by Leanne Davis
His gaze shot past her to a tall couple behind her. His palms beaded with sweat as a mild panic climbed up his neck. No way. No way could he do this. He wanted to step back, flip around, and flee. Forever. From Olivia. From her parents. From their goodness and normalcy. From her love. From the chances of hurting her. From the total destruction of her belief in the world as she once knew it.
But he did not. He held his ground and stepped into her dorm before she shut the door behind him. He was introduced to a couple that literally towered over him. The man was inches taller than the woman, who easily had four or five inches on Derek, exacerbated even more by the heels she wore. The man wore well creased slacks and a button-up shirt; and had his arm on his wife’s lower back.
She stepped forward first and put out her hand with a gentle, soft smile. “Hello, Derek. I’m Gretchen, and this is my husband, Tony.”
He took her hand. She had long fingers with nicely polished nails. Her pencil-thin skirt hit her below her knees and the jacket she wore fit snugly around her. Her figure was the polar opposite of Olivia’s, along with her coloring of blond hair and green eyes. “Hi,” he mumbled in a tone far less articulate and refined than Gretchen’s.
Then he had to meet Tony. The man looked mean with a scowl that conveyed dark, scary thoughts and actions. He stepped back, scrutinizing Olivia. “Dad. Be nice.” Olivia tilted her head and widened her eyes as she spoke to him. Her dad’s mouth finally twitched as he stepped forward, extending his hand. “Derek, it’s nice to meet the man dating my daughter.”
Derek momentarily wished he weren’t. As he shook Derek’s hand, he stared right into his eyes and smiled as if it were a polite greeting, but his vise-like grip was tenacious enough to make Derek nearly whimper. For an old, disabled guy he was freakishly strong. He raised his eyebrows as if daring Derek to tattle to Olivia and Gretchen.
Instead, Derek sucked it in and said, “Yup.”
Olivia crossed the room and picked up her backpack, the one she first dropped at his feet in the park.
“Should we leave? If we’re getting dinner first, we’d better hurry.”
Yeah, just what he needed, rushing to the place where he’d have to sit in their critical presence for dinner. He rarely ate out at real restaurants. Could he really do this?
The older couple left first. Olivia hung back and kissed his cheek. “Relax. They aren’t that bad. My dad’s just not used to seeing me dating. He’ll chill out. Don’t let him intimidate you. That’s his thing.”
“He’s good at it,” he said, taking her hand as he naturally always did. He thought better of it and dropped it, however, when her parents glanced back while waiting for them. He followed Olivia and got into their car. When was the last time he rode in the back of a car? He probably never did with anyone’s parents. He might have with Quentrell’s crew for some reason, but certainly not to go out to dinner and a band concert.
Dinner was excruciating to Derek. The conversation was awkward at best, with their most banal questions and his most evasive answers. He didn’t know how to make polite conversation. Being out with her father, who kept eyeing him up as if to see if he should dismember him, nearly made it impossible for Derek to act normally.
The bread and salad accompanied a nearly total silence. They had already exhausted Olivia’s schedule of classes, band gigs, and working with her tin whistle. They also covered what Derek did, but he couldn’t leave that subject fast enough. He replied with a lame excuse: he was temporarily employed until he could figure out what to do next. He cleverly made it sound like he just graduated high school and was preparing for his next move.
At one point, Gretchen got up and so did Olivia. He was left alone with Tony, who, once again, eyed him up. “So, you’re eighteen?”
“Yeah.”
“You ever meet a girl’s parents before?”
He shook his head, already puzzled at where this was going. “You say, ‘yes sir’ whenever you address me and call me Mr. Lindstrom until I allow you to call me Tony, and you always, without fail, open the doors for my daughter. Always. Pull her chair out. Show her some damn chivalry. Didn’t your father ever teach you that?”
How many lies could he spin? Instead of fabricating another, he scowled and said honestly, “No. He was murdered before I started puberty.”
What the fuck? Why did he just say that out loud? And in such a rude, brisk, mocking tone to Olivia’s scary-ass, one-armed, former Army soldier dad? Tony’s gaze held his, but his facial expression didn’t change. Derek tried to stare him down, but he couldn’t take the merciless scrutiny and finally dropped his head.
