything to go home and I unpacked, throwing everything in different directions. Now, in a calm manner we’re picking up her belongings.

    “Alec, I get that you’re worried about me, but I can’t leave her there by herself.”

    “She’s a grown woman, she could go to the police if she needs to.”

    “Drunk?”

    I shake my head. “If you’re so worried about her than why don’t you call the police?”

    Sighing heavily, she gives me the same explanation as the many times before. “I can’t do that to my own father, I can’t turn him in.”

    I bend down to pick up the promise ring that Stephen flung at me during the peak of our fight. Handing it to her I nod my head. “Okay, I get it. So what do you suppose we do?”

    Stephen slips the ring on her finger. “I’m not sure. Nothing, nothing for now.”

    Her back is turned to me and I mumble a few curse words under my breath. I finish putting the last of her clothes into the bag, she zips it up. I feel like we’re moving in slow motion, both watching the other, making sure not to step on broken glass.

    “I think I’m going to go for a drive. The old car hasn’t been used much in the last few months, I don’t want to deprive it any longer.” Stephen glances at me, waiting for some sort of reaction.

    I nod.

    She looks disappointed for a moment, but before I can say anything she’s gone. I hear her voice in the next room and then Abigail’s voice. A few minutes pass and through my window I can see that Stephen and Abigail are both headed for Stephen’s old car. They drive off, neither giving the house a second glance.

    “Taylor?” I yell.

    Feet walk to my open door. “What, did you screw up again and want me to help fix it?”

    Taken aback, I say, “Um, no. Why would you even think that?”

    “Well considering the screaming and shouting, I assumed you screwed up again. It tends to be that way when it comes to you two.”   

    “Thanks,” I say sarcastically.

    “Whatever. So what do you want?”

    “Remember when Stephen was missing, you asked me if I loved her. Why’d you ask me that?”

    “I thought I already knew, I wanted to know for sure.”

    “Why?”

    Taylor pauses and doesn’t say anything for a few minutes. “I was hoping you had finally gotten over Alley. She wasn’t the nicest person and yet, you got all hung over on her.” As an afterthought she adds, “I like Stephen better, way better.”

    “Me too.”

    Taylor shrugs at my words. Then, walks over to my bed plops down. She relaxes and pulls out her phone. Like any other teenage girl, she begins to text, and extremely fast at that. After awhile she seems to get bored and tosses her phone on the floor.

    I watch my little sister. She’s grown up a lot in the last year and I thought I would have noticed, but I didn’t. Not until I started looking. Taylor is taller, more grownup. She is starting to turn from my kid sister to a pretty girl. Which also means that I’m going to have to go all “big brother” on some boys. She’s so mature too, hard to believe that she is only in middle school.