Comfortable Silence

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The next morning, dad offers to drop me off to school when Charlie doesn't show up at his usual time. He always made it a point to call on days he couldn't make it. Weird.
In the car I watch the trees outside turn liquid, like they did yesterday. I roll down the windows to emulate the feeling. But it wasn't quite the same.
"Nice weather out, today" I say, not knowing how else to start a conversation with my dad. He looked taken aback by the comment, like he expected me to listen to music the whole way like I usually did. "Indeed. It's been a long time since we had such good weather". It was my turn to be perplexed. I expected the usual one word answer, but surely not a fully formed sentence. "How's work?" I ask, still a little wary. "Oh business as usual" he says and I stop myself from asking a follow up question, not wanting to push it. "How's school?" He asks unprovoked. "Ehm.. it's alright I guess. But I've made a few friends so I'm good in that department." He goes quiet. I look at him from the corner of my eyes, not wanting to make it known I was looking and I could see his brows were furrowed, deep in thought for the rest of the car ride.
We pull up to the gates of the school and as I'm about to open the car door, he reaches over and gives me a long hug. I was frozen, incapable of moving, neither of us saying a word. When he finally pulls away I say "have a nice day, dad" and walk away, still a little dumbfounded.

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