My name is Felicity Stevens. I’m sixteen years old, and in two days, I’ll turn seventeen. From the day I was born until I was five, I went by a different last name. Then my mom married Gary, and our lives changed again. He’s always been there, even before they got married. They started dating while I was still in diapers, and he’s the only man I’ve ever called daddy, despite the fact that he’s not my real one.
But my real one barely counts.
Sure, he sends cards and gifts on my birthday, and Christmas. I’ll get a phone call from him every six months. Those conversations last for about thirty seconds. I’ll say hello, he’ll ask me how school is, I’ll tell him fine, and then I’ll give the phone back to my mother. Some years, he even shows his face on Thanksgiving. We barely speak, even then. I’m a lot closer with Nanna. I guess she’s the one thing he’s been able to give me that’s lasted...that’s not a material possession. If I had my way, I’d just take her, and cast him aside.
Like he’s always cast me aside, my entire life.
But now...now I’m being forced to spend time with him. Three months, in Los Angeles, while my friends take summer vacations with their families. My boyfriend, Scott, he wanted me to come spend the summer with him and his family at their beach house in Cape Cod. I was so excited, told daddy all about it, and he gave me his blessing, even though he tries to act like I’m too young to date.
Then mom stepped in, and told me she had other plans for my summer break.
“What do you mean I’m spending it with Justin?”
“Honey...please, try to understand. Your Nanna, Justin and I have been talking, and we feel like...it’ll be a good experience for the both of you. We were so young when you were born, honey. He was caught up in so many other things, and he knows he hasn’t been around for you like he should have been. With the Juilliard audition coming up, I know it will be the perfect time for you two to get to know each other all over again. He can teach you things, show you things that you might not be able to learn with anybody else. Music is the one thing he knows the best, so I want you to try, because he’s willing to put his life on hold for you now. He really wants to spend this summer with you.”
“Now?” I scoffed. “Now that I’m old enough to take care of myself, right?”
My mom sighed, and gave me that ‘please do it for me’ look. “It’s important, Felicity.”
“I have a father.”
“Maybe it’s time you let Justin have a shot. He knows he’s had his faults, but he’s older now, and so are you. He wants to get to know you, and I’m all for that. Daddy is too.”
I shook my head. “I don’t need him, mom. I never have, and daddy is good enough.”
“He’s paying for school,” she told me. “I think he deserves a little bit of gratitude from you. Lord knows, your daddy and I would never be able to put you in that fancy school by ourselves.”
“Well it’s a good thing you slept with him on a whim then, huh?”
Her mouth hung open.
I knew it was a really bad thing...what I said, and later on, when daddy got home from the restaurant he let me know that I needed to apologize to my mother the next morning.
So I did.
But it didn’t change my mind about anything.
I started to play the piano by ear when I was about four years old. By the time I was seven, I could read music, and by the time I turned eleven, I was part of a junior symphony orchestra in Philadelphia. They tell me I’m some kind of piano prodigy, but I’ve never really taken that to heart. It’s just something I do, something I’ve always done, and I’ve decided I want to take it one step further, try to get into Juilliard after my final year of high school and develop myself as an artist...
Without his help.
But now he’s interfering, and I wish he wasn’t.
I wish I didn’t inherit the one thing I love more than anything else, from him. It frustrates me, pisses me off, because I don’t want to be like him. I don’t want to continuously live in his shadow, be a carbon copy of him. I don’t want to have a kid, leave, get her hopes up every time I say I’ll be able to make that trip out to see her, only to cancel a few weeks later because ‘something came up’.
I stopped taking his promises seriously when I was about seven.
And as I stand here in the airport terminal, waiting for my baggage to come around the carousel, I fully expect my phone to ring, the voice on the other end of the line being his, telling me there’s a plane ticket at the will call counter...because something came up and he suddenly has other plans this summer.
“Felicity?”
I turn. He’s actually there, by himself, come to pick me up like he told my mother he would this morning when he called.
I think it’s the first time in my life he’s ever kept his promise to her. I should be happy, greet him with a warm smile, and give him that hug I promised my daddy I would.
But I can’t do it.
All I can do is stare.
“Hey um...Felicity...how are you?”
