Skins Don't Cry Ch. 02

"How was school?" Connor asked his daughter over burgers and fries. He took a sip from his milkshake, rolling his head on his neck. Saoirse paused for a moment, chewing her fries before answering.

"It went okay." She rolled her eyes, tossing locks of hair back over her shoulder, "Just kind of the same stuff, you know? Listening to kids that are just goofing off, dealing with teachers that are stressed out and want to get the day over with. And then there's a couple that act like they actually care, but we're just going to be out of there next year and they start over, so it just feels fake, you know?"

Connor took another drink, tilting his head a little. That was a pretty nihilistic take for his little girl. He sat his cup down, leaning back in his seat, and ordering his thoughts before speaking again.

"I got a phone call from one of your teachers today." He didn't like lying to Saoirse, but he wanted to talk to her about this in some way. "A Miss Müller. She wants us to come in on Friday, after school, and have a meeting with her." He carefully watched his daughters face, trying to read something, anything, that was there, just in case she tried to trip him up. He trusted his daughter, he really did. But the daughter he had at home and the daughter that was in Miss Müllers classroom was apparently two different girls.

Saoirse screwed up her face more a moment, several warring emotions seeming to play across it. She seemed upset, a fleeting moment of relief or happiness, and her father caught those emotions as they briefly played across her face.

"Miss Müller is just one of those teachers that always wants to help everyone, even if they say they don't need any help." She said it quietly, pushing her food around her plate, "But I guess since she already called, we have to go in and talk to her, huh?"

She looked at her father, obviously hoping that he would say that they didn't have to go in, that a parent teacher conference wasn't neccessary, but sighed as she saw the look on his face. It was going to happen, obviously.

"Well," Connor said, tilting his head to the side, the vertebrae in his neck popping and cracking as he did, "At least we won't have to call your Mom about this." He snorted, starting to eat again, "I'd hate to hear what she had to say about all of this, and I think we can take care of it together, you know?"

Saoirse smiled a little, clenching her hand into a fist and holding it up over the table towards him.

"Super Dad and Incredi-Daughter, right?"

Connor laughed, surprised. They hadn't brought that up in years. He clenched his own fist, bumping knuckles with his daughter lightly.

"Til the very end, kid. I've always got your back, no matter what."

When she was younger, she had nightmares. Connor had sat next to her bed, exhausted from working as much as he did, knowing he would be exhausted the next day from not getting any sleep, and spun her long and detailed yarns about the adventures of Super Dad and Incredi-Daughter, two superheroes who always beat the bad guys, who were never afraid of anything, and traveled the universe banishing the monsters from little girls rooms. His little girl had always made him feel like Super Dad, and know she needed him again. He could feel it.

The time between their dinner talk and the meeting with Miss Müller went by like it didn't even exist. A multi-million dollar machine torn apart by repairmen, only for them to discover someone had covered up a sensor with a piece of tape on (what they hoped) was an accident, caused long days and higher quotas. While Friday's were usually his off days, because of the delay he was pretty much volunt-told to come in and put some hours on the clock that day.

Even though he was absolutely bushed, and felt bad for abandoning his guys, Connor left work early so that he could make the meeting on time. As he walked down the school halls, he saw Saoirse standing near the door to the classroom, a boy with his holding him up against the wall next to her, whispering close to her face.

Connor didn't police his daughter. He had raised her to make the correct choices, to be comfortable telling people no, what her boundaries were. He trusted Saoirse, had ever since she had been old enough to reason for herself and make her own choices. But something about this kid... he just made Connor's hackles rise. The young man had greasy hair, obviously a bottle dye job to be black, a pretty pathetic attempt at a mustache and goatee on his face, but Connor knew so many kids that came to shows like that. That wasn't what made him feel some sort of way.

No, it was the way the boy didn't look his daughter in the eyes, speaking directly to her chest, as if Saoirse's body stopped there, and her voice just came from a disembodied head. Thinking back to his conversation with Miss Müller, Connor used the deductive reasoning powers of the stellar father that he was to deduce that this was the Joseph Waters kid she had been talking about. He looked like the description, and Connor couldn't help but glance at some of the vest patches. Cradle of Filth? Yikes.