“I’m sorry, I had no idea.” Derek’s head jerked back up to find Tony again watching him.
He bristled. “Why would you?”
Tony nodded and seemed to regard him with an intensity Derek could not understand. “You’re right. I’m predisposed to disliking you. You’re dating my daughter. You’re eighteen years old and you’re a guy. But I guess that’s not really your fault.”
He didn’t have a clue where that left them. Fortunately, Gretchen and Olivia rejoined them and started a conversation again, with added smiling and laughing. Meanwhile, Tony seemed to regard him differently than when the meal started. He shifted around. He knew. Tony knew or saw something. Maybe Tony would be the one to finally tell Olivia what Derek was too scared and too rotten to tell her. Maybe his dad-senses could see the real Derek while Olivia could not. He almost hoped so. The brick on his chest that was suffocating him made his ears ring before the table conversation started to fade from his consciousness. He was losing it: his mind. Standing up quickly, he mumbled, “I’m going to the restroom.”
He literally escaped by nearly running into the men’s room. His chest hurt and his breathing was too tight. He pulled on the collar of the ridiculous shirt he wore and leaned down to rest on the sink. While contemplating the inside of the sink, he realized the magnitude of what he’d been doing to Olivia and what he was about to lose. Running the faucet on full, he took handfuls of cold water to splash his face and sucked some into his mouth.
His breathing was off and his head felt light while his chest kept tightening. Fuck! Damn! Shit! What was happening to him? Heart attack? Was he dying? Maybe. All he knew was, it was painful. His fingers and toes went numb and his vision seemed off. He thought about dialing 911 on his phone until the long, painful, confusing moments of overwhelming suffocation started to ease and release his chest. More minutes past before his vision cleared, while his head ceased its spinning and the pain receded. Jesus. What was that? He leaned down and drank straight from the faucet. Glancing at his phone, he realized he’d been gone for several minutes.
Wiping his hands, he tried to straighten his hair. He walked out of the restroom and stopped dead. There was Olivia. Standing there, she kept twisting her hands in front of her and her eyes were big with worry. She had her lower lip sucked into her mouth. She let out a breath when he appeared.
“Hey,” he mumbled, keeping his eyes averted by checking out the wood paneling in the foyer.
“Hey,” she said back in a soft, caring tone. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, just needed a breather. The whole parental family thing, not really my scene.”
He barely held her gaze with one glance, and shied away from her hand when she reached towards him and sidestepped her as if he didn’t see it. He should have walked out of the foyer and left. There was nothing, no reason at all, to keep up such a façade. They would part paths no matter what he wanted. But if he touched her, he knew he’d just fall into her arms, as he always did, because it was the only place he wanted to be.
“Look—”
“Derek?” she interrupted. She sensed it was going to be his blow-off.
He turned towards her.
“You run.”
“What?”
“When you don’t like things, or you feel uncomfortable, you run. Stay here. Don’t run.”
“I just,” he lifted his
fingers and threaded them through his hair. “I need to, Olivia. Your dad doesn’t like me, and he shouldn’t.”
She stepped towards him and put her hand on his chest. He flinched. “He actually doesn’t hate you. Pretty sound endorsement, considering the situation, and who he is. Something about your dad coming up? Well, it affected him. But then, you had a panic attack.”
“I what?”
Her eyes were large. “You started having a panic attack at the table. I saw it. They saw it. You weren’t very good at hiding it. You know what my mother does for a living.” Her arms stretched around his shoulders and she interlaced her fingers behind his neck as her mouth touched his, even though he tried to keep his chin tilted up.
A panic attack? What the hell was that? Why would he have that? Because of randomly mentioning the father he killed? To the man whose daughter he loved and would surely end up destroying, for no other reason than because he was too selfish to tell her the truth?
“I have to go.”
“Please don’t. Just stay and finish talking about the weather with my parents, and watch me play music. Then we can go home together, okay?” she whispered into his ear. Her soft lips brushed the skin on his neck and cheek and around his ear as she showered kisses on him. His head tilted towards her voice and lips as he closed his eyes and relished her softness surrounding him. The warmth of her body against him. The clear, easy way her words calmed his brain and made him quieter, because he instantly felt better.
