Banish Me

To Blame or Not To Blame

When we got to his house, I let out a tired sigh. This wasn’t the place for me tonight. I really didn’t want to deal with his mother and field her snarky comments.

We unloaded but I left my bag in the car. I was hoping this wouldn’t take long. Gwen was sitting outside on a lawn chair, yapping on the phone to someone about shoes. I didn’t want to interrupt her conversation so I just waved.

Alma was in the kitchen, as usual.

“Hello darlings! I heard you have a burn for me to treat.”

Holy crap, I’d forgotten about that. “Oh yeah.”

She just smiled. “Sit down on a stool,” she directed. Alma opened one of the cabinets and grabbed a dark blue tub from the bottom shelf. “Lift up your shirt.”

She clicked her tongue when she saw it. I looked at it before heading down to the football field. A blister had formed on top of it but it wasn’t too painful.

“It isn’t too bad,” she commented. “Peter you did a good job with the compress. I think if you hadn’t done that, it would be worse.”

She spread the ointment across my burn and I hissed. It felt like fire for a few seconds before a cool sensation took over, relieving the sting instantly.

Of course that was when my father walked in. At first he was happy to see me, then what Alma was doing registered in his brain. A startled look crossed his face, then melted to surprise, the flowed to anger.

“You didn’t tell me about that on the phone.”

“I just forgot. It’s not that bad…”

He came over and moved behind me. “Not that bad? Not that bad! Cassis, that looks like a third degree burn.” He turned to Peter. “Did you do that?”

“Dad!” I tried to turn around my Alma held me in place.

“It has to dry,” she said simply.

I turned my head and saw Peter but not my father. Turns out I didn’t have to strain to see him because he came back around in my sight and spread his hands over the smooth marble counter top.

“Did you?”

I heard Peter take a step back and I turned to look at him. He looked like my father had slapped him. I turned back to look at my father and glared.

“No,” I snapped. “He didn’t. There was a ghost last night. It iced over the door and Peter just tried to melt the ice. The ghost scared me and I jumped, bumping the doorknob. Everyone knows how skittish I am.” My father released his breath, the correct color of his face coming back. “Now apologize,” I commanded.

My father glared at me. “It’s still his fault.”

“Dad,” I said, trying to calm down. “He was trying to help. You would’ve done the same thing.”

My father looked father looked from me to Peter, his eyes dragging slightly. “If this happens again, the thing you two have going on is over.”

He pushed away from the island and left the room.

“Dad!” I called after him. “Dad! This is insane. Dad!”

“Love, give him some time,” Alma said quietly. “He’s very new at this father thing.”

“I know,” I closed my eyes, “I just wish he would trust me.”

“Trust goes both ways, dearie.”

I looked over and held out a hand to Peter. He took it and stepped up next to me.

“You ok?”