Chapter 86

The next evening, Alex's family was going to have dinner at Lexi's house, so she couldn't come to my house to sleep.

The universe was really against us.

The whole day, in the few off moments when I wasn't thinking about the next time I would be alone in my room with my girlfriend, I thought about the piano piece I had come up with.

I thought about the composition and the things I might change or add. I'd never come up with my own musical piece before so I didn't know the rules I was supposed to follow.

The more I thought about it, the more I realized that I actually did want to show it to my father.

Part of me wanted to get his feedback, but another part of me was also kind of curious about how he would act.

Even before the recent argument with my parents, I'd always felt like my father wasn't my biggest supporter. I'd never really felt like he was proud of me.

I wanted to see if thing would change now. Would he be more supportive of me because I was doing something in his area of expertise, or would he be critical because that was just his default setting?

Once I got home after school, I checked for him in his office and the music room, but couldn't find him, so I went to find my mom instead in the office.

I knocked on the open door, and greeted her. "Hey Mom."

She looked up from her computer, taking off her reading glasses and smiled at me. "Hi Blake."

"Do you know where is Dad?" I asked, taking on step inside the room.

"I think he went in the sun room. He worked late last night so he wanted to just sit and rest."

"Okay," I nodded.

Maybe this was a bad omen. If my father was already tired and wanted to rest, maybe it wasn't the best time to go up to him and talk about... well essentially his work.

"Oh, while I have you here," my mother said before I could walk away, "the hospital called to do a check-up. When do you want to do it?"

I frowned. I'd bene feeling so good lately, that this sudden reminder that I wasn't actually in top shape was an unwelcome one. "I feel fine. I haven't had any big headaches in a little while. I've been sleeping okay too."

"They were saying with the new medication you take it might be good to do an MRI though, to make sure everything is okay," my mother continued, clearly trying not to seem like she was pushing too much for it even though she really wanted me to do it.

I sighed. With my therapist appointments on top of it, it just felt like a lot of time spent with doctors. "Is it pressing? Since football is over now, it's not really a big issue. I shouldn't be doing anything too dangerous for my head."

"Your doctor seemed to want to do it sooner rather than later," my mother replied, unyielding.

"I really feel fine. Great, really," I pressed.

I hated taking MRIs. I wasn't looking forward to another one soon.

"It's always safer to follow the recommendations."

I ran a hand over my head, and let out another sigh, defeated. "I guess we could just schedule something after March break."

This seemed to satisfy my mother enough. "Okay, I'll check with your Doctor. If he has openings earlier, should I take it?"

I shook my head. "No, March is fine. My last MRI was still less than six months ago. I'm not in a hurry to get back in the machine. It's not my favourite way to spent an afternoon."

"Alright. I'll call your doctor back and set things up."

"Thanks Mom," I said and smile, because ultimately, it wasn't exactly her fault that I needed to go see the doctor. I shouldn't be annoyed with her over it.

"You're welcome," she smiled.

I'd been close to my mother at one point. Closer. When Jayden was still there. And I loved my mother. But I felt distant to her now. To both of my parents.

Soon, I would leave for college and it would probably be even harder to be close to them.

"How's the writing going?" I asked, not leaving just yet.

"Well. We're working on the last edits."

"Who's dying?" I teased her.

She rolled her eyes. "No one."

"Such a missed opportunity."

"Sometimes, saving the characters is actually the surprising outcome."

I chuckled at that and added, "When you have an advanced readers copy, I'd love to read it."

She beamed at me. "I'll keep one for you."

I nodded, with a smile, and then went off to find my father.

I found him sitting in a chair, in the middle of the sun room, surrounded by plants. I was pretty sure we had a gardener that came here weekly to take care of them.

"Hey, Dad, can I bother you for a second?" I asked, when he saw me.

He sat up in his chair, and answered, "Sure, what is it?"

"I've been working on something," I started to say, and stared at his face to try to read his reaction, as I took my phone and earphones out.

"Oh?" he simply replied.

"Here, I handed him the earphones. "It might not be the best recording, but it's something," I said and kind of regretted it automatically.

This was wrong. I should be playing it to him live. This was probably beneath him. But also, I didn't think I could play it live to him. I would probably be too stressed out and do a bunch of mistakes.

