Daya

24|Promises

Instead of my dad driving in front of the elementary school to get me at 6:00 Vince walks over from practice at about 5:45. By that time all of the kids had left and Astrid made sure to give him her biggest smile. If I would've known this was his plan I could've just walked by myself to the school, but I know he's doing this because I was crying not too long ago. Really he's actually surprised and a little bit taken back that I'm not begging for him to hold me.

"So what did this girl and guy do?" Vince asks when we start walking down the street. He doesn't know Unna personally all he knows is when he was with Jessica she never liked the girl.

Really I don't want to talk about it anymore, but this is better than Vince asking about what happened when he left and Ziyah approached me.

"She made a list."

"Let me guess a list of the hottest girls and you got pissed because you weren't on it," He says with no emotion or surprise.  Wow Vince I'm not that superficial, and that only happens in movies sometimes.

"No."

"You were on a list of ugliest girls."

"No and don't forget we look alike." Since I want Vince to stop making terrible assumptions I quickly tell Vince everything about the situation.

As I explain it I realize what a spoiled dumb girl I am crying over something so stupid. No offense to Harper, but this is something she would cry and rant to me about while Rosa serves us orange slices.

Vince realizes I overreacted too, and tries to hide his smirk when he attempts to give me a look of sympathy. He throws his arm over my shoulder and I budge because of the thought of the last person who embraced me.

"You know I got into an agreement with Jada and she did the same shit." He shakes his head with a smile.

I look up at him in confusion, "What do you mean?"

"She listed all of my flaws," he clears his throat and changes his voice to a high pitch tone. "Vince you ain't shit, you think you the shit, your hair nappy, you shrug too much, and take things too far." I burst into laughter at his very accurate interpretation of Jada when she's mad. I also find it funny that all of these things he said are pretty much the few things that aren't perfect about him.

"What were you guys fighting about?"

"If milk or cereal goes first," he shrugs and more laughter comes out of me.

Vince and I both look at each other with a nod and say, "Cereal but only if it's Apple Jacks," at the same time.

We get home and my dad and I are in the kitchen listening to his new favorite artist Frank Ocean. Frank won his Grammy and released his album in 2012, yet my dad has just fallen in love with Channel Orange. Still I bob my head as my dad sort of hits Frank's notes while seasoning a chicken he will mostly eat next week.

As a sound engineer he has a great ear for all things  music and ever since I was a kid I've been listening to the best from The Foundations to The Isley Brothers. While most of my elementary classmates were listening to Taylor Swift I was listening to Motown and asking my mom if  I could wear an Afro.

According to our divorced shared custody schedule we should be at my mom's, but she is still at work so we're all still in our shoes not comfortable and waiting for her to come. This is the reason we're listening to music. My dad was about to go on a rant about my mother to Vince and I  while Kayla started getting Sawyer ready for a bath.

Vince had to do his round of push ups so I came to the rescue and "accidentally" played the album. My dad immediately calmed down and stopped aggressively patting the chicken breast. Dani and Vince should thank me because last time he went on one of his little rants we got put into an Uber where I fell asleep on Vince's shoulder.