AllFreeNovel
Share Us
1
DANIELLE
Imet Mr. Pelham on the first day of my freshman year; I have fantasized about him every day since.
* * *
From the moment you turn sixteen, you start counting down the days until you turn eighteen. One is a momentous occasion that marks you with a certain air of coming adulthood. The other makes you legal.
“Happy birthday, baby.” Elliot wraps his arms around my waist and nuzzles his face into my neck. Everyone around us is going nuts with cheers and applause. The cake my father purchased sizzles, topped with special candles that look more like fireworks. “I’m dating an older woman now.”
I try not to wrinkle my nose in disgust. “You’re only two months younger than me,” I remind him quickly. “You’ll be eighteen before winter break.”
He chuckles in my ear before replying in a way that only he thinks is sexy, “Then we’ll be able to make love.”
I shake him off this time, stepping forward to blow out the sparklers dusting the top of my cake. My besties are drunk from sneaking in shooters that someone’s older brother bought for us. They giggle uncontrollably on the other side of the table, and I can hear them speaking loudly over the music and noise.
“She’s going to have sex with Elliot,” Cameron says.
Esther rolls her eyes. “He’s not ballsy enough. Her father isright there.”
“Fuck Daddy Fulton.” Rosemary’s eyes drift to my dad, and I swear she gives him a once-over.
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” Esther snickers.
Cameron smacks her arm. “Stop. Dani will kill you if she hears you talking about her dad like that.”
More like throw-up. My father has been single since my mom left when I was nine months old. He likes to say I’m the only woman he needs in his life, but I’m a school year away from leaving the nest, and he should start dating again. Not my best friend, though. I love Rosemary, but I swear she better keep her filthy paws off my father.
Marcus studiously ignores the giggling girls. He knows they’re drunk, and they aren’t exactly whispering. My father is great at tuning out teenage drivel, though; he does it every day at work. “Honey, do you want to cut the cake?” He offers me the knife, handle first.
“Dad,” I deadpan, “do you really want me to butcher this beautiful cake you got?”
A happy smile curls his lips upward, and he turns the knife around in his grasp. Now that he has hold of the handle, he goes to work cutting the three-tiered cake dripping in frosting roses. “I thought I’d offer. It’s your birthday, after all.” He shoots a look at Elliot. “Graham, go get some plates, will ya? The kitchen should have brought them out, but maybe they’re busy.”
The smile on Elliot’s face falters, and he looks to me for support. As good as my father is at ignoring the immature mutterings of my best friends, I ignore the pleading look he gives me. After a few seconds, he gives up and stomps off toward the country club’s kitchen.
“You’ve got to break things off with that boy,” Marcus announces as he cuts the cake. The knife moves swiftly through the frosting, exposing the top layer of vanilla cake and a chocolate pudding center.
I keep a weathered eye out for Elliot’s return. “We aren’t dating, Dad.”
He gives me a pointed look meant to call me on my bullshit. “If you aren’t dating, tell him to cut the lovey-dovey crap. I don’t want to see him hugging up on my daughter.”
My father and I have a close relationship; there is nothing that we keep from one another. I think it’s a shared trauma response from being left so many years ago. My therapist thinks my father has parentified me, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. I’m mature for my age because I have to be. My father works long hours and deals with dumb shit every day. He deserves to come home to a daughter that doesn’t cause any trouble, who learned to cook through YouTube videos, and does her homework without being asked. I’m not parentified; I’m capable of taking care of myself. Isn’t that what all parents want for their kids?
“Some kitchen guy is bringing more,” Elliot announces as he walks up with a short stack of glass dessert plates. “Oh, vanilla,” he frowns. “Are the other tiers different? Vanilla cake is boring.”
Out of the corner of my eye, my father stops mid-cut and whips his head around to bark at Elliot. But to his credit, he takes a couple of deep breaths first and then affixes a tight smile to his mouth. “Yes, there’s Black Forest in the middle layer, and the bottom is marble.” One has a rich cherry filling, and the other has a center of chocolate cream cheese. None of this sounds appealing to Elliot, who visibly looks disgusted. “I think I’ll pass on the cake, Marc.”
“That’s Mr. Fulton,” he corrects. “Why don’t you go mingle? You know some of these kids, right?” My father rented an event space at the country club to host our family and fifty of my closest friends. I invited people I knew from all grades, even a handful of incoming freshmen I met at dance boot camp over the summer.
Elliot eyes one of the fresh-faced fourteen-year-olds that just moved to Manhattan from Kansas City. “I guess I could mingle,” he says with a leer that turns my stomach.
As he trots off to make small talk with the young girls, my father uses the cake-covered knife as a pointer stick, “That boy is going to wind up in jail. Mark my words, honey, statutory—”
I cut him off before he can finish. “Elliot can mess around with whoever he wants. I don’t care if he winds up in jail, either. We aren’t dating.”
I have my eyes set on someone else.
