I sniff softly, rubbing the tip of my nose.
Fail.
Written in big bold red letters next to the marketing class section of my grade sheet. A shuddering breath leaves my lips as I clasp my fingers together, resting my elbows on my desk.
I've never failed a class. I may procrastinate or slack off but I never fail. I stare at my laptop screen, hopeless. Failure. Fuck, I'd even bragged about how I could coast through classes.
Pressing the heels of my palms into my eyes, I take another heavy breath.
It's two days after Christmas. Christmas morning was spent in the living room, opening presents and listening to Christmas music. It still feels weird, to celebrate holidays like this. When we lived in the trailer park in Texas, we were lucky to have pancakes for breakfast. Aside from a new shirt or a few dollar bills shoved into an envelope from Dad, presents were out of the question growing up.
Henry made breakfast for everyone, something he loves to do. My mother was nicer than ever in all actuality. She forced Wren and me into these hideous matching pajamas to take family photos but I'd be lying if I didn't say a spark of joy ran through me even if it was just for a facade.
We felt like a family for the first time.
Dad called too. Our first conversation since the Thanksgiving fiasco. A fiasco that he seems to have conveniently forgotten about or was just too cowardly to mention. Either option could be true.
I'm supposed to be home alone today. Wren has a thing with some friends today and then she plans to sleep over afterwards. She seemed hesitant to leave me at first but as the older sister, I pushed her to hang out with her friends. I'm a big girl, I can fend for myself.
I can hear my mom downstairs with Dove. They have some playdate with a little girl from Dove's ballet class.
Another sniffle comes from me and I lean back in my chair, tilting my head to the ceiling. I'll go downstairs once everyone is out of the house. Henry has some meetings later today in the city so he's either already gone or on his way out the door.
Do I tell my parents about the grade? They won't care...but Henry will. He pays for everything, he wants detailed information on each class I take each semester to ensure I'm taking the right path for my degree.
My pulse spikes. Fuck. How am I supposed to tell Henry I failed? That's hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars wasted on me. A fresh wave of guilt and tears prickle. Oh God, he's going to be so mad at me.
Silent tears track down my face and I furiously wipe my face while pacing around my bedroom. The sleeves of my sweater are damp by the time I calm myself down. Upon inspection in the mirror, my face is flushed red from crying and my eyes are bright.
The house is quiet. There's no sound of shuffling around. Wren's bedroom is wide open as I peer inside, showing she's left for the day. My footsteps thud on the carpeted stairs as I make my way to the kitchen to grab some food.
Dirty dishes sit piled in the sink from breakfast. My nose crinkles in disgust as I make my way to the dishwasher and pull it open. It's filled with clean dishes. With a quiet groan, I empty out the clean dishes, placing them in their appropriate drawers and cupboards before moving on to stacking the dishwasher with the dirty dishes.
The task takes me around twenty minutes to complete and by then my stomach's grumbling like hell. Grabbing myself a bowl of chocolate cereal, I find myself wandering out of the kitchen, through the dining room, and to the sunroom at the back of the house.
It's crisp in the space. The chairs are covered in sheets since they don't typically sit out here during the winter.
Tugging off one of the plain white sheets, I open a plastic chest that houses a few blankets and sit comfortably on the large outdoor couch, laying the blanket over my lap.
My head pounds incessantly from the crying and the skin around my eyes feels raw. Hopefully, the cold air will soothe it a bit.
Halfway through my bowl of cereal my phone beeps. Looking down at the screen shows Nova's name lit up with a text message.
And?? —Nova
How did you do? —Nova
The lump forms its way up my throat and I nearly choke on some milk.
Don't ask. I type out slowly and hit send.
Seconds later she replies.
How bad...? —Nova
One.
Oh. —Nova
I don't know what I'm waiting for her to say. Maybe one isn't so bad or don't worry, I'm sure your parents will understand but Nova doesn't share those kinds of views when it comes to school or grades. It's a pass or nothing. In her case, it's an A or nothing.
"Perrie girl, you're home today by yourself?" Henry's cheery voice sounds from the doorway and I jerk in my seat, knocking over my cereal bowl onto the floor in surprise. The ceramic shatters into pieces along with what's left of my cereal.
I stare down at the mess on the slated wooden floor for a beat. And then burst into tears.
Arms reach for my shoulders, pulling me gently into Henry's side. "Hey, hey, it's okay," he soothes, tentatively running a hand over my hair. "We have a bunch more of those bowls, no big deal, promise."
He maneuvers onto the edge of the chair, keeping his arms securely wrapped around me. Slowly, achingly slow, I rest my head on his shoulder as another sob leaves my lips.
He runs his hand through my hair, whispering it's okay every few seconds until I've calmed enough for him to get a sentence in. "What's going on, Perrie?" he murmurs, rocking us slightly. "Is it the boyfriend? Wren mentioned something happened. Do you need me to kill him? Say the word and I'll get someone on the phone."
My face scrunches to stop another wave of tears. "I failed one of my classes this semester."
He's quiet for a few seconds, his hands still running over my head. My shoulders tense, waiting for the blow. Waiting for him to react or not react. I don't know. I don't know what I'm waiting for because my parents don't react. They don't comfort and they don't yell, they act indifferent.
Do I want him to yell at me? Probably not, no. If he yelled, I'd probably go into fight or flight, and with my track record, I'd start yelling back causing more damage.
He blows out a breath. "Phew, that's what these tears are all about?" He gently pats my head still resting on his shoulder. "Perrie, a failed grade is not worth your tears." My lip trembles. "It's not the end of the world, you'll just try harder next semester."