"Saoirse, who's your friend?"

His daughter, his baby girl, smiled at him, voice almost bubbly as she started to introduce the sleazeball. The boy ruined the introduction by scoffing at Connor, pierced eyebrow cocked.

"Sar, are you friends with the janitor or something?" He pulled his hand down, crossing his arms over his chest like he was something bad. Connor danced and moshed with kids that ate this boy for breakfast, and he was pretty nonplussed. "Why don't you just keep walking, old man?"

"Joey?" Saoirse wasn't smiling anymore, and she looked concerned. Her father couldn't blame her. "This is my dad."

'Joey' sneered again, "I thought your dad was that loser that your mom's always ordering around?" He looked at her, then back at Connor, seeming to see the similarities in their faces. "Oh, shit."

"'Oh shit' is right, buddy." Connor crossed his arms in return, biting down on his cheek. He knew this kid. This kid didn't know it, and Connor might not know anything about him personally, but he knew the type. Bravado covering him like armor, chip on his shoulder so big that he shouldn't be standing straight up and down. Hell, Connor had been that kid. He had made an ass of himself the first time he had met his ex-wife's parents, and had continued to make an ass of himself for several years around them.

"Luckily, I do believe in second chances." He looked at Saoirse for a moment, then nodded his head towards the door, "Why don't you go inside, tell Miss Müller I'll be inside in just a second?"

Saoirse said her goodbye, leaving Joey looking like a deer in the headlights.

"Look man, I-"

"Save it, Joey." Connor's voice was like iron. "Look man, I know what it's like. You don't fit in, or you don't want to fit in. Let me guess, your old man hates your music, or your mom hates it, and you don't feel like anyone understands you, so you're just mad at the world, huh?"

Joey didn't say anything, but Connor wasn't finished, nor did he care.

"I know that life. I lived that life. So I'm going to let your little first impression slide, for one reason, and one reason only." He held up a thick and tattooed finger, pointing it at the boy, "My daughter seemed genuinely happy when she went to introduce you, before you stuck your foot in your mouth. So the next time we meet, we're going to pretend this didn't happen, you understand?"

Joey nodded, cheeks turning slightly red. Connor couldn't tell if it was anger or embarrassment, but he hoped for more of the second over the first.

"Now, I have a meeting with the teacher." He stepped around, almost to the door before he spoke again, "And Joey? My daughter has eyes. Beautiful eyes, if you'd look up and notice. Maybe try looking up now and then, see what you find." He opened the classroom door, shutting it behind him and smiling at Miss Müller a little. Connor came to a seat beside his daughter, reaching out and squeezing her hand slightly.

"I told him he got a mulligan," He answered the question in her eyes, smiling at how she looked relieved, "But I'd prefer if he takes it on a week that I haven't been rushing around at work on my day off, okay kiddo?"

He looked at Miss Müller, Faye, feeling slightly embarrassed about talking to his daughter like she wasn't even there. He smiled a little, shrugging a shoulder.

"I had the pleasure of meeting Joey outside." He chuckled a little, shaking his head and ignore the rib poke from his daughter, "His stellar personality when it comes to older people and authority figures came on display."

"And as an obviously avid student of the school of rebelling, how did he stack up?" Faye said, barely controlled mirth in her voice, eyes sparkling.

Connor smiled back at her, laughter in his own eyes.

"I give the young man a solid 7.5 on style, but only a 6 on delivery. Not very much swearing or calling me 'the man', so that loses points."

"Dad, stop." Saoirse hissed, poking him in the ribs again. This time Connor listened to her, clearing his throat and getting much more serious as he looked at Faye. She looked beautiful today. Her hair was back in a long braid, and the light blue of her dress really brought out her complexion, making her eyes even more vibrant. He coughed again, trying to focus. They were here for serious reasons, after all.