That strange, suffocating pain in his chest returned. It was guilt. It had to be guilt. What else could cause his stomach to tighten and his heart to squeeze in so much pain? Her lips traveled from his ear to his closed eyelids, which she kissed before resting her forehead on his. “Come sit down, okay?”
He finally nodded, but was unable to articulate a single word due to the knot of grief and confusion lodged in his chest. Her hand clasped his as she tugged him to walk with her.
He avoided meeting the Lindstroms’ puzzled gazes as he slid into his chair without a word or lifting his eyes to theirs. He poked at his food and brought it to his mouth, but was completely uninterested in eating it. They kept talking about their family members and trying to include him in the conversation by telling him funny, little anecdotes. He didn’t interject much, and didn’t feel required to. Olivia kept touching his hand under the table. She continued squeezing it while she participated in a bubbling conversation with her parents. The interminable meal finally ended and everyone got up. He had to suffer going back in the car with them and driving to where her concert was being held. Olivia kissed the side of his cheek, much to his annoyance, because Tony was right near them and watching them like a hawk. But she pecked him on the cheek and smiled before taking her backpack and heading backstage. He stared after, wishing he didn’t have to rejoin her parents and… what? Sit with them? He certainly couldn’t just wander off from them to sit alone. Even he had enough tact to realize that.
“Derek? We’re going to grab our seats now. Would you like us to save you one too?”
He glanced up at Gretchen when she barely touched his shoulder. Her tone was kind and her expression was open as she tilted her head to the side. Tony stood off to her side, listening. His expression seemed only half as fierce as it was in the beginning. “Yes, thanks.” He appreciated having a few minutes to himself.
She smiled and took Tony’s arm before they found their seats. “Damn,” Derek muttered under his breath as he ran his hand through his hair nervously. He grabbed his phone and answered the texts from Quentrell, dutifully reporting when he’d be there. He was getting worried over the many times he kept putting off Quentrell. What if he discovered the real reason? What if he didn’t like the real reason? But no, Quentrell never bothered with him when he was away from his place. He never had Derek followed anywhere or tracked home.
Besides, Quentrell was his big brother; he really couldn’t actually harm Derek, now could he? But Derek knew that was a false promise to himself. Quentrell would never hesitate to hurt that which came between him and whatever he wanted to do.
When the lights dimmed, Derek took it as his cue to reenter the auditorium. He spotted the Lindstroms and quickly slid into the seat next to Gretchen, grateful she wasn’t Tony. She smiled with ease as she focused on the stage. The curtain lifted and Olivia appeared. She was tucked in the curve of instruments and players. She lifted the flute to her mouth, and at the conductor’s cue, started in on a classic song that Derek had never heard of. He sat back and listened, surprised he had the patience to do so. Even for Olivia. It was classical music that soared and dropped in exciting crescendos before floating in the air longer than an hour. He almost enjoyed the way the louder notes diminished into smaller, gentle ones that kind of hummed through his mind. But most of all, he liked watching Olivia and for no deeper reason than that it calmed him to look at her face.
After the concert, she returned to receive hugs all around. She smiled with her usual shy confidence and gracefully accepted all the compliments of how proud everyone was of her. He stood back, watching her hug her parents individually. They held her tightly and patted her shoulder or back as they whispered into her ear. She smiled while shaking her head and the connection that was so obvious and real between them was not missed by Derek. He stood back, his hands in his pockets and shoulders slouched forward. He almost felt like a voyeur watching them. He didn’t fit. He was the odd man out. He didn’t even get it.
Olivia suddenly turned towards him and threw her arms around his neck, right in front of Tony. He tried to push her off. Didn’t she get her father was watching them? But she kept her hands locked around his neck and her head against his shoulder. “Thank you for doing this,” she whispered into his ear. Derek glanced at her dad who seemed to jerk his head at an angle as if to say, Answer her! Derek didn’t know if he should or not.
Eventually, he let his hands rest on her waist, in full view of her parents, and said, “You’re welcome. Brilliant performance as always.”
