A Hole of Lies

Chapter 7

"Jules! Dinner time!" Marty yelled from the kitchen. I heard a ding from the speaker in my room and Marty's voice echoed off of there from downstairs.

"Julie, just in case you didn't hear me, its dinner time!"

I rolled my eyes. He always wants to do things twice.

After the epic failure of my dad actually trying to talk to me,  I recovered from the shock of the giant dent in the wall. You could almost see the hall through it. Wow, I didn't know I was that strong.

No time for that, though. I had to take action. My God, what was I going to do???

I turned around and picked up a forgotten scarf out of my closet and grabbed a hook and stuck it to the wall. I put the scarf on it. There. All better. Just looks like another piece of decoration.

The beep startled me when it came out of the speaker, "I know it is matrilineal that you come late for dinner, your female ancestors all did the same, but the food is getting cold!" Rang Marty's voice.

I made sure the scarf and hook were stable and gently opened and closed the door. I slowly, spy-like, walked down the stairs. I examined the activities downstairs. Dad was sitting helplessly at the dinning table, where Marty was serving food from multiple dishes.

"Oh, dear God. Please save me." I muttered under my breath.

I walked to the dinning table, with my head down low. I had finally gotten my wig untangled from my real hair and got my face back to normal from the disordered look it had been before.

"There you are," Marty sighed.

I sat down in my usual spot, and the second I did, I actually noticed all the food. Turkey, fruit salads, regular salads, steak chunks, chicken chunks, and what was that? Was that rabbit?! I'm a vegetarian!

"So, Jules. How ya' feeling?" Marty asked trying to prove he was right about me not being sick.

"Well, to tell the truth, horrible since you brought me here. It seems like you've forgotten that I'm A VEGETARIAN!" I yelled, standing up which made my chair catapult into the wall behind me.

"Julie! You stay right here!" My dad suddenly blurted out. Marty and I looked at him with blank expressions. "Sit down, both of you." He said quietly. "Let Marty introduce you to the food, before you throw a fit." He added, feeling ashamed.

I grabbed my chair and slowly sat down, and Marty mirrored.

"Well," Marty began, still recovering from the shock, sort of unable to form the words on his tongue. "This here is, is uh, turkey. But Julie, you don't have to eat it....you know. And this is tofu, not chicken. And this is just uh- it's just...." Marty was so quiet.

"This is steak, but again, you don't have to eat it. Jeez, Marty. Is it that hard? You're making me suffer by putting all this delicious food in front of me and forcing me to wait. Let's eat!" My dad finished off throwing his arms up in the air, almost knocking over his glass. He was acting like nothing ever happened all these years.

He started digging in all the food, putting mountains of it on his plate, like he has never seen food before. Marty and I were just looking at him in disgust. At least I was. It almost seemed like Marty was looking at him in admiration. My shoulders shiver as I thought about it, so I just dug into my food as well. Marty put his hands on his lap and just looked down. Prayer.

"Oh yes!" My dad yelled, making me jump and losing my piece of tofu. "Thanks Marty." He lifted his glass and beckoned us to do the same. "I would like to dedicate this wondrous meal to me." He chuckled at that. "For my success of fixing myself up. I feel that it's too much just sitting around. I would like to thank Marty for," He took a breath. He will probably say for taking care of me. "For helping me and pushing me forward and making me end up like this. Cheers!"

What?!? He didn't even say a single word about me! Does he even know I'm his own daughter that he's supposed to take care of?!

"I would also like to say something." I added, surprising them. "I would like to thank Marty for helping me all these years, and for becoming my legal guardian, and for helping me overcome the fear that I like to call my dad." I announced. Marty was officially my legal guardian, but we decided that we wouldn't tell him that.

I started shoving mouthfulls of tofu and salad in my mouth, looking down, trying not to spit it at "dad" and burst out laughing. I was basically mimicking him.

Marty looked at me with anger, but Dad, his face was falling apart. He was going to yell, yell his mouth right off. But instead, he said,"Will you excuse me?" He got up and went straight for the bathroom.

Once he was out of earshot, Marty said,"How dare you?!!? How dare you ever do that?! We discussed this!"

"Well, why did you ever sign that paper?" I protested.

"Because I thought he was damaged forever!!" He screamed back.

"Damaged? That's how you put it? Pffff!  But if you knew he wold be "damaged" forever, why would you ever try to help him? When you knew this would happen?"

"Well, I didn't know you would tell him!" He yelled.

"Oh come on, the mans got to find out about it sometime!" I said," Plus, I am kind of happy you signed those papers." I added. " I don't want to be stuck with that freak that for many years I called my father!" I admitted.

Just then, Paul, my ex-father, if you wish, came into the room.

"May I have a word with Julie please?" He asked kindly.

Uh-oh. Trouble-time. Panic-time! Major, major, major panic-time. Who knows what this man could do? But, Marty could always report it as child-abuse if he punches me or something......

Marty nodded at me. I stood up and Paul started walking towards the office. I turned around and Marty gave me a stare that said," Go or I'll rip your head off." Maybe it should be the other way around: Paul reports Marty.

Once we were in, we sat down. Paul took a deep breath and said,"Is it true? Did he- is he your legal guardian?" His voice was shaky.

"Well, yeah... I mean, we both thought you would be damaged forever and I couldn't keep on living like that!" I used the word,"damaged" just to be mean.

"Damaged? Forever? Did you really think? Damaged? You told your friends I was damaged?" He whined. Wow, I guess he really was like me.

"Well, you don't really want to know how my life is inside of school!" I admitted.

"Please tell me." He pleaded.

"I look different, I act different, I am different." I didn't feel like explaining it all.

"What do you mean?" He asked, wanting to know the details.

"I have green eyes, blond hair, perfect teeth, I am the most popular girl in the school, Marty is my dad who is a pro-soccer player. We live in his house, and well, that's basically it. But that is all I'm telling you!" I explained casually, like it's the most normal thing in the world.

"What is your name?" He asked shakily.

"Uh.. Julie..." I said slowly, confused. Had he even forgotten his own ex-daughter's name?

"No, I mean inside of school."

"Oh! Cassandra." I said happily, for some reason. I could just feel his heart being ripped into shreds. Somehow, I was enjoying it.

"Okay." He said. He got up and left the room. I was paralyzed. Was that it? Wow, that wasn't that bad!