Scent (Scomiche)

Might As Well Make Her Middle Name 'Brat'... Just Kidding, That Wouldn't Help

“Gentle,” I caution. “Brake a little sooner than that. You want it to be about 100 feet away when you start slowing down.”

“I don’t even know what that means.” She continues driving.

“It means slow down before the stop sign is right in front of your face,” I tease.

She shoots me an annoyed side glance.

“Eyes on the road,” I say, laughing.

We pull up to the ice cream place not too long after. I direct her to pull into the easiest parking space I see because she tells me her and Scott haven’t practiced parking yet.

As we get out of the car, I ask, “Why do you call him Scott?”

“As opposed to what?” She asks, sounding intelligent and clicking the fob twice to lock the car.

“Calling him dad. That’s what you used to call him.”

She gives me a short laugh like I’m ridiculous. “Because he’s not my dad?”

She’s walking faster than I am, her shoulder-length hair blown back in the wind and her athletic shorts hugging her legs. Her arms are crossed. She must be cold.

“But he raised you,” I remind her when we reach the door, following her in.

“If you want to call it that.” She finds us a small, two-person booth where the menus are already on the table.

I grab one, scanning over the list of sundaes. “Why don’t you want to call it that?”

Lindsey rests her head on her hand while looking over her options. “After my actual dad died he was never home. I raised myself. You of all people should know that. You raised me more than he did.”

“You’ve lived with only him for the past six years, Linds. I haven’t raised you more.”

“He’s never home. I do everything by myself,” she responds, her agitation and defensiveness rising faster than I could’ve prepared for.

In my head I choose the banana marshmallow sundae and push my menu back into the mini rack on our table. “He’s never home because he’s working so you can have college money.”

“Oh, sorry,” she snaps, “I forgot that you can pretend like you know what’s been going on for the past five years." She stops for a second, then I guess decides to continue with, "If you’re here so you can tell me how great Scott is like you’ve been a part of either of our lives recently, you can piss off back to Texas, Mitchie.”

To be honest, she sounds a little bit like me when I’m angry, but I look at her in shock. “Excuse me?”

She glances up at me. “I said I don’t want to be part of this conversation, especially one that has to deal with a dickhead like Scott.”

“Well that’s too bad,” I say, grabbing the keys from where she set them on the table to make sure she can’t run out on me. “Because last time I checked, I’m the adult here.”

She scoffs. “Check again.”

I raise my eyebrows. Scott wasn’t kidding.

“Why do you think that you have the right to talk to me like that?” I try to keep my voice calm as to not scare her or make her think I’m angry.

She sets her menu to the side and doesn’t answer.

“Lindsey,” I say sternly.

“You aren’t my dad, I don’t have to listen to what you say.”