I stop mid-sniff, brows furrowing as I lean out of his touch to look at him. "What?" I ask, my voice cracking. "You're not mad at me?"
He looks at me as if I'm crazy. "Mad? Perrie, it's one grade. From what Wren's told me, you've never failed a class in your life, it had to happen sometime," he jokes lightly, nudging my arm with his elbow. He wipes a tear off my cheek. "Do I think you tried your very best for this class...?" He asks rhetorically, giving me a side glance. I shake my head no, staring down at my fingers in my lap. He chuckles. "No, I don't, because you know you can easily pass anything even with a fraction of effort. Don't think I don't know how smart you are." He taps my forehead. "You were on track to be valedictorian in high school. You had acceptances from multiple Ivy League schools." My head snaps to face him. "Yeah, I know everything," he teases, hugging me to his side.
Using the sleeve of my sweater, I wipe my nose with a grimace. "The end of the semester was a bit of a shitshow," I say crassly and he snorts, shoulders jostling us on the chair.
He makes a show of settling into the wide chair, tilting his head at me. "Lay it on me, I'm here to listen."
It's at this point that I notice he's wearing black slacks and a white button-down, most likely for his meetings in the city. "We don't have to talk about it, I know you have meetings today."
He sits up, nodding his head slowly. "I do have meetings but I also know that one of my bonus kids needs someone to talk to, so those meetings are not important right now." He eyes me pointedly.
Crap, here come the waterworks again. "Oh my God, stop saying nice stuff, you're killing me here," I groan, wiping my face.
He's wearing a bright smile. "What did I do?" He holds his arms up in surrender.
I level him with a pained look. "Do you know how hard it is knowing you care more about me than my own parents?" I ask straight up, causing the smile on his face to diminish quickly. "You're the only one who gives a shit about me and Wren."
He sits forward, resting his elbows on his knees. "Hey, that's not true, your mom and dad love you two."
A sarcastic chuckle breaks free. "Good one."
He bumps my side. "I'm serious. You may have your differences but that doesn't mean they love you girls any less."
I brush my hair over my shoulder. "You don't have to put on a show on their behalf, I'm not a kid anymore, Henry." He opens his mouth to respond but I cut him off. "I've known my whole life that they didn't want us, that we disrupted their plans for their futures." I don't think they would have stayed together longer than high school if Mom hadn't gotten pregnant with me. And then everything that happened with Wren when she was born...we were definitely more of a nuisance than a miracle to our parents.
He purposefully wraps an arm around my shoulder. "It is not your fault you were born. They chose their actions themselves—."
"And now they have to live with the consequences," I finish off the generic saying. Because that's all that I was. A consequence.
He flicks my forehead. "You're very pessimistic, did you know that?" he asks sarcastically and I offer him a wry smile. His face sobers. "Life was hard before, I know, and I'm not negating the struggles you and your sister went through. Your parents were unprepared and still children themselves when they had you." He sighs, his arm heavy on my shoulder. "And I wish I was there from the beginning to tell you that you don't need them to tell you they're proud of you. Look at the woman you've become, the friends you've made family. I admire the fierceness you have when it comes to protecting Wren. And it may not mean much to you since I'm not your parent but I'm proud of you. Your friends are proud of you. Wren is proud of you. And sometimes those other people are the ones who matter more than the people who created you."
Unable to look up at him, I stare down at the broken cereal bowl and the blotches of milk that have dried into the wood.
"You remember what you asked of me when we first met?" he asks randomly, veering off topic.
Bunching my eyebrows together, I shake my head slightly.
"You asked me to stay out of it," he begins, "You said you didn't want me to get involved with anything when it came to you and your mother. You were very stern, it actually frightened me how demanding you were back then."
I shrug. "I didn't want you to fight with my mom because of how we acted around each other."
He squeezes me tighter and I loop an arm around his back, accepting the hug. "I think you need to start letting me get involved," he says, "I love your mother, so very much, but she's never been called out for how she behaves around you two, and seeing you like this, only solidifies that it needs to be brought up."
Glancing up at him, my face drops. "I don't want you two fighting, Henry," I whisper, feeling my nose start to burn from unshed emotions, "I had to deal with them fighting my whole life, I can't handle more."
He smiles down at me. "You won't, Perrie, I promise."
After a bit of comfortable silence, I move out of his hug. "Okay, there we go, we've had our little heart-to-heart and now you need to get to your meetings." I move to stand on tiptoes in order to not step on any ceramic pieces of the broken bowl.
Henry follows, bending down to pick up the bigger pieces before disappearing and reappearing with a broom and dustpan in hand. "Are you kidding? We covered some really deep stuff over here, I say we make a day of it, I'll cancel my meetings," he says, pulling out his phone.
"No!" I shout. "You don't need to cancel your meetings, I'm probably going to watch movies and order takeout all day," I inform him.
He furrows his eyebrows at me. "That sounds way better than finance meetings." He types something on his phone before slipping it back into his pocket. "This is a total elitist thing to say, but sometimes it's good to be a CEO," he winks, taking the dustpan inside to throw out the pieces of ceramic and cereal.
An unwitting smile appears on my face. The first genuine smile in what felt like forever instead of a few weeks.
"Besides, I want to hear about the shitshow that was the last few weeks," he's saying as he walks back out with a pair of slippers for my feet. "Come on, you can tell me all about it while we make some more cereal. I'm starving."
|| ✨ ||
Henry being the only parent Perrie needs. Love that for her.
I hope you enjoyed this chapter :)
Until next time,
Sammipott xx