rollercoasters

     — ❝ Well, not what I meant. I meant something’s distracting your mind. ❞

“A man can’t be distracted?”

“I thought you wanted yellow flowers though?”

“You’re the one who said yellow, I just said flowers. I’m not picky, anything will make my apartment cheerier.”

“I just thought you would remember what color I said earlier.”

“I remembered, but you asked, and I think white flowers are pretty. But, you’re probably right, the yellow will look nice.”

“Is there anyway to make it better? Or at least make myself feel better?” She sighed leaning back again. “Is there anyway to get him to talk about it?” 

“Honestly, I have no idea. I mean, you could always visit him, face to face conversations could be easier,” he says, with a shrug, “I don’t know your dad either, so you’ll have a better chance of figuring it out than I do.”

“Hope that you picked the right one?”

“I thought we already established that I know jack shit about flowers.”

“You want the yellow ones. They go better in apartments.”

“Then why did you even ask which one I wanted?”

Karin shrugged. “I guess. I just feel like he never really cared. Felt like I was his pet not his daughter.” She turned her head slightly to look out the window. “I feel horrible saying this, but I’ve never been happier since I moved far away from him.”

“Over protective parents can make you feel like that, especially when you look at normal parents, but that’s just because they don’t know how to be parents. No one knows how to deal with kids, even more so if there are problems,” he says, rubbing the back of his neck. He chuckles a bit, waving his hand, “That’s not horrible at all. I haven’t met a person who doesn’t feel better away from their parents. I bet you he feels the same exact way, he just won’t talk about it.”

“Really? You want those ones?”

“Why are you judging me on my flower choice? What’s wrong with those?”

“Narcissus. Do you want them in yellow or white?”

“I was close enough. Uh, I don’t know, how about some whites?”

“Do you want the flowers before then?”

“Yeah, yeah! I’ll get the narcissists or whatever you called them.”

She understood what he was saying and sighed again to get rid of the tears in her eyes. She didn’t believe all that stuff was true with her dad. She felt that he thought it was an obligation, not a relationship. “I guess I would believe that if he hadn’t been saying that for three years.” She said after leaning back onto the table. 

Kyle tilts his head shrugging, “I mean, you could always believe your dad was just a prick,” he says, with an unfunny smile, “But it’s never that simple. No one ever has a good relationship with their parents, especially if there is only one. I would be far more surprised if you didn’t fight with him.”

“Do you want me to show you where it is?”

“Uh, yeah! I’d appreciate that.”

She sighed deeply before deciding to continue. “Well this caused my dad to never leave my side. Trust me. That caused a lot of fights.” She looked down at the table. “The most recent being him saying that I am a disgrace to him.” She had to pause again to try and hold back tears.

Kyle saw the tears well up in her eyes as he searched for something to say. He couldn’t say what he thought, that shit happens, and a lot of parents sucked. That would make it worse, so he tried to find something, anything, to say. “You know, parents only want what’s right for their kids, but they’re still human,” he starts, slowly, carefully, “From what I saw, you’re conversation seemed to be very heated, so he probably said that just to jab at you, but he certainly doesn’t mean it.”

Karin smiles as she sits in the booth with him. “You ready?” She chuckles before leaning back in her seat. “It started when I was born. My mother died, and I was very ill when I was little.” She paused to plan out what she would say next and see if he wanted her to continue.

Kyle stared at the space between them, hands nervously fiddling with the napkin on the table. When she paused, he glances up at her, nodding slowly, “Fucking sucks,” he comments, hoping it would make her more open to continuing.

She had started feeling better, so she smiled back at him. “Sounds great if you’re paying for coffee.” She said before laughing at her own joke.

“Sure, if you want to split one,” he jokes, though, he intended to buy the coffee. Kyle leads the way to the diner, as it wasn’t far away, quickly finding them a booth to sit in. “Vent away,” he says quietly, biting his bottom lip, motioning with his hands.

“It has such a pretty view at night. Go there sometime soon. I have a friend that works there.”

“I’ll certainly check it out, if I can find it.”

Karin looked up and felt a slight bit better from his kindness. “I got twenty-two years of anger towards my father, and if you want to hear it, maybe we should find a place to sit down.” She chuckled a small bit.

His eyebrows shot up a bit, but he says nothing. Kyle had heard of lots of stories of horrible fathers, so he was sure he was in for a doozy. “Well, I think Granny’s just down the street,” he says, smiling warmly.