For her part, Faye also thought that Connor looked good. He looked like he had just gotten off work, sleeves rolled up to his elbows, the top few buttons of his work shirt undone. She liked how everywhere he had uncovered had some vibrant pop of color, some interesting design that caught her eye. Her father had worked in a factory her entire life, had helped her pay her way through college thanks to it. He had always smelled like work, but the smell had always made her feel comforted, safe, like nothing could go wrong, nothing bad could happen to her, because her father, who was so strong, was there to take care of her. She briefly wondered if Connor smelled like hard work and safety.

When he cleared his throat, she was sure he knew she was staring at him, and she averted her eyes to her desk, a high flush rising on her cheeks. She shuffled her papers for a moment, and then cleared her own throat, starting to speak.

"So, I asked you both to be here today to discuss some of my worries with how your school year is going, Saoirse." Faye pulled out a piece of paper, setting it where both father and daughter could see it, "As I told your father, you are passing all of your classes, even if you're at an 'average' grade." She pointed at a spot on the paper, "I talked to your other teachers, and they sent me how many homework assignments you've turned in versus how many in class assignments you're excelling at, and the number is vastly different."

The paper showed that Saoirse was turning in her homework, all of it, but was either doing very poorly on her in class assignments or doing the bare minimum to turn in the assignment and letting it get graded at a lower grade.

"I don't see why it matters," Saoirse stated, tossing her hair back over her shoulders, "I'm still passing all of these classes. I'm still getting the work done, I'm not skipping school."

"Yes, but I don't think it's unfair of me as a teacher to be worried about you." Faye smiled sadly, looking at Saoirse, "You were one of my most exuberant students. You had a real desire to succeed in class, and then after this summer, you seem to have tried to coast through, with minimal engagement." The teacher seemed to open up a little, hurt coming into her eyes as she looked at Saoirse, "We miss you in the guitar club. We've missed you at the drama club meetings, and in part I feel like I may have failed as a teacher somewhere in not noticing something that lead to this."

Saoirse sat for a moment, chewing her lip, looking down at her shoe as she scuffed at a line on the floor with it.

"I'm just tired of having to be perfect." The teenage girl finally spoke, still looking down, "I have to be perfect at home, perfect at school, have to be perfect with auditions, have to play the guitar perfect, have to do everything perfect."

Connor spoke, turning slightly to look at his daughter. She had never voiced this to him, and he felt like he had missed a step as a father in not seeing that she felt this way.

"I'm sorry you felt this way kiddo, but how have I made you feel like you have to be perfect at home?" He truly wanted to know, so that he could stop doing it. He wanted his baby girl to feel safe, accepted, like she was home and didn't have to be someone else, someone she wasn't.

"Not you." She continued to look down, foot scuffing faster, "Mom. That's why I wanted to move in. If I'm not perfect, she screams at me, she takes my things away. She tries to check my emails, tried to put a tracker app on my phone so she could see where I was all the time, and she read my text messages and then sat me down at the table and yelled at me for hours about who my friends were, how I was going to end up knocked up and a high school dropout, all this other stuff."

"So you want to make it a self-fulfilling prophecy?" Connor asked her softly, reaching out and taking one of her hands into his, "Not about the knocked up part. But because I don't force you to try and be perfect, you let everything with school slip because your mom said it would?"

"Well, no. I just..." She said softly, a sniffle in her voice, "I just want a chance to be normal and have friends without worrying that I'm going to get yelled at if I'm not the perfect daughter she wants but I never wanted to be."

"I'll talk to your Mom." Connor promised, smiling softly at his daughter, squeezing her hand. "You're living with me now, remember? I'm not going to treat you like that, and I'm not going to let anyone treat you like that. But you have to talk to me about stuff, so that I know it's coming without someone else reaching out to me about it, you know?"

Saoirse nodded, and Connor felt something lifted off of his shoulders. His daughter just needed someone to understand, to not be so hard on her. He felt a little flash of anger at her mother, but pushed it down and out of the way. They would deal with that later, as a family. He let go of her hand, facing Faye now.

