The Elijah Walker Fanclub

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Five

"Mae are you dressed, can I come in?" said Dad, as he knocked lightly on my bedroom door.

I added a dash more of my glittery green eyeshadow and stepped away from my mirror to get a better view of the whole look. I'd tried my best to match my makeup to my emerald dress and I'd tied my hair up so that it was plaited around the side of my head, giving way to loose curls at the back.

The look of course was planned with Cody and Rosa, but it was mostly all Cody's ideas. We'd done a dry run a few days ago and taken a photo so that I could recreate it by myself today. It may not have been as perfect as when Cody had done it for me the first time, but it was still pretty good for my own handiwork.

I swung my hips side to side to see the dress in motion, I liked the swishing sound it made, it reminded me of waves on the ocean.

"Yes it's safe to come in," I called back to my dad as I reached for my phone to check the time, I had some time still before Cody and Rosa were going to pick me up.

The door opened and my dad popped his head cautiously through the gap, his lips stretching into a wide smile when he saw me. "Now don't you look as adorable as a sweet baby fawn," he said with a glint in his eye.

I glanced back at the mirror uncertainly. Adorable wasn't exactly what I was going for, but it wasn't like I had expected him to tell me I looked sexy as heck and that my milkshake was absolutely going to bring all the boys to the yard.

"I know I haven't seen you much lately, but I was hoping to have a word with you before you go to your dance," he said, stepping further into the room. His hand covered something in his pocket, and he pursed his lips tightly for a moment whilst he waited for me to respond.

I wrinkled my nose and crossed my fingers behind my back. Please please please don't talk to me about that woman now. Not now. It'd been almost two weeks since I'd come across a random woman in my kitchen and I'd barely seen my father enough to have any kind of conversation about it with him. Now I was wound up worrying about my night. The idea of walking into the dance and seeing Elijah, Danicka, Alex and Carly, let alone all of Elijah's followers, was a special kind of waking nightmare made just for me. I just didn't want to have this conversation right now.

"If it's about that woman, we don't need to talk about it," I said, hoping beyond hope he would take the hint and not continue.

A muscle in his jaw twitched. "Her names Julie," he began, and I sighed imperceptivity. "We've been talking for a while, and I just don't want you to think that I'm not taking this whole dating thing seriously."

I cocked my head slightly to the side. "What?"

"What I mean is, she's not just a one-night stand, I really like her, and I hope you'll like her to."

"Oh my gosh dad, stop," I said in panic. I did not want to hear about this.

He readjusted his glasses on his nose and looked at the ground. "I'm sorry that you met her the way that you did, I promise you I hadn't meant for that to happen. I wanted us to talk about it first. I know it's been really hard on you since your mum left us and I just..." He hesitated, seeing the alarm plastered all over my face like I was a bank in the middle of daylight robbery.

I bit the edge of my lower lip, tempted to bite right through so the pain would distract me from the horror that was this conversation.

He rubbed a hand over his neck and with his other, withdrew a small box from his pocket. "Anyway," he said, clearing his throat. "I've got you something, as a sort of... late birthday present I guess."

"My birthday was like two months ago," I said, looking at the box in his outstretched hand like it might contain a rattlesnake primed to bite me.

"That's why I said late," he said, smiling a little. He closed the small gap between us and placed the box into my hand, pressing my fingers closed around it. "It's a car, a hybrid, you know, for the environment and stuff. Julie helped me pick it out for you, she's really into that kind of thing, you know. Anyway, it's red like your hair, she said you'd probably like that."

I stared at the box in my hand. After all the no's I'd gotten from dad about getting a car, I was finally getting what I wanted. I should have been ecstatic. Then why did it feel so bittersweet? Was it because it was Julie, dad's new girlfriend, who had chosen it for me? Or was it just because it was very obviously a gift out of guilt because I was left alone in my house with a half-naked stranger. It wasn't really a gift. It was a bribe. A dirty underhanded bribe to buy my silence on the matter.

I looked up at my dad and could see the hope in his face. He thought that if I accepted the car, I was accepting the situation. Suddenly it would all be ok, and it meant I forgave him. I wasn't even sure how I felt about it all, but I didn't want to see my dad sad because of me. Those months after my mum left were burnt into my brain, the trail of sadness he left in his wake was like our home was drowning in grief. I didn't want to be like mum. I didn't want to be the one that did that to him.

Instead I put on my big girl pants, slapped a big smile on my face and wrapped my arounds around him, careful not to mess up my makeup on his shirt. "Thanks dad, it'll be nice to drive Rosa and Cody around for a change."

I felt the tension leave his body and knew I'd made the right choice. At least for him anyway, for me, who knew how much I was going to regret this later.

**Author's Note**

So I was thinking about submitting this book to The Watty's, but at the rate I'm currently posting I'm not sure it'll be done before the end deadline date. Eek!