Like a parent, Pt. 2

“Hey! Language!” you shout back at her, after having stood up from the couch as well, trying to assert back your authority.

“Oh, eat a bag of dicks!” Stella responds with hostility.

You’re about to shout back, but you realize that that’s not the best approach right now. So you close your eyes and take a deep breath instead. When you open your eyes, you see Stella still looking at you feeling like you betrayed her.

“I chose you, Dad! It was supposed to be us against her! We were supposed to—”, you hold her by her shoulders which cuts off what she was about to say.

“Baby, that’s exactly my point. As much as I resent her for doing what she did—” this time she cuts you off.

“Resent? RESENT!? You should fucking hate her for what she did to us! To our family!” Stella shouted, her eyes becoming watery from emotion.

Yeah, she may have been holding it together yesterday just for you.

“Why the sudden change of heart, Dad?”, she asks, mockingly saying the word ‘Dad’.

You move your hands from her shoulders and caress her arms downwards, then hold her hands with yours. She visibly calms down again. “Last night, someone made me realize what your mother may have been going through before our divorce and that—”

“Last night!? Did Cassie put you up to this!?” Stella says accusingly, before turning her head towards the direction of the guest bedroom and you instinctively turn your head towards that direction as well; resulting in both of you looking at an awkwardly standing Cassie, who may have been watching your father-daughter shouting match.

Well, this is awkward.

Cassie raises her hands up defensively. “Uhhhh… Stella. I-uh…” she tries to speak, alternating her gaze between you and Stella. From the looks of it, she doesn’t want to throw you under the bus.

“Now I get it. You’re both fucking with me. One movie night together and you guys bonded like the pseudo-father-daughter duo you used to be and decided to make me look like the tantrum throwing brat again. Well, HA-HA! Real funny” Stella shouts, laying the sarcasm on thick.

“Stella, we wouldn’t do that! That’s not what happened!” Cassie shouts from the other side of the living room. You start rubbing the back of Stella’s hands with your thumbs, trying to calm her down.

“It was Tanya, Stella.” Stella turns to look at you so fast that her long hair whips you in the face, causing you to flinch.

“MS. RAMIREZ!?” Stella shouts in surprise and obvious confusion. “What… how?” The revelation seemed to calm her down. Stella turns to Cassie, looking to see if she knew about this. Cassie in response, raises her hands back up defensively “I-I don’t even know who that is”, Cassie responds innocently.

“She doesn’t know about it, baby”, you tell her while shaking her hands a bit to get her to focus her attention on you. “I went out with Tanya last night after I…” You, thankfully, catch yourself. You were just about to admit to your daughter that you felt uncomfortable in your pants in relation to her best friend so you made up an excuse to go outside.

“I dared him to knock on her door!” Cassie interjects after your long pause. “We were...ummm… we were playing Truth or Dare. Yeah. That’s it”.

Bless her soul, she’s trying to cover for you… but Stella’s not stupid.

Not even turning towards Cassie, her eyes still looking at you, “I thought you didn’t know who she was?”, she asks Cassie rhetorically with a raised eyebrow. Cassie tries to stutter a response but it’s your turn to save her this time.

“I told her I was going out to smoke...” you admit to Stella. The look of betrayal on her face matches the level of fury in her eyes. She punches you on the chest, not playfully this time. You react to the pain.

“You broke the pinky swear already!? No wonder you started understanding mom out of nowhere. Both of you are just a bunch of... oathbreakers!” She wanted to say ‘liar’, but even in the heat of anger she doesn’t want to call you that.

“Baby, let me finish next time, okay? I went out to smoke, but I didn’t. I remembered our promise.” you caress the back of her hands again with your thumbs to calm her down, you notice she bites her lower lip, probably to stop herself from another outburst. “I met Tanya out in the hallway by accident. She was going on a night out, and well… she invited me to join her.”

“That slut.” Stella says. You’re secure in the assumption that Stella’s not calling her that because she thinks Tanya slept with you, that’s just been the running joke in the building since Tanya moved in, and you're done letting other people judge Tanya for doing what she does. You squeeze Stella's hands hard.

“Don’t call her that,” you tell Stella. She actually smirked at what you said, probably thinking it’s cute you're defending Tanya. She was about to say something to probably mock you or Tanya, but you didn't let her. “EVER.” you say with an authority in your voice that you rarely used, but Stella immediately recognizes. The smirk disappears from Stella’s face and immediately goes apologetic, and Stella nods to signify that she understood. A silence falls in the room, as all three of you don’t want to break the momentary peace from the crashing waves of shouts that filled the room before.

“So—” Stella breaks the silence, testing the waters. “How’d she make you understand mom’s point of v…” She trails off, obviously coming to a sudden realization of her own. “THAT WAS YOU LAST NIGHT!?” Stella shouts in shock.

“YOU’RE ‘PAPI’ OF THE WEEK!?”