"Is there anything else you'd like to bring up? If not, I think we've kind of said what needed to be said, and can go from here on working up a plan to fix things."

Faye nodded, managing to keep her smile from stretching across her face. Her cheeks always rounded when she smiled, her father calling them 'chipmunk cheeks', and she didn't want to look silly right now. This had been an incredibly touching moment, after all, one she felt like she had almost been a voyeur to. She had rarely seen a father who tried to be so understanding, who tried to be so open with his child. It was refreshing, and if she was being honest with herself, very attractive.

"I think we've done all we needed to today, yes." Faye finally said, rising from her seat. "Saoirse, I want you to know, I don't think you have to be perfect. Not in drama, not in the guitar club. We just consider you an integral part, because of how kind you are, how willing you are to help, but if you need a break, I understand. Just let me know what you need, and I promise, as your teacher, I'll do my best to help you and be understanding."

Saoirse nodded, and both Connor and his daughter rose. He pulled the keys to his truck from his pocket, grinning as Saoirse groaned.

"I make her drive sometimes." He said, voice full of mirth, "Fathers privilege and all that." He tossed the keys to his daughter, putting on a haughty (and terrible) British accent, "Niles, collect the large blue pickup truck in the parking lot. I have a hankering for Indian food." Saoirse stuck her tongue out at him, dodging his joking swat on the shoulder as she disappeared out of the classroom door.

"Thank you." He said it to Faye, turning to face her. "This went really well, but I would have never known my baby girl was hurting if you hadn't noticed. I can't tell you how much I appreciate that, how much it means to me."

"Just doing my job." She said, almost shyly now that they were alone in the room together, "So few students let us in, let us care about them, because they think we're just waiting for them to go through the class and out into the world. And I will admit, there's some that just never make a mark, because they don't want to open up, they don't want to be a part of it." She smiled, shaking her head, "But your daughter isn't one of the ones that fade into the background. She is such a vibrant young woman. You should be proud, and I can only guess she's going to do bigger and better things as she gets older."

"There's nothing in my life I'm prouder of," He said it softly, shaking his head, "Give everything I got just to make that girl happy, make her feel safe. She calls me Super Dad." He laughed, eyes twinkling as he looked at her, "I have to do my best to live up to it, you know?"

She laughed as well, tilting her head to the side. He was certainly a puzzle, wasn't he? On the one hand, he looked like someone who had never grown up. Oh, the wrinkles were there, and she could see a little grey in the stubble on his face and the stubble at his temples. But the exuberance he had, the compassion, it just wasn't something she had come to associate with parents in her profession. She associated it with young men about to enter the world, the kind that hadn't seen how harsh the world dealt with their dreams.

"Connor-"

"Faye-"

They both spoke at once, and he laughed a little, shaking his head as she did the same.

"You first." She said, hand coming up, tips of her fingers covering her smile.

"I was wondering, now that this crisis is over, if you'd like to grab a bite to eat some time? Together. Just the two of us. Without Saoirse." Sometimes he was stunned he had managed to get married once. He sounded like he didn't know what the English language even was, and he could feel the tips of his ears warm up with embarrassment. He was fully prepared to apologize, ready to run from the room, when her smile grew.

"I would love that!" She went around to her desk, pulling out a blank sheet of paper and scribbling her number on it, handing it over to him, "Just call me when you get a chance, and I'd love to set something up." Dinner for just the two of them. He probably wanted to talk about helping his daughter, something along those lines. She didn't care. It had been so long since she had went on a date, even if he took her to a hot dog stand and wanted to talk about the weather, she would count it.

"Really?" He looked at the piece of paper, then her, smiling widely, "Great. I'll give you a call after the munchkin and I get done eating dinner, and we'll set something up." He took a step back towards the door, eyes searching hers. "I can't wait." His voice, already deep, already husky, seemed to take on an even deeper tone, and then he was out the door, folded paper in his pocket.