This story features some characters from my Milly Scott series. It is about two girls and how they became a couple. It is a prequel to 'Shaping our lives' but it doesn't matter if you've not read any of my previous work.
All of the people involved are over 18, fictitious and products of my imagination.
Revision
I closed the book and leaned back in my chair. I'd had enough for tonight; nothing else was going to stick. My final two exams were on Tuesday, history and English literature, and then I would be free. Okay, I wouldn't be free, there would be weeks of waiting for the results and the anxiety over where I would end up at university, assuming of course that I didn't bugger up the exams completely. I wanted to study management and maybe finance. I had a couple of options, the local university which would be great to stay at home or be more adventurous and head to London or Manchester. I need tea!
Dad was watching something on TV as I headed for the kitchen. "I'm done for the night, my head is spinning and I need tea. Can I get you anything?"
"If you're making tea I'll have a cuppa too and maybe a biscuit?"
My Dad has a thing for chocolate biscuits. I don't think that we actually had any biscuits that didn't have chocolate in or on them, at least I hadn't bought any for a couple of years and as I did most of the shopping, it was unlikely.
I handed a mug to my Dad as I sat down at the other end of the sofa and I saw him looking. I smiled and pulled the packet of biscuits from behind my back. "You had me worried for a moment. How are you feeling about the last two exams?"
"If they ask the right questions for history I'll be fine, there should be enough of a choice but please, not the Russian Revolution. That is one set of events that I cannot get my head around properly. English will be fine I think, but if Shakespeare walked in here right now I'd choke him with those biscuits. Still, as he says: 'The web of our life is of a mingled yarn, good and ill together'"
"Oh, if my old brain is still functioning I think that's from ... 'All's well that ends well?' So I take it that you hope the exams end well?"
I laughed, "Actually I hadn't seen that connection, I was thinking more that life is full of good and bad and we have to take what comes. But, I hope to try and make life more good than bad. But please no more literature tonight."
Dad chuckled and sat back sipping his tea. "You've had enough 'bad' for one young lady, Emily. I miss your mum every day, I loved her very much. But, as bad as that's been for me I feel for you. Not having your mum around during most of your teens must have been a challenge but you've coped really well and I'm very proud of you. I'm sure that she would be as well."
"We both still miss her and it would have helped for her to be here, but you've been amazing, the best Dad ever. I've never wanted for love, affection, advice or support."
I was silent for about thirty seconds. "I have only two complaints." His head spun around. "I always wanted my skirts shorter and more pocket money." For ten seconds he looked puzzled and then we both laughed.
"If your skirts had been any shorter it wouldn't have been worth wearing them."
I was still laughing, "Rubbish, they were always decent. Actually, you've always been generous with pocket money as well."
My parents had met soon after they'd both finished university and were working in the same office building. Dad was a trainee manager in a consultancy firm, the same company he still works for but where he's now the Group Manager.
Mum wasn't very keen on Dad for a couple of months after they first met, but he won her over and they dated for a few months before they both realised that they were made for each other and very much in love. Dad was twenty-six and mum a year younger. She was completing her training as an accountant and as soon as she did they got married. Neither of them had many close relatives and those that they did have were elderly and have long since gone.
They tried for kids as soon as they could but lost two babies early in Mum's pregnancies' and then I was born. Mum had had a hard time and the joy of my arrival was tempered by doctors advising her not to try for more kids. As an only one, they doted on me. I wasn't spoiled but we were always together doing things. Mum taught me many lessons including the value of hard work and, more practically, how to cook even though I was still a little young for it.
Cooking was a useful skill and it turned into something that I needed long before any of us had expected. Mum was diagnosed with cancer when I was twelve and despite operations and treatment she only lasted for six months, she was 41. When she knew that she was going she spent every last breath telling me how much she loved me and, importantly, all of the things that she would have told me over the next five or six years as I grew up and had she been around.
Dad tried hard but he was a broken man for those six months and I suspect that if he'd not had me and my mum hadn't threatened him before she went, he would have slid into a very dark place. I tried hard to take care of him but I still had a lot to learn and, bless Dad, he did his best as he grieved as well.
Dad hired a housekeeper. Daria was in her twenties and had come over from Poland to find work. She took care of the house, laundry and did all of the cooking. She was a nice woman and easy to talk to, I got on well with her but she wasn't my Mum. After two years Daria went home because of a family situation. From then on it was just Dad and me.
I grew up pretty quickly and together we muddled through. He's been great, a kind and gentle man who clearly loves me a great deal. We get on pretty well, at least until it comes to the length of my skirts.
Realisation
A couple of weeks after my eighteenth birthday I'd been lying in bed and thinking about the people who'd been at my party. I liked them all but I had no feelings for any of the guys. There were two girls who made me shiver. I thought about them sexually, they turned me on. One was Hazel, a long-legged athlete who was just ... I don't know what it was but I'd dreamt about her a few days ago, she'd been kissing me and I was stroking her legs. I'd woken up and it hadn't got any further than that.
The other was my friend Fiona, she's just a beautiful girl and although we'd been at the same school most of our lives we weren't that friendly until a few years ago when I was trying to get my Dad to buy me a guitar.
I'd had a few lessons, really enjoyed it and seemed to be making good progress, so of course, I wanted my own guitar. My Dad was sceptical. By chance, Fiona and her older sister Jane were in the music shop at the same time and there was a long conversation. Jane taught me a piece of music and the three of us played it together in the shop. I got my own guitar and have enjoyed playing ever since.
I've played with Jane and Fiona a few times, but since Jane went away to university Fiona and I have become much closer.