I was internally freaking out, while my father listened to my piano piece, face stoic.

"So? What do you think?" I asked, once the piece was over.

"You wrote this?" he simply asked.

I had no idea if he meant this as a good or bad thing, so I started to ramble like an idiot, "Yes, but it's really a first draft kind of thing, and it was just something I had stuck in my head, so if you tell me you've heard anything like it before, I can scrap it."

"I doesn't sound like anything familiar, but I might have to . Did you write a music sheet?"

"Yes," I replied, just standing there, feeling stupid.

He raised his hand, palm up to me. "Let's see it."

I swore I was about to start stress-sweating. "Oh, I left it in the music room."

My father let out a slight old man sound, while leaning his hands on his knees before getting up from his chair, "Let's go."

We walked together side by side in silence. He still hadn't told me if he liked what I had played him or not.

I was going to have a panic attack real soon.

Still without any words of support from my father, I handed him the sheet of music I had written on.

He looked at it with a slight frown, analyzing it.

Finally, he looked up at me and said, "With more work, I think this could turn into something."

I felt like an over-inflated balloon just waiting to pop. "Something? Something good, something bad?"

"Something good."

"But it's shit for now?" I extrapolated.

He wasn't praising me or saying good job. He was telling me it needed more work before it could be considered good, and that was kind of crushing.

"It's a good start," he assured me, but that wasn't enough. Not really.

"So, shit for now," I repeated.

I didn't know why this was making me freak out so much, or why I seemed to have needed for my father to say I was a musical genius apparently.

I just knew I'd imagine something different in my head when I'd thought about sharing this music with my father.

"It's a good first draft Blake," my father continued, like he was trying to reason with me.

"But, I don't want to make this for an orchestra. I'm not hearing something overly complicated in my head. I'm hearing what I made you listen to," I explained.

Was this not good enough for him?

Was I not good enough for him?

My father leaned against the desk in the room, showing my my music sheets. "What do you want to do with this piece? Do you want to turn it into something professional? Or you just want to play for fun?"

I shrugged, like a kid getting scolded. "I don't know."

"If I say it needs work, I'm not saying it's bad Blake, I'm just saying if you want us to sit down and polish it, I'm here. But I think this is not what you wanted to hear from me, is it?"

I sighed. "I'm not sure what I wanted to hear."

"You haven't played piano seriously in so long, and we never worked on composing pieces together when you were younger. The fact that you didn't write a symphony in your first composition session is normal Blake."

This was all very logical, but logic wasn't my forte when it came to my relationship with people.

"I guess I'm just used to more praise," I shamefully admitted.

My father smiled at me. "You know you're talented Blake, I don't think you need to be reminded all the time. It serves no purpose."

"That's the thing though. Most of the time, I don't actually think I'm all that talented," I confessed.

My father gave me a look, arms crossed over his chest. "You think I would have let you playe on the grand piano on the concert hall if I didn't think you had any talent?"

Okay, so maybe I really wasn't being logical and I was just trying to find something to complain about, after all.

"I don't know."

"You need to listen to more than words sometimes."

"But sometimes words are good too. Words are needed."

My father rarely if ever gave me words of praised. And I guessed it was something I needed from him.

"You're talented Blake," Dad said seriously.

"Thanks."

He smiled at me. "Now, sit down, let's see how you actually play this."

I kind of did a double take. "Right now?"

"What? You have anything else to do?" he said, teasingly.

"No."

"Well then go on."

And so I sat at the piano, I pressed my fingers to the first keys and then played the piece.

And spent the rest of the evening improving it with my father.

_______________________________

Happy Monday my little Pumpkins!

I'm trying to have a balance between lovey-dovey Blake and Lexi chapters and just some Blake-self-growth chapters before the end. 

Because technically the end of Little Bitch is nearing. 

Once Blake has the toilet accident, I'm going to change story again. 

And we're going back to Lexi's POV. It's going to be a dual POV story actually, starting from where we stopped at the end of I Sold before the epilogue, so you can see Blake's convalescence, their first summer together, and their college years. I think we have about ten to twelve chapters left of Little Bitch. We'll see. Nothing's set yet. But I'm kind of excited about being in Lexi's head again. 

Alrighty. Enough chitchatting. 

Love you guys! See you all next week! <3