Cinderfella

by Xavier Neal

  “I guess that’s not hard to understand.” Gianna tugs on the sleeves of her shirt, adjusts her body so she's sitting on her leg, and leans closer. “But how… how did you end up with a kid? I mean you read about stuff like this and see it on T.V., but how did you get her? I mean didn’t you use a condom?”

  “Yeah, but condoms are only a certain percent effective.”

  “Yeah, but wasn’t she on the pill?”

  “Ha,” my laugh causes her to stir in her seat. “The pill? Could you imagine telling your mother you want to start sleeping around at 15?”

  Gianna shrugs. “Not that crazy where I come from.”

  “Okay.” I clear my throat. “Not everyone's parents feel that way. Hers definitely wouldn't have been understanding at all. Probably would've shipped her away to a convent. Hell, I wish they would have. Might have prevented their daughter from becoming the school slut.”

  Gianna glances away and whispers, “We have our reasons...”

  My hand reaches out and turns her face back to mine. “You did. She had lies. There's a difference.”

  Her face softens and shoulders relax. “So, she was sleeping around. Then how do you know she’s really yours?”

  “DNA.”

  “You got a DNA test?”

  “Hell yeah. There’s no way I’d spend my entire life taking care of another man’s child if I wasn’t in love with the person.”

  “You weren’t in love with her?’

  Pressing my lips together I take a minute to push through the lingering pain and regret. “No.”

  “Really?”

  “Really.” Running my fingers through my hair I sigh, “At the time I thought I was. I wasn't in a good place in life and my bullshit radar was broken. She gave me a sob story, I later learned was what she did to the guys she wanted to keep for longer than a night. She'd weave a pity tale for you to believe, fuck you until she grew tired of you, and leave. I was the idiot who thought he loved her and that she loved him. That she had changed for me. That she'd be there for me through the shit I was going through. But I was wrong. Sometimes at night, I'll look back on it as I stroke my Mak to sleep and realize it was never love at all. Just infatuation gone terribly wrong. One horny teen dealing with the death of his father burying his dick in something to make himself forget about it.”

  “Your dad--”

  “Was the best man in the entire world. Loved my mom enough to leave Hawaii. His home. The only world he ever knew because there wasn't a damn thing he wouldn't do for her.”

  “And he...he passed away from what?”

  Hating this conversation, I do my best to muscle through it. She shared her past and opened herself up to me. I should be willing to do the same if this is gonna work. And I want this to work. I feel like it needs to.

  “Cancer. The nasty kind.”

  “Aren't they all nasty?”

  “The kind that eats you alive and doesn't come up for air. I watched my father die. I watched my hero fall from the grace of heaven to the pit of a grave. It broke me and destroyed my mother.”

  “That's why she is...” Gianna's hand waves in the air. “The way she is with you.”

  “Yeah.” Desperate for the conversation to end I open my text book back up. “Are we done?”

  Quickly Gianna shuts the book again before using that hand to lift my chin up. “Good try, but no. Where is Mak's mother now?”

  My shoulders shrug as I toy with the pages to the textbook in front of me. “Not a clue. She gave birth to MaKayla Ashley Owens and a month later skipped town while I had her one day. She left me just barely enough to get started, and I haven’t heard from her since. Luckily for me I had been doing little jobs while her mother was pregnant, so I had some money saved, which was good because without it, I'm not sure that little girl would have lived.”

  “Wait. What?” Gianna's voice raises so loudly a girl typing on one of the computers nearby looks over. I give her a stern look and she scoots her chair to sit next to me. In a hush voice she naps, “What! What exactly happened?”