He’s talking to me like I’m some long lost business acquaintance of his. “Fine, Justin.”
He frowns a little and licks his lips. “Flight was okay?”
I just nod.
He shoves his hands in his pockets, and stares at the baggage carousel, because it’s started to rotate and deliver the luggage off my flight. I flew first class, thanks to him, and so my bags are some of the first ones put out to take. Justin steps in front of me, and won’t allow me to collect my stuff on my own.
He’s trying too hard, already. Christ, I just got here.
Really, he doesn’t owe me a thing, because I learned how to live my life without him long, long ago.
“That’s it then?” He asks, after the fourth bag comes off the conveyor.
“Yeah.” I tug my backpack back up my arm. “Just the four.”
“Great okay...uh...this one is light. You take that and I can manage these three.”
He slides it over to me, the tiny one, and I pick it up with one hand as I watch him struggle with my three bulky suitcases. “You sure you got it, Justin?”
“I got it.” He forces a smile for me, as he gets the luggage together. “You ready? The car is just out front. I have somebody watching it.”
“I guess so.”
“Cool, come on.”
I follow him without another word. As we walk out of the terminal, three girls stop us, and beg him for autographs and pictures. He does so, feigning happiness as he bullshits with them, signs their papers and poses for pictures.
All I can do is roll my eyes.
Then we’re finally at the car. A sleek black Audi sedan. A friend of his had it parked at the curb, introduces himself as Trace, the best friend. I shake his hand, barely smile, before I get into the backseat and let the two men load the car. I yank out my phone, and text my daddy right away.
I want to leave.
No reply.
My mother probably warned him.
I’m not happy with her at all.
My name is Felicity Stevens. I’m sixteen years old, and in two days I’ll be seventeen.
When I was four years old, my last name was Timberlake, and I wouldn’t realize what that actually meant, until I was much older.
And now, I’m going to spend the whole summer getting to know the man that was always supposed to be my father, even though he never wanted to be.
“You’re gonna love LA,” my father speaks up when the two of them get back into the car. “It’s a whole new experience for you.”
I don’t respond, just gaze out the window as a couple of tears drip down my face.
******
I kept looking back at her through the rearview mirror the entire time we were in the car. I just couldn’t get over it, how grown up she was, how much she had changed from the cute little kid in the pictures Shannon would send me years ago. She’s got her mothers smile, and my eyes and nose. I pointed that out the day I went to see her in the hospital. I missed the birth. We had a show in Germany, but I made sure to get the first flight out the next day. I still remember the first time I ever held her. She was asleep, wrapped in the pink baby blanket my mom had bought for Shannon while she was still pregnant. I remember humming a little as I sat with her in that rocking chair, kissing her little forehead, even though I was scared as fuck.
“I picked Felicity.”
“Yeah,” I said softly, as I continued to gaze down at my baby. “My mom told me.”
“Do you like it?”
“Whatever you like is fine, Shan.”
I had the compassion of a brick wall, but I was only sixteen. Sixteen and I was on the brink of my career. In fact, the very next day, I had to be back on that plane, back in Germany, if I wanted a shot at having it all.
That was such a long time ago.
My life has been a whirlwind since then, and I know I left her behind, so I could live my dream, and build the life I always wanted for myself. Shannon told me to do it, that she wasn’t going to hold me back. She said she could raise Felicity on her own, and I was so arrogant and stupid back then that I took her up on the offer, promising to send her a check in the mail every month for child support...and another so she wouldn’t talk to the press.
It took me years to realize that Shannon never had the intention of doing that in the first place. She took that money and put it away, in a trust for Felicity.
It was never about her.
Everybody tells me I made a mistake with the right girl.
I guess I should be thankful, and...I am...
But I’ve lived with so much regret inside of me for years. It’s why I’m doing this. I should get to know my daughter better before she goes off to college, gets her own life, and we never talk to each other again.
Shannon and I met at a club in Philly, a couple of nights before I was due to embark on a European tour that would keep me away from home for the better part of a year. We had been in town doing a few interviews for a small radio station, and that night, JC and I decided to live it up a little. I was only fifteen then, but since they never carded me, anywhere, I was tipsy before eleven, and when she walked into the room with her girlfriends, having gotten in on fake ID’s and their good looks, everything else in my life seemed to melt away. We danced all night, until last call...
