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The last thing I want to do on a Wednesday afternoon was to drive out to the school at 6pm to go pick up my boyfriend’s daughter from detention. But here we are.
Spencer was out of town, so naturally this was the perfect opportunity for Aurelia to get into a heated debate with her teacher and land herself in the principal’s office.
I mean, it’s to expected she would be at least a little bit sassy with her father being who he was, but I was starting to think I’d been rubbing off on her myself. Although, I guess I’d never really met her mother, so I can’t tell how much of it was genetically determined, either.
The car ride was relatively silent, the sixteen year old propping her face up on her elbow as she stared intently out the window.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
This was thin ice we were treading on. Lately she had been particularly on edge around me. I wasn’t entirely sure why, but I had a feeling there was something going on between her and her father.
“Not with you,” she grumbled. I rolled my eyes, having gotten used to that as of late.
“I’m sorry your father couldn’t make it. His flight should be landing soon. In fact, he might even beat us home.”
That made her stance change a bit, although I could feel waves of anger rolling off of her. I tried to think of anything to talk about, hoping it would make this even a tiny bit less uncomfortable.
“So-“ I didn’t get very far before she cut me off.
“Do you actually even love my dad?”
Completely caught off guard by the question, I nearly crashed the car as I shouted back, “What?!”
“Jesus Christ!” Aurelia yelled back, grabbing hold of the door as she looked at me like I was the crazy person. “Are you trying to kill us?!”
“Am I trying to— Okay, that’s it.” Flicking on my hazards, I abruptly pulled off onto the shoulder.
“Don’t pull over!” She whined, dramatically sinking into her chair and groaning. But I didn’t care, putting the car in park and turning to face the girl who really just decided to randomly question my two year long relationship with her dad.
“God, you’re so embarrassing.” She muttered, picking at her fingernails just like her father did when he was agitated.
“What has gotten into you? Why the third degree all of a sudden?”
The incredulous tone I chose wasn’t to annoy her, although it certainly accomplished that. She pulled her feet up to the seat, still avoiding eye contact as she huffed.
“Okay, first of all, no one talks like that. Second, it’s a totally normal question.”
Yeah, right, like I was going to buy that. Still, I could hear Spencer’s voice in my head reminding me that answering a question with a question was a surefire way to make his daughter not trust me.
I ran my hand through my hair, then resting my elbows on the steering wheel as I tried to keep my patience. “Of course I love your father. Why do you even have to ask?”
She threw her hands in front of her, the gestures almost perfectly mirroring the way her father speaks using his entire body. It was so charming how much she looked and acted like him, I had to focus to remember that we were supposed to be fighting.
“Because! You guys aren’t married, you don’t even live together. Half the time when he comes back you aren’t even there. Sometimes…” Her voice got quiet now.
“Sometimes it just feels like you’re… ashamed of us or something. Like you don’t want to be seen with us.”
My heart wrenched in my chest, the words hurting me more than she would ever know.
I never, ever want her to feel this way. Ever.
“… Aurelia, is this about your father, or about you?”
She avoided my eyes, turning her entire head to look out the window. I could tell from the way her voice wavered that she was on the verge of tears, and I hated that I didn’t know how to help her through this.
“Whatever.”
I reached out, a soft hand on her knee. She didn’t knock it off. No, she looked at it with an unsure pout, ever-so-slightly leaning into the touch.
“It’s not ‘whatever.’ Did something happen?”
“No,” she immediately replied.
More assertive, I warned, “Aurelia.”
“I just want to know if you actually care about us!” She yelled, turning to look at me with an anger that wasn’t present just seconds before.
“Like, do you actually love us? Not like us, but actually want to be with us? To be a part of our family? Or are you just going to fucking leave when shit gets hard?!”
I flinched at the words, bringing my arm back as the hurt was clear in my face. “Language, Aurelia!”
She didn’t care. She looked just as hurt.
“Because shit has been hard for my dad, Okay? And he deserves better than someone breaking his heart again. So what’s your answer? Do you really love him?”
It was understandable why she wanted to protect him. From what I understand, Spencer had a habit of liking women that weren’t good for him. I had heard many stories from both of them, times where his daughter was left cleaning up the mess of another broken home.
But I would never do that to them. So I said as much.
“Of course I love him! Where is this coming from?!”
With one deep breath, she shouted words that shook the silence.
“I fucking called you Mom!”
Wide eyes and at a loss for words, I couldn’t even ask her what she had said before she was wiping tears from her eyes.
“I called you Mom. In front of dad, right before he left.”
A choked sob escaped me, a small, solemn smile on my face as my lip quivered with hers.
