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HTTYD - Day 20
🕑 Added 2021-02-21 02:35:49 +0000 UTC==================
Tuesday, November 3
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Tuesday marked another happy and successful day for the Tilden family. After they had made breakfast together side by side, Marcus drove Jessie to school, taking her by Starbucks for her morning pick-me-up like the day before. After he came home, he finished tailoring several more resumes to send out for more job applications, watched some TV, and even started listening to an audio book while sitting outside and just enjoying the sunny day with the colorful autumn scenery. Then it was back to Jessie’s school that evening a little before 8 so he could pick her up from volleyball and bring her home. “Did you have a good game?” he asked with an upbeat tone as she hopped into the car.
“Yep! It was close, but we won,” she stated proudly, and he reached over to congratulate her and pat her on the back. “You seem to be in a good mood today Daddy,” she commented, feeding off of his positive vibes.
“Yeah, I think I am,” he responded, turning the car on. “It’s just been a good day, nothing went wrong or anything, and I got a lot done at home. It’s just one of those days that I feel really productive and I have no idea why. You ever get like that?”
She shrugged, “Sometimes. Not today, but every now and then yeah.” They continued on to drive home, talking about Jessie’s day at school and all the latest school gossip and drama that had taken place over a single day. And luckily for her when she got home, her dad had already had dinner before picking her up, so there were plenty of still-warm leftovers for her to eat when she got home. Which was just what she was craving after a long day at school that had culminated in a strenuous game that her team had barely won.
“So since you already ate, do you think you could rub my feet while I eat dinner?” Jessie asked her dad as she loaded up a serving of grilled chicken and broccoli onto her plate. “Or after dinner, if it makes a difference to you.” Normally the idea might gross Marcus out a little bit, especially considering she’d just gotten home from a game and probably didn’t smell too great yet. But he had been riding on such a high from the rest of his day, that that detail was a minor inconvenience to him, so he had no problem with helping her out. He’d always given her back massages and foot massages and even scalp massages over the years. It was just one of his occasional roles as a father.
“It doesn’t make a difference to me, sure,” he said, sitting on the chair to her left and slapping his knees a few times to signify that he was ready. With a gleeful smile, she swung her legs up onto his lap as she took another bite out of the savory chicken he’d cooked for her. Her feet looked to be in fact around a foot and a half tall from his perspective, and one of them alone was almost enough to cover his chest. Except there were two of them, each resting heavily on his kneecaps. He dutifully unscrolled her black and blue athletic sock from off her left foot, then scrunched it into a ball and threw it at her. She squealed in surprise, dodging to make sure it didn’t bounce off her face.
“Daddy, I’m eating!” she giggled, putting her fork and knife down just for good measure. She held her hands up in a kind of martial arts pose, as if ready for his attack, as he slid her other sock off and balled that one up too. An expertly timed throw between her arms had him convinced that he was going to hit her, until her hand quickly flung down and batted the sock away towards the floor. “Hi-yah!” she exclaimed in a comical voice. The two of them laughed together before she picked her fork and knife back up to continue eating as he got to work on rubbing her feet. They weren’t as damp as he was expecting, more sticky actually, but he could still smell them from just a few feet away. His only saving grace was that her games were usually from 5:30 to 6:30, she just had to stay an extra hour because the whole school was a team so she had to support all the grades. So it’d been around an hour and a half since she’d been active with them, resulting in most of the sweat drying up into her socks, but plenty of the salty sweaty smell sticking around. But he ignored it nonetheless. It’s funny how just 24 hours ago Jess had beaten me and subjected my head to being under her feet as a result of losing… but now that that’s over, and life is normal again and I’m in control, I don’t have a problem with giving her a foot rub. He continued reflecting on the situation, digging his thumbs into her sole in circles while she munched on her food and browsed Instagram.
Eventually she finished her dinner, and leaned back with a full belly to watch her dad, who had switched to her other foot and was about done. “Thanks for massaging them, Daddy. Hopefully they didn’t smell too bad,” she said, raising the foot he had already finished with, and playfully tapped him on the tip of his nose with her big toe.
“Well I’m willing to put up with it because I know you had a long day, and you need to relax,” he explained, ignoring her childish antics and pushing away her foot.
