Patience

18

January 7, 2020

After leaving Stevie's house Tori started sleeping with her bedroom door ajar and her eyes shot open as loud knocks sounded at her door. She groaned but rolled out of bed and straightened out her gray pajama pants with pink flowers on them and her white dolman top that fell off of her shoulders revealing a tad bit of the black lacy bra she was wearing-because she's weird and sleeps in bras- even though the lace shows through the white anyway. As she's walking by her mirror she makes a face at the very messy bun her brown waves were thrown up in. She slowly trudges her way to the door of her apartment and she looks out the peephole where she can see and slightly hear Lindsey and Stevie arguing.  She smirks to herself and listens for a minute. 

"Stevie, I really don't think she's here." Lindsey sighs. 

"Lindsey's she's here. Mallory told me that her days off were Tuesdays and Sundays. She's here."  Stevie replies.

"Obviously she's not. We've been knocking for five minutes." Lindsey groans. 

"She could be in the bathroom, in the shower. Hell, she could still be sleeping." Stevie tells him. 

At that Tori swings the door open and pretty emotionlessly she says, "Yes I'm home. Tuesdays and Sundays are my days off, I was sleeping." 

"It's one in the afternoon." Lindsey looks at his watch.

"And?" She asks as they make their way into her tiny apartment.

"We got the results baby." Stevie smiles as Tori starts making her morning coffee. 

That immediately perks her up and she stops whipping around to look at her parents. 

"Well open them." Tori grabs the paper from Stevie's hand and slides her red painted fingernail across the top of the envelope. 

"What do they say?" Lindsey leans over the counter. 

"It says, The DNA of Tori Paige Cryderman is a 99.989 percent match to the DNA of Stephanie Lynn Nicks. The DNA of Tori Paige Cryderman is a 99.989 percent match to the DNA of Lindsey Adams Buckingham. Lindsey Buckingham is the paternal father of Tori Paige Cryderman and Stevie Nicks is the biological mother of Tori Paige Cryderman." Tori reads as Stevie starts crying and Lindsey pulls both of the girls into him. 

"Finally," Tori whispers. 

"Finally is right." Stevie sniffles placing her head against Tori. 

"So what do we do now?" Tori chuckles after a minute.

"I'll make your coffee for you and put it in a little travel mug and you're going to get dressed and then we're going to do whatever you want to do," Stevie tells her.

"Like we can go to that cute little bookstore on tenth and then we can all come back here and just hang out because that's what I was going to do today." Tori shrugs.

"That sounds perfect." Lindsey nods as Tori pulls away and heads towards her bedroom. 

When she's safely shut in the bedroom she squeals into her pillow and dances around the room for a hot minute. She then makes her way to her closet and changes into her light-washed bells-she gets a lot of her pants at thrift stores allowing her to find "vintage" bells and she absolutely loves them-a black silk tank top with a lace neckline and a gray cardigan. She takes brushes her hair and styles it by taking a strand of her hair and twists it back pinning it with a bobby pin and then pulling the rest in a low ponytail off to the side the twisty is. She does her makeup and untwists the chain of the moon necklace and fastens the moon bracelet. She sleeps in the butterfly ring so she just straightens it and grabs at her black platform boots before joining her parents in the living room. 

***

Lindsey buys Tori a leatherbound book of all of Poe's poetry and Shakespeare's writing. Stevie tried to get her not to buy the Poe book as she has one that Tori can have once she passes and while Tori agreed to take it, she said she wanted her own too. She wanted to write in the margins blindly and then compare them with her mother's margin notes. After the book store they found themselves entering a big boy and when they're being led to a booth Tori's eyes go wide and she turns into her father's shoulder. 

He gives her a weird look and then as soon as she slides into the corner of the booth she hides her face behind the menu. 

"Tor..." Stevie starts sliding in next to her but she holds up her right hand and shakes her head quickly. 

"Um, she'll have a raspberry iced tea. I will too." Stevie sighs after a moment. 

"And I'll have a coke." Lindsey nods opening up his menu. 

"What's going on?" Stevie asks once the waitress is gone. 

"Chad," Tori whispers.

"Chad, who's Chad?" Lindsey asks.

"My Ex-Husband." She states.

"What, where?" Stevie asks.

"The corner directly across from us." She says. 

And right on cue, he walks over to them carrying a to-go box. And she keeps her head firmly behind the menu. 

"Hi aren't you Stevie Nicks?" He asks 

"Maybe, who are you?" She questions looking him up and down. He's tall and very muscular with his biceps pulsing out from under his army green teeshirt. He's wearing camo cargo shorts as well and some flipflops. His hair is sandy blonde and he has green eyes, which Stevie found interesting because Green was rare. Not to mention he was only made slightly hotter by the scruff on his chin. 

"I'm Chad Cryderman. I'm sorry for barging up like this you're obviously in a meeting or something, but I just wanted to tell you that my ex-wife, her name was Tori was a huge fan of yours, and yours Mr. Buckingham, but she kind of found Fleetwood Mac through Stevie Nicks, anyway. She got me turned onto your music and I got my new Fiance turned onto it. Caroline wants our first wedding dance to be Sleeping Angel. Do you think you could sign this napkin? I didn't use it, it was the extra one at my booth." He asks handing her a napkin and a pen. 

Stevie cocks an eyebrow but signs it, she stops halfway and looks up at him. "To Tori, Caroline, or You?"

"Caroline." He smiles.

"Fine." She states finishing her signature and handing it back to Chad. 

"Thanks so much. I really appreciate it...Wow, your signature kind of has the same swoopy handwriting as Tori's did." He grins walking away.