Under The Surface [Editing]

Chapter Eighteen Road Trip

My dad had been home for two whole weeks and everyone was doting on him.

My neighbors brought over cakes and casseroles and ‘get well soon’ cards, just to get in on the gossip. Nothing ever happened in our neighborhood, it wasn’t the best, but it was quiet. I found it annoying after the first week. They all meant well, but I was running out of room in the fridge. Nathan was probably bulking up as he was eating the majority of it.

My mother made herself scarce when I was home. She was cordial but neither one of us was ready to try and repair the relationship. Ignorance was my best defense right now with her. My anger had dissipated since she was being so helpful to my dad. His lawyer wants to try and sue her for false accusations but my dad had mixed feelings about that. I was glad he was somewhat resentful.

Luckily he has been recovering quickly since it was not a problem with his physical health or heart itself. He wanted to go back to work but all his co-workers and boss were not letting him until the doctor says so.

Nathan has been very…different lately. He was more talkative and playful. He has been calling his mother and talking to her too, which was a change. He told me a little about it. He was trying to convince her to leave his father and go to a protected battered woman’s home. She refused, but with my dad’s encouragement Nathan had not given up on her yet.

His overall mood seemed to have been improving from that and he was becoming more pleasant to be around. My dad relied on his help a lot when my mom left, always just before we would arrive home from school. My dad had given me the keys to the car since he was not allowed to drive with the medication he was taking and the pain killers. I was thoroughly enjoying being able to drive. We only had one car, and I had my license, I just never got to drive.

Nathan had taken to a new pastime of teasing my driving skills, constantly. He would purposely startle me to get me to jerk the wheel, which didn’t always work but when it did I would scream at him. Anytime I forgot a basic rule of the road: using your blinker, the ten and two position on the steering wheel, texting while driving, and the like he would tease and rail me for it, since I had regrettably said I was an ‘excellent driver’.

Speaking of which he liked to pretend to be ‘rainman’ from the Tom Cruise and Dustin Hoffman movie, especially when people could hear it just to embarrass me. He had quite the sense of humor when he wasn’t consumed and brooding about his family. I wondered if I had something to do with that. Despite my attempts to ignore it or stay annoyed and angry with him he always managed to make me laugh.

Over these two weeks I found myself thinking about Nathan and watching him more and more. Lily and Debra even noticed a change in my attitude at school. They didn’t bring the Nathan situation up often, but they knew it was a big part of the change in both of us. He always bothered me in P.E. class much to Penny’s annoyance.

James had begun hanging out with her and they always gave me dirty looks. Penny still tried to instigate with me as well. It was becoming a little harder to ignore. Lily and Debra were a big help and always had my back in that they kept an eye out for her and were listening for anything she might be attempting to try in retaliation.

What was changing for me was Nathan’s presence in P.E. while it was the only class he bugged me in, he felt more endearing than annoying. We bantered like friends rather than enemies. My dad was becoming more and more aware of our growing affection and I could see his worry about it, but he never interfered. That scared me more than anything at the moment.

He hadn’t actually made anymore moves to try and kiss me again or be overly affectionate. It was almost as if he had put that on hold to see what I would do if he just started being a friend. I knew his father was beginning to frustrate him lately about his conversations with his mother.