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Friday, October 23
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Jessie felt so thankful for all that her dad had done for her over the past few days, including his agreement to now drive her to and from school every day. So she felt that cooking him breakfast on Friday morning was the least she could do. After all, she now had more time to get ready in the mornings since she wouldn’t be taking the bus any longer, so taking some time to cook them something a bit nicer than cereal wouldn’t take any extra time compared to her old schedule. By now, Marcus was waking up later than his daughter, since her morning routine was a lot lengthier than his, so the first thing he noticed in the morning as soon as he woke up was the smell of bacon wafting in from the kitchen. And that got him up faster than coffee ever could.
“Oh wow, I hope I can get some of that,” he said, wandering his way into the kitchen and looking up to see his daughter cooking at the stove.
“Of course you can, I made enough for both of us,” she said, and slid the bacon off onto a plate. “And you have perfect timing too,” she added, picking up one of the smaller slices and putting it on one of the two plates that already had scrambled eggs on them. He was only getting one slice, but she knew that to him a single slice was like eating half a dozen slices, and he likely wouldn’t even finish the one she gave him. “I just figured with you picking me up and taking me to school every day, I could make us breakfast, at least for today. I mean, I’m sure you get tired of trying to eat cereal a lot faster than I do.”
He climbed onto the chair opposite Jessie at the table as she set down his plate. “You’re right,” he sighed, “at least they can fit in my mouth easily enough, but I think there’s a reason Cheerio’s aren’t an inch long for normal people. And I don’t wanna even think about trying to eat cornflakes again,” he said, causing Jessie to laugh as she remembered him trying to fit them in his mouth a few weeks ago. “It was like eating a cereal made out of super thick chips. But eggs are good,” he said fondly, and Jessie nodded in agreement, before the two of them dug into their breakfasts together.
* * * * * *
“So, what do you have planned for the weekend now?” Marcus asked Jessie as they drove home from school.
“Um, I don’t know,” she replied absentmindedly, more focused on her phone than the conversation.
“Gonna hang out with anyone?” he asked, digging deeper.
She sighed, “Yeah, probably.”
“Well, how about we do some cleaning around the house when we get home?”
“Kay,” was all she said. Well, that was easier than I was expecting. It’ll be nice to have someone full size who can help me clean up. Maybe I should always ask her to do her chores when she’s busy staring at her phone. Soon enough the two of them pulled into the garage, and they headed inside. Jessie made her way to her room, still absorbed in her phone, and Marcus chuckled to himself as he watched her go. He stood, looking down the hallway, waiting to see if she was just dropping off her backpack and gym bag and would come back out to help him start on their weekend chores. But she never emerged, so he made his way down the hallway to check back in on her.
“Hey,” he said, wandering into his daughter’s room and looking around. Either she had made a mess of it in the two days since he’d last been in her room, or he simply hadn’t noticed the clutter when she was doing yoga several days ago. But either way, her room was definitely the most untidy area of their house. “Remember I asked you in the car if you’d help me clean up around the house when we got home?” he asked, looking up at her, lying on her bed while continuing to browse her phone.
He saw her fingers pause, and her eyes looked to the side as she thought about what he had said. It wasn’t even 5 minutes ago, he thought, is it really that hard to remember? “Oh yeah,” she said, sighing and begrudgingly getting up from her bed.
“Although from the looks of it,” he said, bending over to pick up one of her pairs of shorts off the ground, “your room needs it more than anywhere else.” He tried not to think about his daughter’s hips being twice as big as his head, and tossed the shorts in her hamper. She blushed at his comment as she picked up some clothes of her own. They spent a minute picking up clothes together and tossing them in her hamper, sometimes coming across candy wrappers or old school paperwork that belonged in the trash. At one point, Marcus bent down to pick up another item off the ground that he couldn’t immediately recognize, and as he lifted it up to his face and turned it around, he realized it was one of his Jessie’s bras. It was plain and white, but twice as wide as his torso, and it caught him off guard for a moment. He could tell they were B cups, if not A’s, but they were so big from his perspective that his head could’ve fit in them. Just the fact that there was any depth at all to an item of his young daughter’s femininity was enough to momentarily paralyze him.
Jessie noticed what he had picked up, and walked over to him, grabbing it out of his hands. “Oh, that reminds me, I need to buy some new bras,” she said, tossing the one he was holding into the trash.
“What’s wrong with that one, looks fine to me,” he commented, glancing back at it.
The girl looked down at him with a half funny, half confused expression, like the answer was obvious to her and she was surprised her dad couldn’t realize it. “They’re getting too tight now. My boobs are getting bigger.”
Marcus blushed; his eyes instinctively wanted to look up to the chest above him, but he knew better than to gawk at his own daughter. “Oh. Yeah, right,” he said, avoiding her eyes and glancing around at the other clothes on the floor.
Jessie giggled at her dad’s reaction, “I know, you don’t wanna talk about that, but that’s just a part of growing up. I don’t have a mom to help me with this stuff, so some stuff’s gonna slip out,” she laughed.