“Oh, sweetheart…”
“Don’t.” She barked. “It was an accident and it was super embarrassing. Because you’re… not my mom. And you should have seen the look on Dad’s face he was just so… So happy.”
I covered my mouth at the thought of Spencer’s reaction. He had never tried to force mine and Aurelia’s relationship, but I knew it made him so happy to see us together.
To see her like this though, it wounded me on an entirely different level. I couldn’t imagine the guilt and fear she felt right now. But now that the problem was laid out between us, I knew what I needed to do.
“Honey, I know that I will never, ever replace your mother. But… I do love you both. And I always will.”
I didn’t even try to stop the single tear that slid down my face as I reached out, grabbing her hand.
She looked over at me, her bottom lip caught between her teeth as she did whatever she could not to cry. I chuckled at the adorable sight of my favorite little girl.
“You don’t have to call me mom for that to be true.”
Sweeping the hair out of her eyes and wiping the tears from her cheeks with my free hand, she crushed my other hand in hers.
“I-I just really don’t want you to leave.”
I struggled with the seatbelt, unhooking it quickly so I could lunge forward to hold the sweet girl to my right.
“I wouldn’t dream of it,” I whispered into her curly brown hair. I kissed the top of her head, feeling her tears wet my shirt on the side of the road. I let her cry as much as she needed to, and I held her like the world depended on it. Because it did to me.
She would always be safe in my arms, and I needed her to know that was the truth.
We sat there together until her cheeks were dry. She rubbed her eyes, a sure sign that she was as ready to get home as I was.
Once we were back on our way, I glanced at her out the side of my eye, touched by the small upward curve of her lips.
“You know… the only reason I don’t live with you is because we thought it might be uncomfortable for you.”
She looked shocked, sitting up before quirking her eyebrow, an indirect request for me to continue.
“I didn’t want to make things complicated. You’re only sixteen; it’s already a hard time.”
She laughed a secret laugh, one that was only meant to be shared between the two of us.
“That’s… exactly why I want you there. I get dad’s a genius but he’s also really stupid sometimes.” The way she mumbled the last bit through her teeth and under her breath made me burst out in laughter.
“Yeah, he really is.”
She joined in, too, leaning towards me with the happiest look I’d seen on her in months.
“Thanks. For being so good to my dad.”
That shy, mature little girl was the best thing in my life. Sometimes I questioned if it was possible for me to love her more than her father. But it wasn’t. It was a perfect tie.
“Thanks for looking out for him all these years,” I returned. “I hope I can make that job a little easier for you now.”
We pulled into the driveway, both equally thrilled by the other car parked besides us. “Look who’s home.” I said to the girl already halfway out the door.
Not going to lie, if this was a trick to get me to forget that she had gotten sent to detention, it was brilliant. Because right now, I really couldn’t give a shit if she called her teacher a bitch.
Neither did Spencer, clearly, because when we walked through the door he was beaming.
“Hey! It’s my two favorite girls.”
I nearly shook with excitement at his words, just so happy to be back under the same roof with him. Once Aurelia got her hug, I threw myself at him.
“Hey darling,” I sighed against his chest, “how was your flight?”
“Uneventful, just how I like them.” I was glad to hear it. But Aurelia was still not off the hook, her father needing to throw at least one more jest at her.
“Was your drive home the same, troublemaker?”
She groaned, dropping her bag off her shoulders and onto the table. “Nope. It was super chaotic.”
Spencer looked over to me, but my eyes were still on her. My eyebrows were raised with a smile on my face.
He looked back to her as she said, “But don’t worry. We figured it out all by ourselves.”
I snuck my arm around his waist, whispering into his ear, “Girl things.”
A jovial laugh, he pulled away from my breath tickling his ear.
“Oh, girl things?” He joked back. Somehow, just like that we were back to the lovesick teens we always became with each other.
Aurelia was only a little disgusted by it. Despite the grimace as she spoke, I could hear the happiness in her voice. “Anyway. You two are super gross, so I’m gonna go to my room.”
As she rounded the corner of the stairs, she called down to us.
“Goodnight Dad, goodnight Mom.”
My chest filled with butterflies at the words, and I turned to see the astonished look on Spencer’s face. She had said it like it were the most casual, obvious thing in the world.
A trembling breath escaped him, and his mouth hung open. Unable to believe it, his voice faltered and cracked as he asked, “Mom?”
I nodded enthusiastically, my other hand coming up to his chest, where he quickly grabbed it.
“It sounds nice on me, doesn’t it?”
He let out a long exhale and a laugh as he wiped at his eyes. Finally, he agreed.
“It really, really does.”