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"You feel like twirling an old lady around the dance floor?"
I blink away Tynleigh dancing and focus on the woman in front of me. She has a few lines of living and years of character set deep within her features, but Tynleigh favors her a lot. She's beautiful for her age. I smile and hold out my hand for hers. "I'd be honored, Mrs. Cambridge, but I'd hardly agree that you're old."
"A looker and a sweetheart too. I'm impressed. Call me Lori."
We stop at a vacant spot and she positions herself to dance with me, before automatically stepping with the music. I ease into it, and surprisingly fall back into motion as if I've done this recently, even though it's been many years since I've attempted to romantically dance at all, let alone like this. "Lori, then. Are you enjoying your stay in New York?"
As we turn, Tynleigh comes into view, our eyes locking. A smirk unfolds on her face, and my heart speeds up a little. "It's a spectacular place, but it isn't home," she says, and with a half turn I can no longer see Tynleigh.
The song changes to another without a break, the end blending into the beginning of the one starting. "I can agree with that. I've never wanted to leave home. I love California, but this trip has been the next best thing in comparison to any times I've visited before."
"It's such a small world sometimes," she says. "Saxton filled me in on how you came into the picture. How you two know each other from back home. When you have kids that don't like to tell you much, you learn to ask questions."
"I've known Saxton for a long time now."
"You like my daughter, don't you?"
I smile, unable to avoid it with the recognition of some of the same traits that I see so regularly in Tynleigh: honesty, boldness, 'never meets a stranger' personality, and a little bit of sass. "There isn't anything not to like," I answer honestly.
She remains quiet for a moment, continuously swaying to the music. "Did your mom teach you to dance like this?" My body tenses at the sound of that word, and I'm guessing she noticed by the flinch of her hand sitting over the collar of my white button-down. Before I can even figure out which answer I usually give people at the mention of my mom, the truth tumbles out like never before. "I never knew my mother. She died shortly after giving birth from a massive brain aneurysm following a long, hard labor. My aunt filled in where she could."
I prepare myself for what usually comes when someone finds out you were dealt a shitty hand somewhere in life, but the apologies never come, and I finally relax. "She's easy to love, hard to break," she says, as if there is a silent question hanging in the air. One I'm obviously not aware of, so I go for the best option: listen. "She's stubborn and can drive you crazy, probably more times than she'll make you smile, but if you can ever crack her shell, you'll realize quickly no one will ever love more fiercely and passionately than her. My son's heart has nothing on the one she carries and keeps buried deep. She hides it well from others."
She softly laughs as the music continues on. "She hasn't always been this way; the way she is now. It's her way of self-preservation. She doesn't know that I know, but when your teenager is hopelessly in love with her first and then drastically changes almost overnight, it worries a parent, so you snoop to find out the reasoning behind it; asking every question there is in your mind. She's always written about her feelings versus talking, journal after journal filled out and hidden in her closet."
She exhales in a sad way, before carrying on. "She really liked this guy in high school when she was somewhere between fifteen and sixteen. He was one of the popular football players and he was giving her all the attention for months. The phone was never free if she was home and she was always smiling. That was probably when her and I were the closest in her teenage years. I noticed she started taking more time to get ready for school in the mornings. Her makeup got darker and her clothes a little bolder. She talked about him nonstop for close to six months; resulting in a big sweet sixteen dance she invited her whole school to. Finally, I agreed to let her go out with him a few weeks after her sixteenth birthday. I didn't like it, but she was old enough, so I put my concerns behind me and gave in. I'll never forget the way her eyes lit up when I told her."
The song changes again, no one making a move to leave the dance floor. I keep focus on her face, the lights hung overhead creating a glow against the dark, curious at where this is going. "When she came home that night she was different. I couldn't put my finger on it, but she was just . . . different. At first I thought I had made the wrong decision letting her go, that maybe she wasn't ready. She quickly got more serious about him emotionally. They started casually seeing each other more the following weeks and then suddenly she never spoke of him at all. It was obvious something had gone wrong. Like someone flipped a light switch."
"What happened?"
I don't even know where that question came from.
