The Truth Behind a Smile

Despite the revealing top she was forced to wear, Stephen despised the shorts she wore even more. He thought it generous that they were called shorts as he believed he owned boxers that where almost double the size of her shorts, that surprisingly enough where somehow even tighter than her top. Not only where they tight but would often hike up her legs even more due to the large thigh muscles she had grown with her own workouts, causing Emily to consistently pull the bottom of her shorts down.

This attire, although infuriating for a male parent to watch his daughter wear, was very appealing to younger men, especially when the wearer was as attractive to them as Emily was. The four young men that entered the gym at that moment where no exception to this, and upon seeing the way her shorts hugged by body, one of the boys slapped Emily on her behind.

This grotesque act caused Emily to shoot around in shock and slight horror, as the boy and his companions laughed and made demeaning comments towards her and slowly walking away. Everyone in the gymnasium had seen what had just happened and a wave of hushed gasps and shocked expressions filled the room. The head referee quickly blew his whistle and began yelling at the young men to move along and stop disrupting the game as Stephen attempted to stand up and confront the boys himself but was held back by Hugo.

The shock in Emily’s face quickly disappeared however and instead was replaced with a clear expression of disgust and anger as the four boys walked away and laughed. Grabbing the ball in both hands and preparing herself, Emily called out the boys with a sharp loud “Hey!”, causing all four young men to turn around with smiles still plastered across their faces but where quickly erased. As the young men turned around Emily tossed the ball up slightly and with all the forced, she could possibly muster smacked the ball and sent it hurdling into the young man’s face who had just smacked her behind. The gasps in the room became much louder this time and the smiles on all the young men’s faces where replaced with shocked jaw dropped looks as they watched their friend get pummeled with a ball traveling just over forty miles per hour. The impact was only amplified by the fact that Emily was only about eight feet away from the boy when she hit the ball.

Almost instantly the boy’s face grew red from a mixture of embarrassment, pain, and slowly blood that pours out of his nose like a faucet. Tears filled his eyes as he hunched over in pain and rand out of the gymnasium in a panic, followed quickly behind by his childish companions. The gymnasium was silent for a moment as much of the room was filled with shock at what they had just witnessed but, it was quickly filled with the cheers and laughter of Stephen who stood tall clapping and yelling his approval of his daughters’ actions.

Hugo quickly joined in on the matter and the two shared a laugh as the rest of the room slowly returned to normal with scattered applause and laughter throughout. The referees met with one another at the center of the court and appeared to deliberate on whether Emily should have been thrown out the of the game or not but, just as the head referee walked over to her. He walked right past her instead and grabbed a towel to clean up the small droplet of blood that had made its way onto the court and resumed the game as normal.

They went on to win that game and the corresponding final and championship alongside it but despise the trophy and accolades that Emily would go on to win, Stephen’s proudest moment of her was watching the way she defended herself that day.

* * *

“Did Emily ever ask about what really happened to her mother or why she would do such a thing?” I asked Stephen. The sun beamed on his face, and I couldn’t tell whether his perspiration was due to the heat or my invasive question.

“Of course, she did. Just like any other little girl growing up without a mom would.”

“It must have been a difficult conversation for both of you. It must haunt her, wondering why her mother would do something like that.”

“Oh, I didn’t tell her that.”

I was taken aback at the stillness in Stephen’s reply. “I assume you told her that her mother died. Didn’t she have questions as to how …?” I asked mildly.

“She knew that her mother was no longer with us. That’s all that she had to know,” Stephen said flatly.

“Why did you not tell Emily the truth?”

Stephen quirked his mouth and shook his head.

“Don’t you think she deserved to know?” I asked, hoping to pry a real response from him.

“No, I don’t think anybody would benefit from knowing a truth that ugly.”

This time I sat quietly, waiting for Stephen to elaborate.

He sighed. “Well, what if I told her that her mother killed herself a week after her first birthday because she couldn’t remember a thing and began to hate herself more and more each day? So much so that the love she felt for her own daughter was only a microscopic drop of affection compared to the dark ocean that was the hatred she held for herself—you think that would make her feel any better?”

I looked Stephen in the eyes sympathetically. “No, I guess not.” I shook my head gently. I could tell by the way his body appeared more closed off that he felt some sort of shame. His shoulders hunched forward while he spoke, and he grabbed hold of his forearm with one hand, rubbing the fine hairs with a thumb that went back and forth, tracing an arc.

“I know it’s not right keeping the truth from someone who had every right to know what really happened,” he said, “but I just couldn’t bring myself to tell her. The thought of breaking her heart paralyzed me every time a chance came up. I was just scared that she’d end up hating herself as much as her mother had, and it would be my fault again.”

I paused for a moment and watched as his lips became tight.

“Do you regret it now?”