Burdened (A Burdened Novel) (47 page)

He looks at me and I see Nathan
, in my peripheral vision, push his hair back. “Why don’t you two sit down?” We sit on the couch behind us and he moves from the arm of the couch to sitting in it.

“Now
, Nathan,” he starts. “I have to be honest with you. My daughter really loves you. I can see it in her big brown eyes when she looks at you.” My mouth drops open. I mean, it
is
true, but that doesn’t mean my dad needs to tell him that!

“If I can be honest with you
, Mr. Warren, I love your daughter. And I would be more than honored if she did choose to join my family—in the future—and my family would as well. But, that is in due time, and not something we need to discuss right now. Tracey needs to finish school before we start making things official, or walking down that road.”

“Okay, that took some of my speech away.”
He shifts uneasily. “Are you not in school, Nathan?”

“No sir
, not currently. But I will be returning when Tracey goes to college.”

“Returning?”

“Yes, I’ve already graduated with degrees in business. I was—” He pauses. “—really advanced growing up.”

“How old are you?”

“Twenty.”

“When will you be twenty
-one?”

“
In five months.” Hey, I didn’t even know that. Five months. Nathan looks at me. I look back at dad.

“Well
, Tracey’s eighteen, so that makes you all’s relationship legal. I can tell you two feel deeply for each other. But I don’t want you all to move too fast and someone end up getting hurt, or worse—” He pauses, looking at me. “Pregnant.”

I roll my eyes
, putting my head down in my hands, fully embarrassed. “Dad, not cool.”

“I’m just having an adult conversation with two adults. Bu
t, here is the rest of the talk: we are planning on moving.” I lift my head slowly, giving him the ‘what the fuck?’ look. He looks back at me. “Your mother has already discussed this with you.”

“Yea
h, but I thought that conversation was void, not happening.” My voice is rising.

Nathan grabs my hand. “Just hear him out.” I take his calm
, plopping my back against the couch. My dad hates that.

He looks
at Nathan. “Thank you.” Then back at me. “We
are
moving, but we are going to wait until you graduate from school.”

“That’s
like in three months. This is March! We graduate in June.” Nathan rubs my hand, pushing calm through me. I calm, reluctantly.

“You need to find a school you want to go to or you will be a part of the move. You can’t stay here with Nathan
. They obviously have enough people living in that home.”

I’m getting pissed
, despite Nathan’s calm. “I could if I wanted to,” I say, low and aggravated.

He glares. “Excuse me
, Tracey?”

Why does he want to have this conversation in front of Nathan? After the night we’ve already had
? I don’t want Nathan to see me play ‘gullible girlfriend’ and get all pissy at my dad for trying to steal me away from him.

Fuck it. “Dad, if I wanted to move in with Nathan’s family, I could.” Nathan scoots away from me. “They would accept me with open arms
, welcoming me to stay.”

“Don’t
, Tracey,” Nathan says to me, with an edge to his voice.

“No, let her let it out.” My dad folds his arms.

I calm down, knowing this might not have a good ending for me with the way they are both looking at me.

“The point that I am trying to make is that I do not want to move. It goes beyond Nathan. Of course
, I don’t want to leave him, and he may play a bigger part in it than I’m letting off. But, I want to stay here with my friends. We have been looking into schools. Just don’t make me move. Moving in with Nathan’s family would just be a last resort and if I really wanted to.” Which, I do, now that ‘serial killer dad’ is gone.

Nathan shoots me a look. I shrug
. Seriously. “I
could
live with Nathan and his ginormous family.” I pull the card that I know my dad will hate. “Just like Mom did with you and your family. The only difference is that her family didn’t want her anymore. They moved away and she lived with you until you all got on your feet, finished school, and got your own place.”

My dad scratches his chin and takes an exaggerated pause. “I think we all had a busy day and we should go to bed. You know your mother and I
are going out this weekend, and I can trust you two to be responsible, and not do anything that I wouldn’t want you to?” Probably not. “Nathan?” He gives him a ‘father looking at his daughter’s boyfriend’ look.

“Yes
, sir.” He rises to his feet. “I’m going to get going, Tracey. Sorry, again, about dinner, Mr. Warren.” He looks at me. “Can you walk me to the door?”

I get up
, avoiding looking at my dad.
That is
not
fair
.

It’s
okay, Tracey. The move is not happening today or tomorrow. We’ll have time to figure it out
.
Even if I have to move to wherever you all are moving, I will
.

I don’t want either of us to move
.

He wraps his arms around me
loosely, when we make it to the front door

Like I said
, we will figure it out.

I hug him and he kisses my forehead.
I’ll see you upstairs.

Okay
.

I close the door after watching him walk to the sidewalk.

“Tracey, I know you think you can move in with that boy and his family, but I assure you, there will be problems.”

I’m done with this conversation and I am pretty fed up with
dads
for tonight. One tried to kill me, and the other wants to steal me away. I’m not winning.

“Ok
ay, Dad. See you in the morning.” I walk past him to the stairs.

“I’m not trying to be the bad guy. I’m just being honest
,” he says, emotionless.

My foot hits the first step before I turn back around. “Yea
h, Dad, honest about things you don’t know. I know you think I’m just a child, talking based off of drunken love and emotions, but I’m not.” Plus, I got rid of all of the problems tonight. Well, the ones that lied in the house, anyway.

