"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.
