“Go on,” I said moodily.
“What?” she asked, confused.
“Say whatever you want, call me names, hit me if you need to. Just make it quick.” She stared at me horrifyingly.
“I don’t want to hit you!” She cried. I shrugged, not needing her pity and began to open the door to leave. I quickly jumped back inside when I saw one particular person talking to Damien. Ryan was here. As I fumbled around with the handle to close the door, Ryan looked over and saw me. It was only for a second, but as I closed the door I knew what to listen out for. There was a loud knock.
“Blair?” he hollered from the other side of the blue door. I looked over at the girl who’s eyes were wide with wonder. I rolled mine and stepped over to the door to open it and make him leave. I poked my head out.
“C-can I borrow your jacket?” I asked sheepishly.
He gave me a weird look, but shrugged his leather jacket off and handed it to me. I had to open the door to get it though, and by the time I had almost shut it again he had caught a glimpse of my bra.
“Woah, what happened?” He asked. His hand pressed against the door, keeping it open. I looked into his eyes, which were still puffy from when he had shed tears earlier. I couldn’t pull myself from his deep brown eyes, so I sighed and decided to tell him the truth.
“Teenage girls that hate me, that’s what happened.”
“Don’t worry about them, they’re just jealous of you babe. Now put that on and come out, I need to talk to you.”
All of a sudden a squeal was heard throughout the diner as Ian and Jamie walked in through the double doors and headed straight for Ryan. Jamie kept his head down as he approached us, but Ian began waving royally with a goofy smile on his face, obviously wasted. The group of girls kept their eyes on us.
“You alright?” I asked Jamie when he was standing next to Ryan. His eyes widened as he saw my make-up.
“Are you?” He said, frowning with his eyes wide. I turned my head away as Ryan explained what he knew so far. Ian joined us just as he started to speak.
“Those girls over there must have threw their drink on her or something, she just needs to change and then we’ll leave.”
“Threw it on you? What was it?” Ian asked questionably.
“Coke,” I replied.
“I’m sure Ryan can clean it up,” he said cheekily, wiggling his eyebrows. Normally that would’ve made me smile. It didn’t. I couldn’t feel emotion at the moment. I looked down at my feet as the girls approached us, but I couldn’t close the door as Ryan was still pressing against it.
“Could we, um, get an autograph or something?” The girl who threw coke on me asked. Ian looked over at me, mouthing the words ‘is this her?’ I nodded and he raised his nose up in the air.
“How about you apologize, and then I’ll consider it,” he said sternly.
“For what? She was being a bit-“
“Stop blabbering and say it,” Jamie snapped. I was a little shocked when I’d heard the harshness of his voice, but with everything going on with him and Cass he was bound to be a bit moody.
“Fine, I’m sorry,” the girl said, and it sounded like she meant it. All until the guys looked towards me and away from her. She gave me a rude look, and I returned it. I scrunched up my nose and gave her the finger before rushing into the bathroom and closing the door. The girl behind me was looking at her reflection in the mirror, but stopped when she saw me rush inside.
“Could you, uh, turn away for a sec?” I asked awkwardly, holding up the jacket to show I was changing. She nodded fiercely and turned with her back to the mirror and me. I shrugged off the white shirt I had on and slid my arms through the jacket, instantly smelling Ryan's scent on the leather. I zipped it up and turned towards the mirror, making sure that the zip sat low enough that it looked attractive, but high enough that it wasn’t revealing anything.
“Are you done?” The red-haired girl asked.
“Yeah,” I answered as she turned around. I chose this opportunity to get a good look at her. She was a pretty girl, with red hair that was obviously dyed, but it still matched her. She was pale and had a few freckles on the major areas of her face. Her blue eyes stared at me expectantly.
“So, uh, you don’t hate me, huh?” I started off the conversation.
She gave a small laugh. “Of course not. You actually… inspire me. All my life I’ve wanted to sing, but those girls out there constantly put me down. You tweeted me once, you said that you hoped I followed my dream like you did, and not to give up.”