"She was supposed to go out with him one night to the movies I think and her plans changed last minute, as in right before he was supposed to pick her up, so she decided to hang out with a few of her friends instead since she had gotten ready. She came home earlier than curfew and I could tell something was wrong. She locked herself in her room and wouldn't talk to anyone for the rest of the weekend. I asked her to talk to me, but she just kept saying she didn't feel good so I left it alone. She became distant afterward, acting more mature than her age, parts of my little girl vanishing, and that's when the digging began. I found her current journal under her mattress. Apparently, she had given her virginity to this boy and the second he got what he wanted he slowly began moving on to someone else. The night she was supposed to go out with him he called off the plans because he wassick, but when she went out with friends she saw him out . . . with another girl, and being inappropriate at that. For her it was love and for him it was foreplay I guess. I think he was mean to her after that, bullying her to take the blame off him for being a loser in my opinion."
I glance toward Tynleigh briefly, and return to her mother when I notice her staring intently at our conversation as she dances with her dad. "He was probably one of those dickweeds out trying to prove the locker room jokes aimed at him were false," I say, forgetting I'm talking to someone's mom. Then it dawns on me. "Sorry, that was a little blunt."
She laughs—a completely real laugh, not an embarrassed one. "I like your honesty, Bryant. It's unfortunate—things like that. As parents we want to protect our children from the bad parts of life, but the reality is there is only so much we can do. Most girls get a temporary broken heart and then move on, but Tynleigh never did. I never saw her get serious about a boy again after that, and here we are twelve years later. She didn't even take a date to her senior prom. Her and a group of girls went together instead. I was hoping she'd grow out of it at some point, but like I said, she's stubborn. My kids take things to heart hard. They got it honest I suppose. Saxton's came much later. He dealt with his issues in his own way and we let him, as much as we hated what he was doing, but Tynleigh has always been the toughest one. Once she makes up her mind about something it's almost impossible to change it. It's going to take someone with a lot of persistence to break down the wall she put up a long time ago."
"Why are you telling me all of this?" I ask, every organ inside of me tense, mad even, and my conscience a little guilty of my own adolescent behavior in regards to girls after hearing something like that. I don't think Tynleigh is the kind of girl that would want her business revealed to someone about to leave for good either, so keeping it to myself is likely the best idea. Teenage guys are dicks more times than not. We're more worried about conquering as many girls as we can than actually getting to know one, but I never led a girl on like that, premeditating the action months in advance. "I have to leave for California in less than forty-eight hours."
"Call it an old lady's intuition, Bryant, but I don't think this is the end of you and my daughter. I can't quite put my finger on it yet, but there is something unfinished with the two of you, distance or not. And if I'm right, you're going to need to know her history to change her future."
I don't have the heart to disagree with her, so instead I say nothing. In some ways I do wish I could feel Tynleigh out more, get to know her, but the reality is we live thousands of miles apart. And I can tell that even though she was born and raised on the soil of California, this is home to her. She has no interest in ever leaving. She's created a life here, and one that she's happy with.
I've rarely heard of any long-distance relationships that work. It either results in a shit ton of damage from one hurting the other or one finally sacrifices everything and moves to make it work. That's not an option for me even if I wanted it, and I don't, because after only a week there is no way of knowing that it's even worth the risk. I'm not willing to give up my entire life, my security, and my family for a few good nuts and a girl that takes away my stress. Most people would call that a vacation, not a life altering experience.
"Lori, why don't we let the kids dance for a while? You've probably grilled the boy enough," a male voice says, pulling my attention toward him and Tynleigh at a standstill beside us. His hand is lightly wrapped around her upper arm, stopping us. She releases me from her grasp and transitions into his, just in time for a new song playing.
A few steps and they're a good distance away from us. Tynleigh has an unreadable expression on her face. I hold out my hand. "Do you want to dance?"
"May I have a word with you?" she snaps, no longer in a flirty manner. The smile she's been wearing each time she looks at me is gone. She turns on her heel and loudly walks toward the glass doors. What the fuck did I do?
I follow her inside, having to walk quickly to keep up even with a wide stride. She ascends the stairs without looking back. I take them two at a time behind her, following her down the long hall and into a bedroom. She stops halfway inside, me at the entrance, but she doesn't turn around. "Are you going to tell me what the hell is wrong with you?"
"Shut the door," she says, giving me an order like she's lost her fucking mind.
"What if I don't want to?"
