Just What I Needed

Just What I Needed (72)

Breathing in the floral scent, Keely leaned back against the tree while listening to the person on the other end of the phone which was pressed against her ear.

Well, to be truthful listening was being generous. She couldn’t help that sometimes she had a short attention span when it came to people. Sometimes was being generous too, though. But she just couldn’t help it, the flowers and weeds had grown wild without someone to tend them as her dad wasn’t exactly the type.

However, that wasn’t a bad thing. She actually liked it more that way. It gave everything a sense of freedom, there was no taming it and nor should anyone try. And it even mirrored her thoughts about humanity and music. How she could turn every thought that passed through her mind was a question for the ages however. The rest was easy to figure out.

Fiddling one handed with the tuners on the acoustic guitar on her lap, Keely waited until Tony felt the need to breathe. He was telling her about something that Sadie did at school today that was apparently adorable. How someone not realizing they had jam on their nose from lunch until the end of the day could be cute was a mystery to her, but if it was Sadie apparently it was amazing to Tony and that was enough to make Keely’s heart melt more than slightly.

“So you two are coming over tonight?” she questioned, half wishing to get off the call so she could play the guitar, but held on by the need to know if people were going to show up at her house that night.

“Yup,” he answered cheerfully, what she assumed was a car door slamming behind him. “How could we miss your television debut?”

Rolling her eyes at the teasing tone of his voice, Keely stopped playing with the tuner in order to twirl her pick between her fingers absentmindedly. “I’ve been on TV before,” she replied drily, but quickly grimaced at how bigheaded the words came out.

Surprisingly Tony just chuckled, “Well, this is your television debut while we’re sitting with you.”

“So you’ll be here in like a half an hour?” she questioned.

“Make it about fifteen minutes,” he replied, “I’ve got to go, Keel. I’m just about to start my car.”

“Drive safe,” Keely wished him in farewell before hanging up.

Shoving the phone into the pocket of her jeans, Keely shoved up from the cool ground, wiping the dirt from the seat of her pants with one hand while the other gripped the neck of her acoustic tightly.

Finding her way out of the mess of a garden that thrived against the side of their house, Keely got out without too much incident. Well, her foot did get caught in a tangle of weeds and the only thing that kept her and her guitar from smacking into the ground was her hand gripping tightly around the branch of the tree. But since she didn’t actually hit the ground, she considered it a win.

Edging towards the back of the house, she made her way through the gate to the backyard only to find her father. He was sitting on the patio set she’d made him buy years before, rubbing his temples wearily as he drank from a mug which she could only assume was coffee with a magazine on the table just next to where his elbows was leaning, propping him up straight.

For a moment Keely hesitated. He hadn’t noticed her yet, if she just stepped light and didn’t fall, she could back up and avoid the situation altogether. It was a tempting option; avoidance with her was a key tactic for survival, or at least her version of it.

However the thought of running away from this, running away from yet another thing that was troubling her had Keely’s back straightening as she took somewhat confident steps forward. She could do this, she needed to do this. At least here she knew where she stood; at least her heels had solid footing. Until she figured out the past she was never going to be able to figure out the future and who it might involve, or, more importantly, a certain person she needed it to involve.