Struggles of a Single Father (Book 1 of the Struggle Puff Series)

Chapter 35

Edited 03/15/2020

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After leaving the café, I went straight home and took a long hot bath. Afterwards, I got dressed in pajamas and laid in my bed.

Around nine o' clock, I heard the door open and close, letting me know that Tilisia was home. I thought she was just going to go to her room, but instead she came to mine.

"Hey." She said softly.

"How was work?"

She shrugged before laying down next to me. For some reason, I felt that shrug on a personal level.

"Same." I muttered. I grabbed the remote from my side table and handed it to her, "I'm assuming you want to watch something."

She grabbed it and turned on the flat screen that was hung on the wall opposite of my bed.

"Honestly," She said lowly, "Today kinda sucked."

I looked over at her and felt my heart shatter when I noticed she was on the verge of tears.

"Do you want to talk about it?" I wasn't surprised when she shook her head, but I still pulled her close to hug her, "That's fine. Just know that I'm always here when you're ready."

"Same goes for you." She said. We smiled at each other before turning our attention back to the screen.

After we settled on watching The Greatest Showman, we paused it and got a bunch of snacks and drinks together before settling back down in my bed.

"Be honest, do you actually wanna go to school tomorrow?" I asked.

"Not even a little bit. But I'll get over it."

I thought for a moment before making a decision, "I think that since we both had pretty terrible days, we should make up for it by doing fun stuff tomorrow?"

She looked at me as if I were crazy, "Is this a trap?"

"Nope." I replied with a shrug, "I can't expect remarkable results at school if you're not in the right mind, and I can't really do anything at work with what's going on. So why not have a little fun instead?"

For the first time that day, I saw her genuinely smile, "I am so down with that. Just us, right? Nobody else."

"Just us." I confirmed.

She squealed excitedly and rested her head on my shoulder, "Okay. You better not flake out."

"Please. You're the flaker in this family. Not me." I laughed.

After the movie, I looked over to see that Tilisia was knocked out. I took that as a sign to go to sleep as well, and before I knew it, I was out like a light.

.

.

I woke up at almost eleven in morning and felt refreshed.

I decided to make pancakes, sausage, and eggs for brunch. It wasn't long before Tilisia came out of her slumber to eat. We talked about an assortment of things but avoided our yesterday completely.

Once the food was done and put away, we headed to Lenox Mall for what Tilisia called retail therapy.

I wasn't quite sure how shopping was supposed to help at first until we started trying things on and getting them just because we liked them. I'm not sure how, but it made us both feel a lot better.