  Frustrated by the memory, I stare down at the book, hoping to find a focal point that makes this conversation easier for me. “She brought her over. It was a Tuesday. I’d just quit the basketball team at school, my old school, and she said she was bringing her over to hang out with me while she went to get her haircut. She had brought me her car seat, in case I wanted to take her anywhere. All the diapers she had because she claimed she didn’t think I had any and wanted me to be prepared for overnights. She brought me formula because I didn’t have any. I assumed all this was just a mother being over paranoid, not like I could ask my mother about it since she had been doing her disappearing drug act. When she handed me the diaper bag, I didn’t stop to check it. If I had I would've noticed it contained every piece of clothing MaKayla owned. I took all the stuff dropped it in my bedroom at the apartment and kissed her goodbye. Later that night, probably about nine after I assumed all the places to get your haircut were closed, I called her house to come to find out she never made it home. For days I waited and waited for a call to hear she was coming back, to hear she was okay, to hear she still wanted our baby girl and I never heard anything. A couple months later her mother called me to let me know that she had sent her a message to let her know she was okay, but wouldn’t be coming home. Ever.”

  “Oh my god…” her mouth softly mumbles. “They didn't track her down?”

  “I assumed they tried, but it didn't matter with her. She was definitely the kind of girl who knew what to say and how to act to get whatever it is she wanted exactly when she wanted it.”

  Gianna's finger softly touches the back of my hand. I don't look up. “Did she say why?”

  “Why what?”

  “Why she left.”

  “No.”

  She mumbles something that sounds like bitch and my face twitches a smirk at her comment. Her subtle way of expressing she hates what I went through lifts my attention up to her.

  “So then what did you do? After...she ran away like a damn coward.”

  “The only thing I could. I got jobs when I could off the books to scrape up cash. Starved so she could eat. Switched schools to stop myself from doing more disruptive shit. When I got here, the school counselors were all desperate to help, impressed I was a single father who stayed in school and away from drugs. They arranged to cut me some leeway on tardies and helped me get a job working at the preschool almost immediately. The preschool gives me a major discount because of my situation, they can write part of it off as a charity donation thing, and then the fact I work there gets me another huge discount. All the money I make goes towards taking care of Mak, putting groceries in the house, and basically just trying to survive while my mother’s money contributes mostly to paying rent, occasionally electricity and water. Now can we talk about something else? Anything else?”

  “Sure,” her smirk let's me know she's not giving up that easy. “How about college? Are you going?”

  On a heavy exhale I shrug. “That's the hope. I've got finical aid lined up. The preschool helped cover a couple costs and have it arranged for me to work full time all summer. I got accepted to the University of Wardington right here in the city. Don't have to pay for a dorm. My shitty car can make it most days and classes all arranged for when Mak is in school. Only thing is, I need all the help I can get, which is why that scholarship is so important to me and why...you, at first, were a problem. I can't afford for anything to ruin my chances at college. I'm not just going to better myself, but to make my father and daughter proud. Show him, that I can be that man he expected me to, even if I faltered for a while and to show her nothing can keep you down unless you let it.”

  To my surprise, Gianna leans over, and slips her lips on mine. At first I barely kiss back, but when her hand touches the side of my neck, I cave like always, my inability to resist the girl worse than it was with Mak's mother. A huge problem.

  She pulls away and whispers against my lips,
“You are amazing you know that?”

  “I do,” the answer gets her to smile widely. “But so are you.”

  With another brief kiss, she leans back in her seat. “You ever wish she would come back?”

  “Nope. Couldn’t be happier she vanished. She left me with the most beautiful, sweetest, amazing child in the entire world, and if she would’ve stuck around no telling how she might’ve ended up.”

  “So Mak is the reason you don't come over and have been 'busy' every weekend?”

  “Yeah. Gianna, I would love to take you on dates. To go to the movies or to dinner, all the things a boyfriend should do, but I can't. It's only me for Mak and she'll always come first. With money. With time. With everything. I love my little girl.”

  “She has no one to watch her?”

  “I don't allow my mom to watch her if I'm not home. One of the admins at the preschool has watched her for a couple hours in certain situations like for a school performance, but other than that no. No babysitters. She’s never met any of my friends even though Bret and Brent both know she exists. You are the first person I've brought around her like that.”