“Because if you wanna take a shot at wrestling again and see if you can beat me, I’m down to go for a round 2,” she smirked, and maneuvered the foot around his hand, back in front of his face. She didn’t try touching it again, but she wagged it back and forth in front of him, taunting him with the threat of a losing scenario similar to yesterday’s.
“No, you’re clearly much better suited to win those types of things than I am,” he chuckled, and then leaned back himself as he finished with rubbing her feet for the night. “But I do think I’m done with the massage.” He glanced at the clock on the wall as Jessie lowered her raised foot and crossed them in his lap. “Now there’s only an hour til your bedtime,” Marcus reminded her, and she sighed from how fast the day had gone by. “Did you sleep better last night, after you had me switch beds?”
“Actually yeah, I did,” she replied, then shifted in her seat uncomfortably. “I think I just don’t like sleeping in a room all alone, I know I always sleep like super well whenever me and Paris have sleepovers. But the house is so, like, empty and quiet at night, I don’t like it,” she grimaced, shivering at the thought. “Does it make me seem like I’m still a kid for wanting my parents nearby when I sleep?”
Marcus sighed, “I don’t know, actually. But I do know that growing up just fine, so you shouldn’t worry about it,” he reassured her. “Especially with me being… smaller, and you needing to take up more responsibilities in the household.”
“So, would it be OK if you slept in my bed again tonight?” she asked, biting the inside of her cheek nervously. The previous times had just been separate occasions, but now she was trying to turn it into a regular thing.
“Well I guess I wouldn’t mind it again if it helps you sleep at night,” he said. But she is a bit old. Maybe she’s just going through a weird phase or something, who am I to judge? “It sounds like you’re wanting this to become a regular thing, Jess. And we can’t realistically do it forever, no matter how much it helps you sleep. Eventually I’ll get a job and we’ll be on different time schedules again, and eventually you’ll grow up and be an adult and will need to get used to sleeping on your own.”
“I know,” she mumbled, looking down. “I just think it’s cuz like… I’m… the biggest person in the house now. Like you used to make noise when you walked around at night and stuff,” she laughed somberly, “but you just don’t do that anymore. Like I said, the house feels so empty at night, so it’s like, I already feel like I’m on my own. But… I’m not ready to be yet.”
Marcus could tell she was feeling especially vulnerable opening up to him like this. He obviously couldn’t have forseen this as being a side effect of his shrinking. Of course it wasn’t normal for someone as old as she was to feel like they need to be nearby their parents when they sleep, but it also wasn’t normal for someone as young as she was to feel as independent as she did. She was out and about throughout the day more than he was, she could finish household chores faster than he could, and she really truly was by far the biggest in their two-person household. “Of course you’re not ready yet sweetie, but that’s OK, that’s perfectly normal,” he reassured her, rubbing her leg with a hopeful smile. “You’re an only-child, and I’m a single parent, and I have a growth disorder now that doesn’t make me ‘seem’ like a typical parent. It’s a pretty abnormal circumstance, so it shouldn’t be surprising that you’re emotionally reacting to it in unusual ways. But that’s OK Jess, because nobody’s perfectly normal. Given everything that’s happened, I’d say that if needing someone nearby to sleep well is the worst thing you have going on, then you’re not doing that bad.”
She smiled, feeling warm inside again and more relaxed about the whole thing. “So this means I can stay up extra late now since you always go to bed way after me, right?” she giggled, knowing there was 0 chance of that being the case.
Marcus rolled his eyes, “No, it wouldn’t do you much good to cut back on your 8 or 9 hours a night by heading to bed at midnight. I can just readjust my schedule and go to bed the same time as you though. Now go take a shower, you need one,” he said, slapping the side of her ankles to try and get her to get up.
“Oh really, I do? Why don’t you just plug your nose so you can’t smell anything?” she asked, crossing her arms.
“Because I don’t want to have to plug my nose, silly.”
“Well I can plug them for you Daddy, it’s no problem.” Jessie uncrossed her legs and lifted her feet, sticking each big toe right up against his nostrils, completely covering the tiny holes and plugging them from getting any air flow. Then bit her lip at her audacious behavior. He chuckled and pushed them away, but she just lifted them up and over his arms and plugged his nose right back up. “Why are you pushing them away?” she teasingly asked, as he swatted them again but she simply ducked under and plugged his nose right back up with her toes.