And then we made love until dawn at a hotel across the street.
Two months later, I would receive a phone call from her, telling me she was pregnant and was sure it was mine.
My life stopped, I was fucking scared, and if it wasn’t for my mom I don’t know where I would be right now. She stepped in, took control of the situation, and made sure the baby wasn’t going to interfere with my career. Shannon said from the very beginning she had every intention of keeping the baby, but nobody was mad, or held it against her. A part of me liked the fact that she wanted to do the right thing...I guess I was just scared that everything I worked for was going to be destroyed.
But it wasn’t.
I went about my life as usual while my mom took care of things for Shannon on my behalf. They spent the whole nine months together, and Trace’s mom went on tour overseas with us instead. I guess it’s why they’ve always been close, and why my daughter has always had a relationship with my mother and not with me.
But I can’t deny that I wanted things like that back then. She was always in the back of my mind though. Whenever I reached an important milestone, when I would win an award, when my first solo album came out, I would be reminded of her. That piece of me that was sitting back home in Pennsylvania, constantly pushed to the side by me, with the exception of a few phone calls a year.
Then I turned thirty. I had it all, success, money, influence in all aspects of the business. I didn’t have to work as hard, because I’d done it all when I was younger. Finally, I had some more time for myself, and so, after a long talk with my mom, and my girlfriend, we decided it was time that I sacrificed myself for my daughter. So I gave Shannon a call. She’s been remarried for years, to a good guy. He adopted my daughter when she was five, but I was fine with that. I had no time for her, and I figured she needed a father in her life. She goes by Stevens now. Its a good name I guess, although I regret it...that she’ll never have my name.
But I made that decision.
“Justin, are you sure?”
Of course, there was doubt in Shannon’s voice when I told her what I wanted to do. I expected it from her though. There were so many times in the past, that I said I wanted to take Felicity for a weekend, for spring break, or for the Christmas holiday, and ended up canceling, because I found something better to do. I wasn’t going to do that this time around, though. I had no reason to, and my girlfriend said she would leave me if I broke my kids heart one more time.
She’s the only woman I’ve ever told about her. I guess that’s why we’re getting married.
So weird, me, the guy who said he would never settle down. Although, now that Trace has a kid and is married too, I figured it was time for me to think about the future, and Jessica.
“I’m sure,” I told her. “Really, Shan.”
“She’s going to hate me for taking her summer away, Justin. I can’t have you back down from this. She’ll never forgive me.”
“You have my word, okay?”
She sighed. “Fine. I’ll call you in a few days to lay down the specifics.”
That was all that was said, and after a few more phone calls between me and her and me and my mom, the plans were set into place.
Now we’re here. We’re here and all the shit I had planned seems to be going out the damn window.
She won’t come out of her room. I showed her where it was yesterday, told her I would take her shopping for a summer wardrobe once she got settled in. She just glared at me, and shut the door in my face, didn’t come out for the rest of the day. My mom said she just needed a night to get acclimated, but this morning, after I was showered and dressed, I knocked on her door and told her to come down for breakfast. I made us bacon and egg sandwiches.
She told me to go to hell.
I’ve been sitting at the kitchen island ever since, trying to make sense of it. I mean, did I really think this would work? Uprooting the kid from everything she knows for a summer, so she could try to get to know me better? I’ve been putting myself in her place, and I know...I know I would be reacting the same way.
It gets me to smile, just a little, because we have the same type of personality.
She’s an amazing musician too. She was reading music and playing advanced level pieces on the piano by the time she was eight years old. Now she does junior symphony, recitals and things like that. Shannon has sent me a couple of videos, and I have to admit, she’s pretty damn gifted.
She gets it from me.
Now she wants to go to Juilliard, and I guess...I’m the best person to give her advice and make her audition the best it can be.
Right now though, we’re so far from being able to do that. Part of me, the part that always quits, backs down, and cancels on her, is ready to call up Shannon and send her home.
But I just...I can’t. Because if I do, I’ll never see her again. Felicity is too old for my crap now. She’s learned how not to depend on me, for anything, and this is my last shot at making a connection with her.