She easily threw her head back and laughed while swiping his shoulder with her hand. “You’re so full of it.”
Grinning, she spun around to begin collaborations with her parents about her favorite songs and what they should start working on next. As they started out the front doors, Olivia kept hold of Derek’s hand all the way to the car. Her parents walked and talked freely beside them as if it were no big deal.
Derek remained silent during the ride back to the dorm and nearly jumped out of the car when they finally pulled into the dorm parking lot. Free. He was done. And he only hoped forever. This was simply too hard and impossible to repeat.
Stepping back, he started for his car, but Olivia called after him. “Let me say goodbye to them; go wait in my room.”
He eyed Tony from the corners of his eyes. “You’re dad’s right there. He’ll kick my ass.”
Her Tinkerbell laugh chimed out as she patted his cheek. “No, he won’t. Now say goodbye politely, shake their hands, and go wait for me inside.”
He grumbled as he let her go, but dutifully extended his hand out to Tony. “It was…”
What? It was what? He had no clue of the proper protocol for saying goodbye politely to parents. Tony reciprocated in a sharp shake that was half the pressure of earlier that evening, “It was a pleasure to meet you, Derek. And please, call me Tony.” Tony’s eyebrows lifted and he tilted his head as if to say, your turn.
Derek swallowed hard and said, “It was a pleasure… sir.”
Tony’s grin grew wider as he laughed and dropped Derek’s hand to slap him amiably on the shoulder. “See? You can learn.”
Derek only stared at Tony, unsure if he should laugh or not. Gretchen stepped forward and pushed Tony to the side. “Quit making him uncomfortable, Tony. Derek, it was a pleasure, and please call us Tony and Gretchen from now on.”
Derek shook Gretchen’s hand while Olivia grinned happily. Eventually, she tilted her head as if to say it was okay to go. He s
till thought it was very wrong to bypass his car, and go into her dorm with the full knowledge of her parents.
Chapter Eleven
OLIVIA WATCHED DEREK DISAPPEAR. “I know he’s not what you expected. I tried to warn you.”
Gretchen smiled softly. “He’s not. He has no social skills, does he? I mean, no one ever taught him how to interact respectfully with elders, and yet, he really wants to. The effort he put into tonight made me like him even though he came across—”
“Cocky and rude? I know. I told you. He has serious issues, Mom.” Olivia shrugged and spread her hands out before her. “But as you saw, his efforts to please you make me think there is a lot more inside him and he just never got treated right. That—”
Her mother stepped forward and ran her fingertips up and down Olivia’s arms in comfort as she said gently, “You can’t save him, honey. You have to understand that. You have to realize, no matter how much you love him, you cannot change him.”
“I know. But I can help him. He has already changed on his own in the time we’ve been together.”
“What happened to his dad, Olivia?” Tony interrupted them, his expression deliberately blank.
“I don’t actually know. He freezes up. He almost cannot bear to talk about his past. It’s bad. He runs from everything. I mean, you saw the panic attack. The thing is: he didn’t know he had one. He doesn’t know what’s wrong with him.”
Gretchen sighed and touched Olivia’s cheek with her hand. “Oh, baby girl, how do you not ask? Or demand that he answer you?”
“I have. Numerous times, but did you see his reaction at dinner? That’s what always happens when I do. Time, Mother; I’m trying to give him time. I don’t think he’s ever revealed his past to anyone. You saw his hesitation.”
Tony nodded. “We saw. I thought he was a cocky, little shit to start. Then I saw his hand shake after he blurted out that his father was murdered. I admit, I was ready to lay into him about being respectful. He didn’t even know to call me mister for Christ’s sake. But then...” Tony rubbed his hand on his neck. “Look, you’re my daughter. I don’t really want you involved with a kid who needs saving, or hasn’t learned the basic courtesies. I don’t want you hurt. But, damn, if that kid doesn’t have a clue what decent people are like. He’s troubled; and that scares the living piss out of me, Liv. I don’t want you to be hurt by whatever lurks inside him. I think we all get he’s got something going on. But what if it’s something that ends up hurting you?”