“Jess, come on,” he laughed, and she finally gave in and obeyed her dad, by just barely unplugging his nose but still keeping her toes just inches below it.
“Fine, there, you happy now?” She wiggled them back and forth, knowing that their smell was unavoidable at such close range.
“Alright Jessie, seriously, go take a shower,” he scolded, unfazed by her actions and giving her a look that signified it was time to stop messing around. She got the message and sighed, swinging her legs back over and jumping back onto her feet.
“OK, I’ll stop playing around, but I don’t have time to take a shower.” He arched his eyebrow, expecting a good excuse. “Coach wants us to keep doing yoga so we can stay limber, and I’ve kinda been slacking on that and I didn’t wanna lie to her today. And Google said doing it before bed was like, the best time of day.” She glanced at her phone, checking the time. 8:36, and her bedtime was 9:30.
“So you can take a shower, do your yoga, and then finish getting ready for bed. There’s enough time to do all that.”
“Aaaaaaaand—” she added, shaking her head with attitude, “I wasn’t done talking yet Daddy—And I have to finish my math homework before tomorrow. And there’s kinda a lot. Actually I don’t even know if I’ll have time to do the yoga either.” Marcus waited to make sure she was done, and just as he opened his mouth to speak again Jessie had one more thing to add: “And I might need to go to bed late. Maybe.”
“Why didn’t you get it done yesterday, or over the weekend? Was it assigned today?”
“Yeah, she always assigns homework for the next day, I don’t know why she gave more than usual today. And I also got like, more homework than usual in science, we’re learning about cell structure and stuff so that’s what I did between after school and my game. But math isn’t like, one of my strong suits, cuz it’s pre-algebra so it’s kinda confusing so like I just know from how long it usually takes.”
“Well why don’t you go get your backpack, I can help you with some of it,” Marcus offered. “I was pretty good at math in high school.” Jessie perked up upon hearing that her dad was willing to help her, so she went to fetch her papers and calculator. Marcus got down from his chair and pushed it over next to Jessie’s as she skipped back to the table and set her stuff down. She hopped into the chair next to her dad’s and sat criss cross as he climbed onto his own chair and stood on the seat so he could properly see her assignment. But standing right next to his daughter put him closer than he’d been all night, and he could smell more than just the sweat on her feet now. “Oh, OK, you know what, you really do need a shower,” he laughed. “I thought it might just be your feet or something but clearly you played quite the game out there tonight.”
“Thank you, I did play well,” she proudly proclaimed, smiling triumphantly with her head held high.
Marcus rubbed his chin as he looked over Jessie’s work. “How much is there?” She flipped the page to show the other side, plus the second sheet of paper underneath it; four sides total. And she had already done the first few problems from the first page. It might take her awhile… but I know I’d be able to finish this quicker than her. He didn’t want to outright ask ‘really, this is gonna take you over an hour?’ and embarrass his daughter. “You know what Jess, how about for tonight, since I don’t wanna have to smell you for the next hour—no offense,” he stated, and she laughed, understanding completely what he meant, “then you can go and take your shower, and do your yoga like your coach wants, and I’ll work on this just for tonight.”
Jessie’s eyes practically bugged out. “Seriously Daddy, you’ll do my homework for me? Are you, like... seriously?” A bright grin began to light up her face as some of the stress of the night was being relieved.
He laughed at her reaction, and got that excited, tingly feeling inside that he always got when he could make his daughter super excited or happy. “Just. For. Tonight. But yes, I don’t know why your teacher gave you this much in the first place either, especially knowing how many of the kids there are in the sports programs and other extracurriculars.” Jessie practically lurched forward, before remembering that her dad probably wouldn’t want to be hugged while she still didn’t smell very good.
“Thank you thank you thank you, I’ll go take a shower right now!” she exclaimed, and practically exploded out of her chair and sprinted towards the bathroom. He laughed to himself as he watched her go, and then turned his attention back to the equations on the table. And I get to keep up my productive streak for the day, he smugly thought to himself as he grabbed her pencil and started on his daughter’s homework.