I scanned my brain, and vaguely remembered that. Blair, u were amazin! I’ve always wantd to sing, I want to b like u! Can’t wait till u come 2 Adelaide!
I also remembered what I had typed back to her. Thank you so much, and I hope you follow your dream like I did! Don’t give up! Xoxo “I remember…” my voice trailed off as I choked up.
The girl rushed forward and hugged me. “Well don’t you give up either. You may have people that don’t like you, but most of that is out of jealously. There are so many girls in the world that love you to bits,” she murmured into my ear. I suddenly felt the horrible feeling in my stomach go away, and I felt a little happier too. I pulled back, but the girl kept a hold of my shoulders. “Please don’t give up.”
It took me a few seconds to process what just happened. This girl just talked me out of my depressive state in a few sentences, when no one had ever been able to do that. Not even Ryan. After a long wait I finally spoke. “Thank you, so much-uh…” I gestured for her to tell me her name.
“Bec.”
“Well thanks, Bec. It means a lot. And hey, you like to sing?”
“I do,” she said cheerfully.
“Well put a video on YouTube, and then send me the link. Hey, I might even show the boys. If you’re really good, we should meet up and do a video together and upload it to YouTube.”
“Y-you would do that?” Bec said, gobsmacked at such an idea.
I laughed, finally able to. “I certainly would. But I better get back to Ryan, he’s probably worried about what happened. I’ll be waiting for that link!” I had to yell the last bit as I was already out of the ladies’ bathroom door. As soon as I had stepped out, Ryan rushed to my side.
“Are you alright- hey, you look a lot better,” he observed. His hand was resting on his leather jacket, just at the dip of my spine.
“I…” I thought about what I would say for a moment. “I am better.” I gave him a smile, one that must have been contagious as he smiled too.
“So should we go, then?” He began to walk out of the small restroom area and out the diner doors, but as something caught my eye I stopped him.
“Actually,” I said quickly. Ryan turned around frowning.
“What is it?”
I looked over at Damien, who was now looking at me. “You should head back. I’m going to stay here with Damien for a while, talk about… stuff.”
Ryan nodded almost instantly. “I understand. I’ll see you at the hotel, babe.” He leaned down and kissed my lips, but it wasn’t as soft as the kiss before. It was sort of like a goodbye kiss, but we would only be apart for a few hours. I broke the kiss when I realised that we were in a public place, and doing what I wanted to do at that moment wouldn’t be right. He obviously thought the same thing.
“If we weren’t in public…” He said flirtatiously. I gave him a shove towards the door and walked over to Damien once the boys had left. The girls who hassled me earlier had also left as soon as I walked out of the bathroom, with a very chirpy-looking Bec trailing behind. She had seen me and smiled instantly, and in that moment I knew that even if she was a horrible singer, I did want to hand out with her more. It was nice to see some decent people that were easily befriended.
“Hi,” I said casually. “Can we talk now?”
He gave a warm smile. “Sure.”
We both scurried over to the booth we were sitting at before, just before some wannabe-hipster guys with oversized beanies on their heads moved in on it. After we’d sat down, I didn’t have the slightest idea of what to say to Damien. Or should I call him dad? I quickly shook that thought off. You have to earn being called that. Just because you had a one-night-stand doesn’t give you the right.
“So what do you want to know?” Damien asked expectantly, as if this would all be easy. It would be far from it.
“Everything.”
* * *
“So when I got a call saying I had a daughter, I freaked out,” Damien sighed deeply. He’d explained that he’d met Laura when she was 5 when he was around my mum, and had always wanted a daughter, but when it finally happened he wasn’t prepared for it.
“Then why didn’t you come and see me? How old was I?”
“You were 3, too young to understand how I was your father. You’d spent 3 years without me, I thought you wouldn’t want me there for the rest.”
“Of course I would have wanted you there, Damien. A father figure would have been nice while living with mum.” I gave a small eye roll.
