by S. L. Finlay
"Okay then." He told me, "I will talk to the head of faculty about our relationship. If you're staying, he'll need to know."
My eyes grew wide. He was going to acknowledge us! This was really happening!
"You're - we're - going to be together still? In public? For real?" I asked, all of the frustrated feelings sliding away and being replaced with genuine surprise.
David simply nodded his head and smiled at me. The contentment overtook me in a rush, warming my heart. We would be together, and that wasn't half bad! But what about living together? I wanted to ask. I wanted to know if the relationship I had fantasised about would happen, but as we had only been together a short time, I wasn't sure I should ask the question.
Instead I smiled at him. A Big, dumb, shit-eating grin. We shared this moment until David looked down at our drinks, which were mostly empty glasses now.
"You want another one?" He asked, motioning at my glass. I smiled and told him yes, of course I would have another one.
While David was at the bar, I thought ahead to the next year. Things were falling into place, I could do this. I could stay in Ireland, the country I loved. I could stay with the man I loved, and not only would things be good, but they would be better than ever with our relationship being out in the open.
All was well in Galway.
Now all I had to do was worry about telling my parents about my decision. Now, that idea scared me.
CHAPTER TWELVE
It wasn't until all the paperwork went through that I called home and spoke to my family. My parents were happy to hear from me and each of them talked on the phone to me for some time - a big deal when your parents are time-poor lawyers - before I finally told my father that there was something I needed to talk to them both about.
He put me on speaker phone on their office phone, the office they have in their home. I imagined the scene as I thought back to the room I had been so familiar with. They would each be sitting in front of the desk looking around the room with its walls filled with book cases and thick heavy volumes, at one another as they looked having come home from the office still well polished and tidy, out the window at the property with its green lawns and perfectly manicured gardens. I wondered if the gardener would still be there tending to my mother's precious roses. Perhaps he could be seen from the office window.
I pushed the thought of home from my mind. I hadn't really suffered through any home sickness and wasn't about to let it take root now as I had already made all of my plans to stay.
"I wanted to talk to you both about my degree." I said to an eerie silence, "I have been doing some research and found that I can study here for just as much as I study back home, then I can transfer into a post-graduate program with an Irish degree almost exactly how I could if I was studying in the US, only now I have some international experience to add to my resume."
This was how I had rehearsed my telling them about my plans, and I was about to go on to the next part in the script when my father stopped me, "Why would you want to do that honey? Aren't you happy with your degree here?" He said before adding, "It's one thing to do a semester there, but a whole degree? You have already finished most of your degree. You'll have to start all over again and -"
"-No I won't." I cut him off, "My studies in the states will count for something here. I can just finish my degree here and have an Irish degree, just like I could have an American degree."
There was silence again. I imagined my parents exchanging looks in the way they often did. In the way that made me feel like perhaps they had their own language they were speaking with their facial expressions and the way they held their eyes.
"Tell me more about Ireland, then." My mother said, "Why do you like it so much? Enough to stay."
I took a deep breath and started telling my mother about all of the things I loved about it here. The country was so beautiful, people were so friendly and warm, and life was slower here. It wasn't about getting things done as much as it was about relationships. The more I spoke about Ireland and how I felt about it, the more I worried that my parents would still tell me no. I couldn't do this without their support as studying at university is incredibly expensive, then living in a foreign country while you're doing it? Yeah, that wasn't easy on the hip-pocket either.
I knew my parents could afford to support me through school, it was weather they wanted to or not that was the problem.
They didn't need to know I wasn't going to be studying law either, as I was far enough away and the university wouldn't communicate with them about my studies. The university would communicate with me about them and that was it. All of this of course didn't matter as everything else I was telling my parents was true. If I got good grades, I could still transfer across. If I did well, everything would still work out okay in the end.
My mother and father listened as I told them everything - about my love for the place and how wonderful it had been studying here, how much I looked forward to continuing to study into the future.
After a while my mother cut me off, telling me that was all great but they needed to think about it.
I hung up knowing I had given them my best arguments, but unsure if they would hold up in court. All I could do now was wait and see what happened.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Waiting for my parent's go-ahead with my studies wasn't like waiting for the final puzzle piece, it was like waiting for the axe to fall. When I told Sammy how I felt she just shrugged, she wasn't sure why I couldn't just go home and finish my studies before taking a gap year. When I told David, he told me that all I could do was wait.
There wasn't anything anyone could do to help me in this situation, I was really on my own. I was the one who made this choice, so I was the one who had to live with the consequences if it didn't work out. This was my life, after all.