  “It wasn't by choice,” Gianna reminds me with a sharp look. “And something tells me if the situation wouldn't have happened, you would've continued to keep her as a secret from me. My question is for how long?”

  The intensity from her stare pushes my eyes away to the digital clock on the wall.

  “Connor.”

  I press my lips together to remain silent. These last two days have been a fucking nightmare and they don't need to get worse. They just...don't.

  “Connor.”

  “Forever,” I snap finally looking her back in the eyes. “Forever Gianna. I would've kept Mak hidden until you grew bored of me or we had some fight that inevitably pulled us apart. I would've kept her separate from this situation as long as possible.”

  In a hurt whisper she questions, “Because you don't trust me?”

  “Because I don't trust myself.” The confession floors her jaw. “Look at my life Gianna. I don't make great choices. I have bruises on my body because I can't help myself from taking the hits so my mother doesn't have to. I live in a rundown shitty apartment instead of a beach in Hawaii because I can't abandon the woman my father loved more than his own life. I have a toddler to take care of because fucking away my problems was the only solution I could come up with. I don't trust myself to do anything right, so instead of complicating the choices I'm already always facing with you...you and all the mixed up feelings that come along with you, keeping you at a distance was the plan.”

  “Plans don't always work.”

  “Trust me,” I say bitterly. “I know.”

  “So now what?” Gianna folds her arms across her chest. “You're gonna dump me because I know your dirty little secret?”

  “Don't refer to her that way.”

  “Why not?” She shrugs. “That's how you're treating it.”

  “Please don't judge me.” I shake my head. “That's one of the reasons I don't want people to know. I don't need the judgment. I don't need pity masked as kindness. I have enough of that bullshit already.”

  Seeing her back down, rearranges a little room to breathe. “So was that it? Are you gonna break up with me because I know? That's not fair. You know my secrets and have helped me. Now I know yours and can help you.”

  Bitterly I reiterate, “We. Are. Not. A. Charity. Case.”

  “I didn't say you were,” she squeaks loudly, the girl on the computer turning to look at us again. This time Gianna shoots her a dirty look until she looks away. “What I'm saying is, let me be the one that tries to understand you and what you're going through. You shouldn't have to be in this alone. Let's take Mak to do things on my dime.”

  “Gi--”

  “Sh. I want to do this. I want to be around her. There's nothing more I wanna do than spend time with the guy I'm dating and if that includes the cutest kid in the world, well then that's what we do. And it's not like I'm hurting for money Connor. And it's not like I need any more crap. I've got enough clothes and shoes and pointless shit I don't use to last me a life time. It would be so much more fun to spend it on someone who would appreciate it. Who appreciates life in a way I should. I just wanna be around you and Mak even if that means we're just going to the park and swinging. Time with you is time with you no matter where that is.”

  A slight smile creeps on my face as the anxiety starts to shift. “You really want to try to make something work huh?”

  “More than you know,” she whispers. “I’ve never met a guy like you and I'm not ready to give you up yet.”

  My fingers slide over to fold with hers like some driving force I can't see is linking us together in this moment. I whisper back, “I'm not ready to give you up either.”

  Something I am loving more than her fantastic legs pops up. Her smile. Leaning her lips towards mine she whispers one more thing, “Then don't.”

  Once more our lips are together and tongues tangling to start a conversation they are both more comfortable having. I don't know what the fuck I'm doing any more, but I'm just glad I don't have to do it alone. I'm so Goddamn tired of being alone.