“I wasn’t… ready. I mean, I was engaged at the time I got Steph pregnant. It was just a stupid night when I got drunk and your mother happened to be there. But then a few years later, after the call, my fiancé announced that she was having a baby. I know this must be hard for you to understand… but I couldn’t have you both. I had to choose. And I love Allison; we’ve been married for so long now. Then when we had Alec, I finally had to tell her about you. She was so kind about it, forgiving me almost instantly. If that’s not true love… I don’t know what is.
“So when I got a call from your older sister saying I just ‘had to meet you’, I told Allison and she pushed me along to go. It was hard to leave them behind… but when I met you it was all worth it. I finally get to meet my first child.”
“Your oldest child, huh?” I said approvingly, feeling a sense of importance at the words.
“Yes.”
“So, where are Alec and… what was the other one’s name again?”
“Gabby.”
“Okay, so where are Alec and Gabby now?”
“With their mother, in Tulsa. That’s how Laura reached me, Steph explained where I was and that she should get in contact with me. We met up once, but that wasn’t intentional. Just a small run-in is all.”
I sighed. “That reminds me… I had a small fall out with Laura today.”
“What about? You girls seem closer than anything.”
“That’s the thing, it was about you.” There was a hard edge to my voice, but I quickly recovered as he spoke.
“Look, I know it’s not easy to accept this. But you can’t push Laura away just because she knew about me, and she couldn’t tell because-“
“I know, I know,” I mumbled. “Mum threatened her.”
He nodded. “Your mum…” He whistled through his teeth, a low whistle. “She’s a piece of work, isn’t she?”
I knew he wasn’t complimenting her on her attractiveness or anything else guys normally do, he was reacting at the fact that she’s abusive, doesn’t take care of her children and she still looks like a tramp at her age. Damien looked at his watch.
“It’s 2:30, I better get going back to my hotel. I think you should go back too, want me to walk you there?”
“That’d be nice,” I responded politely as we both stood from our booth. Once outside, I rubbed my arms at the sudden chill. Ryan’s jacket was quite thin, and I could feel goose bumps rise on my skin.
“You cold?” Damien asked, as if sensing my reaction to the temperature of the air.
“Yeah, a little.”
“Here.” Damien looped an arm around me, rubbing up and down my arms in a motion to warm me up. It made me smile. I’d seen so many fathers do this to their little daughters, and although I was much older than the girls, I had waited a long time for this. We walked awkwardly for a while before I pulled out of his reach.
“Thanks, it’s better now,” I lied, shoving my hands into the leather jacket’s pockets, suddenly feeling myself warm up as they were lined with wool-y material.
“So, how’s Ryan treating you?” He suddenly asked. I felt myself freeze a little as a reaction to the question, but continued on with the conversation as if I wasn’t bothered about my father asking me about my boyfriend.
“Good, good. I’m glad I went on this tour, you know. I don’t think I could have survived back home.” I gave a short laugh before turning serious again. “But I really like him, Damien. If anyone did absolutely anything to mess this up for me, I just don’t know what I’d do…”
He fell silent for a second. “I’ll make sure no one messes this up for you. You deserve it after all the shit you’ve been through.”
I smiled as he swore, that was the first time I’d heard him say something like that. It was nice to know he was comfortable enough with me to let his guard down a little. We arrived at the hotel shortly after, having no trouble keeping up small talk. I stopped as we were at the elevator.
“Thanks for walking me back. Are you sure you’ll be alright going to your hotel?” I asked Damien, holding my hands in front of my stomach and shuffling my feet.
He smiled down at me. “I’ll be fine. Thanks for talking to me, Blair.” He reached down and pulled me up into a hug, and without realising I wrapped my arms around him too. The elevator dinged and a shadow appeared, obviously someone wanting to step out. I pulled away from Damien and looked to see Ryan staring at us both.
“Oh, did it interrupt some important father-daughter time?” He asked suspiciously. I laughed and walked to stand next to him in the elevator.
“Good-bye, Blair. I’ll see you soon and we’ll catch up some more,” Damien said while giving a little wave to me. The doors began to close, and without thinking I blurted out the first words that I could think of, realising afterwards that it was a complete accident. I couldn’t help it.
“Bye, Dad.”