Just because the Irish university had accepted me didn't mean I couldn't go back to my American university at the end of the semester. I hadn't told them I wouldn't be coming back and as a result, they thought I was automatically.
It suited me fine to have both universities waiting for me to begin, as I was also waiting. I hated waiting. Not only was I impatient by nature but the feeling of being in limbo was more than I could bare.
I passed the time like anyone in Ireland would pass it. I spent plenty of time in the pub, having pint after pint of cider with my friends, or with David. We still went to the same pub where we usually went to avoid being seen. I didn't like that we still went there, but didn't see any real point in causing an issue. I needed this man's support more than anything right now, adrift in the adult world as I was.
Before I had gone on this semester abroad program, my university had a seminar that they forced everyone who was participating in the semester abroad program to undertake.
I say we were forced, but it was a really interesting and helpful seminar. They talked about things like culture shock and home sickness, how we would all go about creating support networks abroad, how to make friends when you were somewhere for a very short period of time. They helped me fill in the gaps in my knowledge.
Of course it was difficult to go on a semester abroad, it had its own challenges. The university had sold everyone on how exciting it was, as if we were all going on some big holiday where we wouldn't have to do any real college work. Now, we knew, we would have plenty of study to do in addition to having to settle into a new country.
This wasn't going to be easy, and it was frustrating that the university waited until the last possible moment to fill us in on the hard stuff.
Before I had left I had felt so nervous because of that last-moment seminar, even if they had expressed everything in as much of a positive light as they could.
When they did the seminar, too, something that stood out for me when I looked back was how they talked about the relationships you form when you are overseas and outside of your comfort zone. They talked about how being abroad impacts the way you are as a person.
&n
bsp; "Some people come back and identify not only by a different name - like a nickname - but they also come back with a whole new identity. They have made changes in their sexuality or their gender because of people they met when they were away." The woman who was running the seminar told us.
Of course I loved the idea of meeting a man while I was away, but I hadn't expected it to happen and even if it did, I didn't expect anything like the kind of changes this woman was describing.
But it had happened, I had met someone. And the comments that I had previously found kind of strange now made perfect sense. Of course it was different when you met someone, of course when you met someone it change you. Of course when you met someone it changed the course you were previously on.
I was on a different course now, and although I kept telling myself I would still be on this course without him, I often quietly wondered if that was really the case. He had told me early on - very early on - that I should change my major, then I had changed it. He had been someone who I had merely wanted to have a fling with, now I was extending my stay and wanting to move in to his home.
Everything was upside down, and a bit of a mess, but it was a mess that made sense to me at least. It was a mess that I had been happy to deal with. A mess that I had - whether I wanted to admit to it or not - created for myself, and one I would need to deal with no matter what happened.
I didn't think too much about how I was still waiting when my university wrote to me to ask about my return flights. Apparently they needed you to have some booked by a certain date so you could come home and do some work for them. As part of accepting a place in a study abroad program, I had to agree that I would talk to other students about my experiences to promote the program to future students.
I had forgotten about this requirement, so when I wrote back to my university I was honest with them, letting them know I might stay a little longer than I had meant to originally. Quickly (for once) they responded to tell me they needed to know dates, when would I send those documents on?
That email sat in my inbox for a little while, untouched by me and disregarded. Then another came, and another. All the while I was waiting for paperwork to go through with the Irish university, then waiting for my parents to make a decision.
In the end, someone at the study abroad office called my Irish phone and asked me what the deal was.
There was no getting away from it then, I told the person that I might be transferring to the Irish university to finish my degree, but I wasn't sure yet.
Down the phone line, the office worker was clicking keys on a computer keyboard and sounding disinterested in our conversation. They were clearly only calling me because they had to. I answered their questions and they thanked me before hanging up the phone.
I had forgotten about the phone call when an email arrived in my inbox to tell me I was no longer a student at the American university as I had advised them about my transfer. I knew I had done nothing of the sort and that this was an administration error, but I shrugged it off. I had better things to worry about. More important things.
I took it as a sign and started to make plans for the next year in Ireland.
While all of this was happening, I was still living my normal life of spending time with friends at the pub and David and I were stealing time to be together whenever we could. We were both smitten and loving our lives together.
Since he knew I was staying now, David was inviting me into his life more all the time. I felt closer to his heart than I ever had before when he told me he would be talking to the head of department about our relationship. He was going to tell other people about us and it made me feel excited.
David was confident that there wouldn't be a problem and obviously he was confident enough with us to know he could approach his work about our relationship and tell them we were together as we were, and I wasn't going anywhere.
Meanwhile we spent plenty of time together as Daddy and baby girl in private. I found it relaxing to retreat into my baby girl self whenever I had a long day or was tired of adulting.