“Tracey I
—”

“I’m done
, Dad. I’ll see you in the morning. We’ll talk more then.”

I run up the stairs to my room, closing and locking the door. My dad, unlike my mom
, will follow me in here without knocking. I look over to the chaise at Sir Nathan, sitting there in all his goodness. Sitting down on my bed, he comes to me, changes my clothes, then his.

We climb in my bed
. He left the window open. As I lay in the bed, I take in the fresh smell of trees blowing in. It relaxes me. I lay my head on Nathan’s arm, after he pulls me closer to him. His comfort fills me.

I close my eyes and every event from tonight comes rushing back to me.

I open them quickly, fearing nightmares. “Nathan, can you clear my head?”

“What’s wrong?”

“Can you?”

“Yes
, Tracey. Close your eyes and go to sleep.”

I close my eye
s and my mind fills with trees and me walking through a green meadow with yellow and red flowers. It is beautiful, with mountains in the distance, and the scent from outside making it realistic.

Nathan is like my own drug, healing me and curing me
—my Tylenol, taking away my pain, and my Herbal Essences, filling my head with wonders.
He
is wonders. I lock my fingers in his, which wrap around my waist, and pass out in the plush grass, surrounded by flowers.

I turn into Nathan’s chest, slowly waking up. I indulge in his scent, early in the morning. I remember crying against it yesterday, in his shower. All of yesterday comes rushing back to me. Nathan is still asleep, and I stare at him, trying to erase the uninvited images.

Everything about him is perfect. He needs to shave
; his scruff is coming back in. He’ll probably do that today. The ‘worry line’ that previously laid upon his eyebrow is gone, and he looks peaceful. It makes me happy, seeing him this way. I like him peaceful.

“What are you staring at
, babe?”

I scrunch my eyebrows
, turning up the corner of my mouth. “I thought you were sleeping.”

“How can I sleep with the damn sun beaming through your window like that?” His eyes are still closed
. “How do you sleep in here with that window? Why is your bed on this side?” He sounds aggravated.

“I use
d to have curtains.”

He looks at me through
the slits of his eyes. “Those curtains did nothing. It is like we are lying in an open field when the sun is at its highest—hold the heat.”

I want to laug
h, but I maintain my seriousness. “What—do you want to rearrange my room?”

“No, I want you to come with me to my house and we can live there for a few months.”

“A few months? Not forever?”

“I thought we might test it out first and see how you like it
—or if you like it. If you don’t, we’ll get our own place. We would just have a lot of visitors all the time. And Nathan, Taylor, and Justin would probably come and live with us.”

“You want to move away from your family?”

“No, I’m saying, if you didn’t like living with my family, we could do something different.”

“Well
, now that they know we’re bound, they’ll stop hovering over us and we will get more privacy, right? Not saying that we don’t get enough privacy. Anyway, I like your family, and I wouldn’t mind living with them.”

Nathan pulls my comforter over our heads
. “Why are you so accepting of me and my family?”

“Because I love you
, and whatever makes you comfortable makes me comfortable.”

“What if I said the same thing to you?”

“We would have a fight over nothing—and still not come to a conclusion.”

“It’s not any better under this blanket.” I laugh
, trying to remain quiet. “So are we supposed to hang around with Glen and Scott today?”

“Yea
h, but she hasn’t called me yet to confirm.”

“Just
me and you is fine. You like fish, right?”

“To look at or to eat?”

He shakes his head quickly. “I want to take you to the aquarium. And we’ll walk under water and check out some dolphins.”

“Is that far?”

“What does it matter?”

I take in his face, scrunched weirdly
, as if I asked a question that has no answer, or the answer to the question doesn’t matter. I smile awkwardly. “It doesn’t.”

“Okay, can you turn off the sun so we can go back to sleep
?”

“If I could
, I would do it, only because you asked me to.”

He pulls me to him with his eyes closed
, throwing his arm over his face. I kiss his shoulder, and his body shutters.

“Mm, what just happened there?” I ask
, smiling.

“You just happened there.” I kiss him again and he pulls me on top of him
, grabbing me by my shoulders. “Stop, Tracey. It’s too early for you to be playing.”

“What are
—” My phone rings, interrupting me.

Getting up
, I walk over to it, taking it off my dresser. “Hello?” I answer, knowing Glen is about to go off about something—at seven in the morning on a Saturday.

“Tracey, is everything okay
? I was calling you all night. I heard something happened with Nathan’s family. Is he okay? Are we still going out today? Where are we going? Oh, hi!”

“
Huh?” Someone knocks on my door, spiking panic in me. Shit! “Hold on.” She starts yelling into the phone. “Yeah?!” I yell at the door.

“Tracey,
why are you up so early?” My mom is right to check—it’s Saturday and I’m up before time should permit.

“Umm, Glen called me
. I’m answering the phone.”

“Well
, why is Glen up so early?”

“Mom
, I don’t know.”

“Ladybug, we all need to talk. Come downstairs when you
hang up with Glen.” Not again.

I’m irritated and it sounds in my voice
. “Okay.”

I bring the phone back to my ear and Glen is still talking. “Glen
, hush. We are all still going to go out. Everything is fine. I’ll call you when we are on our way over there, which will be
hours
from now.”