  Chapter 11

  For the next couple of weeks my entire life is flipped upside down. During school hours, when Gianna and I aren't making out, we're working on our scene to secure us that win. She gets up early, crosses town to have breakfast with Mak and I before taking her to school, and then us. Gianna's done things like go grocery shopping with us, making sure to grab healthy things and fun things she thinks kids should enjoy. Mak always leaves the store with a new book or toy. I wanna fuss at her, tell her it's too much every time, but after having the same fight four nights in a row, I stopped wasting my breath. Gianna's going to do what she wants to do and it drives me fucking crazy, but I love her for it. And I understand her, after all, I'm the same way. She's helps me clean up the house and watch Mak while I fix things that are falling apart and replace the locks. At first Mom was pissed about the new addition to the family and the changing of the locks, but she's growing into the perks of both. We've done a couple more sleepovers, but only on the weekends. While she typically leaves an hour or so after Mak goes to bed, we spend that hour getting closer and closer to that line I'm not ready to cross quite yet. Thankfully she understands and has been enjoying the perks of my hands that she says can fix more than just doors. Let's just say her hands can do more than handle make up brushes.

  The Friday on the tail end of Spring Break, which was filled with early morning trips to the local zoo, the aquarium, the park, and lunch dates before Mak and I would arrive at the school for the afternoon, she buys three tickets for us to go to the beach, claiming she misses it but doesn't wanna visit it alone. I'm almost certain she just thinks of it as a trip, but the choice of location claws at something in the back of my mind. I haven't been to the beach since my father died. It was his sanctuary. A place he always felt at home and connected to something bigger than himself. There's a fear that returning to his sacred place, I'll have to face the disappointment I know would be lingering if he were still alive. Then again, if he were still alive, many of the choices I made, I wouldn't have.

  I would've continued to fight against the idea of the trip except it's MaKayla's birthday weekend and the anxiety of not knowing the next time we'll get something this magical gets the better of me.

  “You okay?” Gianna grabs my attention from the trail of thoughts mainly littered with self-doubt.

  Before I have a chance to respond, MaKayla who's coloring in one of her brand new coloring books that Gianna bought her, holds up the picture of a princess and prince. “Look! It's so pretty!”

  “It is! Is that you?”

  “No,” Mak giggles her small feet kicking her own seat in her brand new white flip flops that reveal her painted toes. “It's you and Daddy.”

  “Of course it is,” I comment. “I'm always yellow.”

  She snic
kers and playfully elbows me before asking my daughter, “Want something to eat?”

  Returning her attention to her picture she replies, “No thank you...”

  “Are you okay?” Gianna turns the question to me.

  “I’m good.” I smile back. “Why are you so worried?”

  “I remember the first time I flew how nervous I was. I just want to make sure you’re okay.”

  “I am. I've flown before, it's just...it's been awhile.”

  With a deep exhale she relaxes into her seat and folds her fingers with mine. I smile softly at her before giving my daughter another glance. In a white dress with polka dots, she keeps calling her birthday dress, I whisper to Gianna, “You know, you do way too much for us.”

  “I don't wanna fight,” she insists looking away.

  “I'm not trying to fight.” When she turns her body back to mine, I lift her hand to my lips for a quick kiss. “I'm just trying to make sure you know that that's not why I wanna be with you. I mean, all the clothes you bought Mak and the few you’ve bought me--”

  “Speaking of, please tell me you brought those baby blue and white plaid shorts I love so much.”

  Ignoring her outburst I continue, “Not to mention the toys, the groceries, the in-town adventures and now this trip. I'm thankful for all of it, for every moment, but if you couldn't do this for us, or with us, I'd still be there with you, making this work.”

  In a teasing smile she giggles, “Yeah? It's cause I'm hot right?”

  Seeing she's in no mood to hear my praise of gratitude, I roll my eyes.

  Playfully she says, “Oh no. Daddy's making his grumpy face. What should we do Mak?”

  “Tickle him!” she squeals clapping her hands before watching to see if Gianna goes through with it.

  As soon as she tries, I grab her hands and reverse the tickles, filling our section of the plane with laughter. We wrestle from our buckled in seats, while Mak returns to coloring. Eventually the tickles turn into gentle touches, which lead to a heated kiss we try to stay away from when my daughter is around. Fuck me. I'm not sure how much longer I can keep putting myself in the position to have to dip my nuts in ice in an attempt cool the hell down.