Daddy would have me come over to his house and change into overalls or a cute dress he'd bought me and sit on the floor colouring while he watched television.
Colouring was my favourite thing to do at Daddy's house (aside from all the hot sexytimes). I also enjoyed plenty of other little girl things like plushies, Disney films and foods with lots of sugar, glitter and colour.
Daddy would surprise me with little gifts sometimes. He would get me a cute little dress, a plushy, a new colouring book. All sorts of things! I enjoyed it because I always had something to use when I was at his house but also because it made him so happy to look after me.
He really did feel like a Daddy when he got all smiley over looking after his girl and I felt wonderful not only because I made him feel that way but also because I kind of liked it too.
If I had to tell someone a year before David and I met what I would want in a partner, David wouldn't have been what I described at all.
Twelve months ago I would have described someone much closer to my age who was likely a college student, American (or at least living in America) and I certainly wouldn't have described him as anything like a Daddy Dom.
But now we were here and we were dating it made perfect sense. I had the desire to be looked after, to be supported this way. It wasn't something I would have recognised on my own but now we were here together, I was recognising it. It took our relationship for me to know what I wanted and what I needed.
I still wasn't one hundred per cent sure how I should express all of this to Daddy, so I didn't try. I wasn't ready for that conversation yet, and with everything else that was going on at the time, I wasn't sure it was a great idea anyway.
Pretty soon, everything would come crashing down anyway and I wouldn't have ever anticipated what happened to happen, not really. Even though in my own mind I had imagined a worst case scenario multiple times when the world crumbled, it looked nothing how I thought it would look when it did finally happen.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The day that my world came crashing down could have been just any other day. I had woken early at Daddy's and had seen him off in the morning with a kiss.
When I was here, Daddy was okay with me doing some study at his house when he wasn't there, just so long as I didn't make a mess of the house that I didn't clean up, he didn't really mind what I did when he wasn't around.
I should have read the signs when I tried to get out of the house for the first time, and the door wouldn't open. I called Daddy and told him the door wouldn't open for me and he was confused, "Is the lock broken?" He asked.
I sighed and tried it again. "I don't know." I said down the phone, "I just can't open it."
There was silence down the phone for a few moments before David told me, "That's okay. I can be home in half an hour, is that okay?"
I nodded, then realising he couldn't hear me I told him, "That should be fine. I'll wait here."
Feeling a little stressed as I wasn't able to get out of this house, I decided the only thing I could do was a little more coloring.
When Daddy arrived home he found me sitting on the floor, tongue out the side of my mouth concentrating on a colouring book sitting in my lap.
Daddy chuckled and we chatted a bit - it was a nice novelty to have him home in the middle of the day - before Daddy asked me, "Did you try the back door?"
He has asked it as an off-handed comment, as if he knew I must have tried it but my face told him I hadn't. He took a few strides through the house and opened the backdoor without a problem. When he turned around to face me, I felt stupid. Who doesn't try the back door when the front door doesn't work?
Apparently the front door hadn't worked because it had been locked with a key, whereas if I locked it from the inside when he had left it wouldn't still be locked. I sighed and shook my head at the whole thing. I had wasted half an hour because one, I hadn't locked the door from the inside when
Daddy left as I usually did and two, when I couldn't get out I hadn't done the logical thing and try the back door, I had simply sat down with my coloring.
Daddy was forgiving, but I could tell he thought I had been silly.
When I finally started my day, I was running late for my first class. I went to class and about half way through, someone who worked for the university came in and handed me a note. I read it while the professor chatted with the staff member then when the staff member left and the professor asked me if everything was okay I told her that yes it was.
Or at least at that point I didn't know if it was okay or not.
When I had a moment, I went to the office on the note and met with someone who organised the transfer of college credits.
He was a middle-aged man with greying hair and a cork accent. I was getting better with accents all the time and it made me smile when I asked someone and I had guessed right. He wasn't interested in playing along however.
"I was looking at your college credits here, and I think we could have you down to only a few classes here to get your degree." He told me, I had been expecting this so wasn't surprised.
"There's one problem though." He told me and I felt my body tense. I didn't like his tone of voice. "I had to seek parental permission. It was something to do with the university you're coming from. American universities sometimes do this with international transfers, make us contact the parents of under-twenty-ones and ask for permission to enrol you."
I could imagine how happy my parents would be to hear that I was going to be a creative writing major here in Ireland, rather than pre-law. I could still go to law school because of a technicality in international university education, but they wouldn't see it that way. All they would hear was that I was studying creative writing, something they didn't want for me and something they hadn't even been told I was doing.