I have to try, but I don’t have a clue what I’m supposed to do.
My dogs whimper and wag their tails as they try to con the last of the bacon off my plate. I kept them away from Felicity yesterday, because I didn’t know how she would react to a pair of huge boxer dogs jumping on her. They know somebody different is in the house though. Brennan even sat in front of her bedroom door for a half hour this morning, cocking her head from side to side. She’s the more curious one, the one that likes to meet newcomers and spend time with my friends. I had to haul her away, but I’m hoping that Felicity will at least like my dogs even if she doesn’t like me.
I hear shuffling, down the stairs, through the house, and finally, she’s there in the kitchen doorway. Her face is full of tear stains, her eyes red and puffy from crying all morning, and her arms are crossed as she stares back at me. Buckley just stares and pants at her stupidly, but Brennan tries to go up to her. I pull back on her collar though, just to be safe. “Hey.”
She miserably plods over to the island and sits down.
“You hungry now?”
She shakes her head.
“Is this like...your way of trying to get me to send you home or something,” I laugh. “Starvation?”
She looks up at me. “Why did you even want me here?”
Her hair falls in thick, messy curls around her shoulders. The uncontrollable kind, just like mine can be when I don’t put product in my hair. “I just...I figured it was time that we get to know each other a little more.”
“It’s too late,” she mutters. “I have my own life now.”
“All I want is a chance, Felicity. I’m sorry that I haven’t exactly been father of the year but...I’m a lot older now.”
“What about last year? You were older then too. You didn’t even call on my birthday, or Christmas.”
I sigh. “I was filming...”
“Stupid excuse, Justin.”
“Let’s maybe try the dad thing, okay?”
She looks at me, and if looks could kill, I’d be laid out on the floor right now. “I have a dad, and he’s not you.”
“Fair enough.” I sigh, and get up from the table, gathering the ingredients together to make her some breakfast. “How many sandwiches do you want?”
“I told you I’m not hungry.”
“Well, you’re going to eat anyway.”
She’s silent, and when I look back at her, she’s glaring at me again. I just laugh. I know that look. It’s the same one I used to give people when I was her age and didn’t want to be bothered. I can be the same way now, although, I’ve learned to tone my attitude down some.
I make two more bacon and egg sandwiches, and plant the plate in front of her, along with a glass of OJ. “Come on, the faster you eat the faster we can go shopping.”
She picks up a sandwich and takes a bite.
It’s a start.
“You think that’s the answer...taking me shopping?”
“It’s not an answer, I just wanted to do something for you. Your birthday is tomorrow. I figured we could do the shopping thing today and maybe tomorrow we could do some site seeing and have dinner.”
“If you want to do something for me, you can send me home.”
“That’s not an option.” I sit back down at the table. My dogs have resorted to mooching off of her for some food, and I can already tell Brennan has taken a liking to her. Her head is resting on her leg, as Felicity consumes her breakfast. “You like dogs?”
She shrugs. “They’re fine. I’ve never had a pet. There’s no time, and my dad is allergic to animal hair.”
“Well you can make these two yours for the summer if you want,” I smile.
She just shrugs, and scratches Brennan’s head. “What do you do with them when you’re not here?”
“Well, I have friends that will come by and feed them for me, or sometimes they travel with me. Like, when I’m in New York...I keep them at my place.”
“You have a place in the city?”
Shit. I shouldn’t have told her that. “Well...I just got it for when I’m working. It’s easier to stay there...”
“You could have invited me,” she mutters. “I could have just gotten on the Amtrak and...”
“I know that,” I sigh. “I was just...busy.”
“Yeah.”
She slides her empty plate away from her and gets up from her chair. “Thanks for breakfast.”
“Felicity, come on...lets just go for a drive.”
“Sorry. I’m busy.”
I scoff and shake my head, but she doesn’t stop, just walks away. Brennan follows behind her, but she allows it. A few minutes pass, and then I hear a door slam. She’s gone back into her room, with my dog.
I’m a failure.
Author's Chapter Notes:
This one has been floating around in my Pages for awhile now so I figured I would post what I have.
Story Tags: Be the first to add a tag to this story
