Author's Note: Thanks to all my reviewers. Nothing else to say, really.
Disclaimer: I don't own FOP...unfortunately. Heh, heh.
Chapter Eight- For Those Who Dare To Dream (Welcome to Real Life)
Biting her lip, Trixie rereads every single letter of correspondence left her. However, no many times she reads the same words, she can't feel her mother behind them. It all feels like someone else, someone far away, pens them. She can't feel her mother behind it.
Timmy said nothing after she was done. What's worse, she can sense a lie behind his eyes, something longing to be expressed yet is suffocated due to reasons of his own. She doesn't understand- she was completely honest with him, why can't he be the same? Why does he always look at her with only half, feigned interest?
He didn't even put his damn arms around her! What's his problem, being her boyfriend yet keeping so many secrets from her? She told him the horrors of her past, let him in when she's never done so before, and how does he repay her? With silence!
Silence...like the sound of her mother's voice. The thought occurs to her she has no idea what her own mother sounds like. She's never seen her in person; never spoke to her...she only knows her through her writing. In every sense, she's a stranger to her.
And she's coming here soon. Trixie doesn't have any time to prepare for the fact the woman that gave birth to her, who no longer seems to need her. Why on earth is she coming here, anyway? Just to make sure her father didn't murder her?
Sighing, she draws her knees to her chest and glances out the window. The dogs bark peacefully, playing their little games. Every once in a while, a fool runs out to feed them their hourly raw steak and ducks back in, before they dine upon him. But nothing's out of the ordinary.
Yet, everything is. In a matter of days, Trixie will come face to face with the person responsible for her existence...and she'll treat her like she's just another child. There'll be no specialty in the way she looks at, no love in her eyes...she's not even her daughter as far as she's concerned. The idea tears a deep, binding gash in her heart.
"Mom..." Trixie whispers, trying the word out. It comes out as hollow as her mother's letters. No embraces for her, no late night talks, no discussions over boys...nothing. She's never going to have a mother to talk to...
"Trixie?" Her father calls, respecting her privacy by knocking but asserting himself as her father by coming in anyway.
"Dad?" She murmurs, fingers lightly splayed across the lies. Tears blur her vision, but she bites them back. No, she has to deal with this on her own, without any help. After all, she knows none is forthcoming from Timmy...
"In four days...she'll be here." He doesn't need to clarify- the only she important in her life is her mother. God, if she's coming that quickly...she really has no time to prepare. She's just like Timmy, thrown into a situation and clearly under a disadvantage.
Both sighing heavily in unison, Mr. Tang descends upon his daughter's bed and slips an arm around her slender shoulders. However, she does not want her father's comfort at the moment, and, glowering, she worms her way out of his arms' grip. If Timmy cannot placate her, she does not want her father to.
Outside, the sky is pitch black, the stars sparkling like diamonds. Diamonds...what did money bring you? It certainly wasn't happiness- Timmy's happy enough without it, and look at her. She certainly isn't...if it weren't for money and the social stigma attached to it, her mother would hold her right now.
"Mom..." Trixie murmurs again, rolling the word around in her mouth. It tastes funny, like an unknown food. Mom...mother....
"Don't get your hopes up, Trixie. Your mother has moved on with her life-"Mr. Tang begins, walking up behind her. Sometimes, parents are just clueless as to when their children need them...and when they want them to just back off. This, of course, is a situation of the latter.
"And whose fault was that?!" Trixie snaps, spitting with anger. "You shoved her away, you never allowed me one phone call with her. Not a one! As far as you were concerned, I was immaculately conceived!"
"That isn't-" Another thing he ought to know by now- never interrupt a woman scorned. Might be the last thing you ever do.
"Yes, it is, it's true! The same as every single thing written in these letters are lies! They aren't even in her handwriting! You lied to me...you're no better than the people who forced Mom to abandon me!" Trixie cries, shaking with unshed sobs. She has to get out of here, even if it's just to roam the streets. Remaining in the same room as him breaks her heart even further.
"I wanted to keep you from the truth," Her father says helplessly, looking at the notes his daughter was supposed to buy hook, line, and sinker. How could she have seen through them? They were so insidious, so clever...
"What is the truth? Tell me, Dad. What does she really think of me? Is she really coming? How much of what you say and what's written here is truth?" Trixie shrieks, on the verge of tears but keeping them at bay until she could express them in the solitude of her room, minus her father, of course.
Sighing heavily but respecting her desires, he responds, "Your mother is coming here in four days. That's true...everything in the diary is true...But the letters are not. None of them, that's why I left today's hanging around. Within two weeks of her leaving, she stopped writing, stopped trying to contact you at all. The only reason she's coming here is because of a business deal."
His words hang in the air like a putrid scent. For a second, she could swear she suffers from heart failure...two weeks after she left... When Trixie was who knows how old, her mother decided she was no longer important and abandoned her. There's no hope of talking to her at all...
"I never intended for you to find that diary or the note inside. The servants were careless; they shall be dealt with accordingly. Do not try to seek out your mother- she will not recognize you." Turning on his heels, Mr. Tang exits, pausing when his daughter asks him one last thing.
"Does that mean...my mother doesn't look like that? And she isn't married with kids and-"Trixie stammers, a tear sliding down her face. As soon as he leaves, she's going to call Timmy and meet him again. She doesn't give a damn if it's ten o'clock...
"I don't know about the kids," Her father replies briskly, "but that isn't your mother in that picture. It's a newspaper clipping."
Finished, he shuts the door. Trixie begins to sob in earnest, doubled over. Her heart is broken...
------
It's cold and dark outside. She doesn't care; at least she's stopped crying. The salty, bittersweet tears have left their mark on her face, as her father's words have done on her heart. For the first hour, she never thought she'd stop sobbing.
Now she knows all her dreams were for naught. Her mother's only coming here for a business deal, nothing more. She might as well have dropped off the face of the earth, for all her mother cares. Just because she gave birth to her, it means nothing to her...
The wind whips her hair to and fro, but she pays it little mind. Let nature batter her, at least it's more of a mother than her own. It takes care of her young, instead of forgetting about them two weeks after it leaves. Even if she's stopped crying outwardly, her heart weeps inwardly.
She told her bodyguard not to follow, she remembers that distinctly. Let him do whatever it was he did alone, without the added trouble of watching after her. If anything happens to her, well, she'll take care of herself.
But she doubts anything will. Dimmsdale is a quiet, peaceful town. Nothing important has ever happened here, nothing that wasn't fabricated. The most she'll run into after dark is a confused tourist.
Hugging her neon jacket to her body, Trixie looks up, at the hooting owls. Do they know why the caged bird sings? Do they care?
A pink squirrel, oddly enough, cocks her head and settles on the bench beside her. When she looks at her, she sees intelligence, creeping her out. Squirrels aren't smart enough to understand her, much less show pity.
She doesn't want her pity, either. All she wants is either her mother...or Timmy. If Timmy's supposed to be her boyfriend, why is he only physically there for her? What about emotionally?
Maybe she ought to find out. If he's willing to sneak out to meet her again, she'd appreciate it. This pink squirrel could carry a message, couldn't she? She didn't doubt it.
Picking up her cell phone, she makes another dicey call.
"Timmy...I need you..."