dinner conversations
Danny Phantom drabble. Valerie-centric, pre-canon. Omg days are passing by in lockdown so quickly I did NOT notice it was already the last day of May aisojasds.
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Here Valerie was, dressed to the nines in a A&F tee and slim jeans, and Dad brought her to the Nasty Burger.
“Don’t you kids like this joint?” he asked, over a mouthful of burger.
“There are literally hundreds of other cafes.” She flicked a speck of fry off the table with a finger, and imagined it was like how Dash and the boys punted their football into the goal post – all their pent-up fury bundled into a dense, speeding mass – though she didn’t know where her goal was. The vast expanse of greasy linoleum, maybe.
Out of stray fries, she drummed her fingers on the table top.
Dad stopped chewing. “I just thought it might be good for the two of us. We haven’t spent enough time together lately.”
“We saw each other for breakfast.”
“That’s not what I meant, sweetheart,” he said slowly.
“I know that.” She also knew she was contradicting herself, so she grabbed the soda that had been sitting on the table untouched and sucked its straw. The gassy liquid hurt as it went down her throat. Tears sprung to the corners of her eyes, and her hand gripped the can more tightly, slippery with condensation.
Sorry, she wanted to say. Almost did, but her tongue couldn’t form the words over the lump in her throat.
Dad pressed serviettes into her hand. Kinda ridiculous, since she could just wipe those tears away. Would have, typically. She’d just swallowed it wrong, too quickly.
Valerie took the serviettes anyway. Pressed them against her eyes.
“I just want us to spend more time together,” murmured Dad.
“I know.” The tissues were still pressed over her eyes, so she didn’t have to look at her own burger on the table or find out if more tears would stain the paper.
You don’t know, don’t know Mom loved– how would you have known? You never came home.
She shoved those thoughts into a corner of her mind. Imagined locking them away in a tiny box, punting it and the key out of an imaginary window that led out of her head. Or maybe just the key; if she chucked both out someone would find it, and open it for her. Like a Pandora’s box. Picturing this almost made her giggle.
“Do you want to go somewhere else?” Dad asked. When she didn’t respond, he tried again. “It’s okay if you don’t want to finish this. It’s greasy, for a really late dinner. It’d probably give you a stomachache or just make you uncomfortable–”
He’s trying, she thought.
It wouldn’t make up for lost time. It wouldn’t coalesce into the empty space between them, wouldn’t bring someone back from the dead, not even as a ghost.
He’s trying.
Valerie removed the tissues from her face. There were damp smudges on it, and she wiped the condensation from her other hand onto it, then crumpled it in her fist. “Can we?”
“...and that would be terri–” Dad stopped, refocusing on her. “You mean, eat elsewhere?”
“Yeah.”
“Of course, sweetheart.”
He smiled at her, and she felt a little knot in her chest loosen. “There’s this place down the street. I’ve never been there. I heard they have real sushi.”
“Real sushi?” Her father laughed. The sound was nice. “How can I say no to that?”
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Written: 31 May 2020 | DannyMay 2020 Day 28, Diner