“No, it’s fine,” Marcus said, not wanting to admit that his role as a parent would be easier if he weren’t going at it alone. “It’s just your body, it’s a part of maturing, like you said. I’d rather have you bring stuff like that up with me, even if I don’t know exactly how to help you, than to have you do everything alone and just guess. Besides, you have other people besides me that you can reach out to, or that I can ask for you: your grandma, your Aunt Lily.” That was actually how he and Jessie had handled her first training bra. Marcus was talking to his sister at Christmas several years ago, and she had mentioned that Jessie was probably about at that stage in her life. And luckily for Marcus, his sister was kind enough to take Jessie to the store and help give her some advice on growing up and her development, the kind of advice Marcus couldn’t even begin to pretend to know about.
“Oh yeaaaahh,” Jessie said, remembering the same holiday that Marcus had recalled. “I mean I don’t think I really need their help or anything, like I said, it’s just — I just need a bigger size, that’s all.” The two of them mulled over the situation for a few moments, before Jessie spoke up again. “Soooo… but yeah, so when would be a good day to go then? To the store?” The last time Jessie had needed a new bra, she had gotten some when she was out shopping with some friends, so it had been awhile since her dad had taken her.
“Well… I guess, we can go right now if you want. I mean, you just threw one of your old ones in the trash, so we mind as well replace it today.”
“Fine with me,” she smiled, and they both headed back to the garage to get in the car.
“So, where do you normally buy them from?” Marcus asked, glancing at his daughter but keeping his eyes focused on the road. “Where are we going?”
“Uh… well I really like the stuff at Victoria’s Secret,” she answered. Marcus shifted in his seat, I was kinda hoping she’d say something like Target or Walmart, he thought. Guess I shouldn’t be surprised though. I actually don’t know if I’ve ever even been in a Victoria’s Secret.
“Aren’t they kinda like, designer? Like really nice but kinda pricey?”
“They’re not desiiiiigner,” she whined. “They wouldn’t be so famous if they were too expensive.”
Well I don’t know about that. “How many do you need?”
His daughter took a pause, trying to gauge how she should answer. “Probably more than you’d be willing to get,” she said, laughing somewhat nervously.
“Well if you need them we should get them, I’m not broke Jess.” Not yet. “I know I like to have about two weeks worth of underwear myself, in case I accidentally put off doing my laundry for a few days.” Jessie couldn’t help but scoff at his reply. She didn’t even have enough bras to last a week, let alone two. “But you’re also young and growing, so I don’t want to buy too many of something that might not fit you in a couple months.” Jessie couldn’t argue with him there, he had a point. “So since you know more about bras than me, as the woman in this scenario, how many do you think is a good idea to get?”
“Umm… well, seven?” Marcus nodded approvingly; one for each day of the week, that seemed fair enough. “And how much are they?”
Jessie’s face turned pale, already anticipating how her dad was about to react. “At Victoria’s Secret?”
“Well that’s where we’re going, right? Do you know how much they are there?”
“Like… 60 bucks…”
Marcus almost stuttered, and he hadn’t even said anything yet. “60 — Jessie, I’m not spending 400 dollars to get you some clothes that won’t fit you in a year! Even if I still had a job, that would be too much.” She bit her lip anxiously. “I know there are cheaper bras out there than 60 bucks, I told you they were expensive. We can just go to Walmart and pick some up.”
Jessie scrunched up her face, “Ew, no, wait, we don’t need to go to Victoria’s Secret but I don’t wanna get ones from Walmart.”
“You don’t need expensive bras Jessie, especially not at your age.”
“Fine, we don’t need to go to Victoria’s Secret like I said, but Walmart’s too cheap, I don’t wanna get a generic brand bra. You’ve gotten ones from there before and they didn’t feel very good.” Her dad sighed. “You don’t have boobs, daddy, you need something that feels comfortable since you’re wearing them all day.” He couldn’t argue with her there. About both things, him being boobless and comfortable things being worth the extra price tag. He didn’t know what having breasts was like, but it probably wasn’t easy, especially at her age.
“Alright, we won’t go to Walmart then. But you need to find somewhere in the middle. Are there any places that are like, 15 bucks?”
“That’s probably how much the Walmart ones are,” she said, pulling out her phone to pull up Instagram. She started giggling, “Hey, look at her,” she said, and held her phone out for her dad to see.
“I’m driving, just tell me what it is.”
“Just look,” she insisted, and he glanced over at his phone for a quick second. He hadn’t gotten a good enough look at it, but it seemed to just be a selfie that a girl had taken. A girl with a relatively well-endowed chest.
“What am I supposed to be looking at, is that a celebrity or someone you know?”
Jessie brought her phone back to look at the picture again, “Yeah, her name’s Veronica. She’s in my class.” Wait, she’s in her class? Marcus’ face reddened as he realized the woman whose picture he had looked at was really just a girl the same age as his daughter. Girls look too old with makeup nowadays, he thought bitterly. How does someone as young as her have boobs that big? Fuck, stop it Marcus, you shouldn’t be thinking about stuff like that. “She just posted that, but I was thinking at least you don’t need to help me buy a bra for that. I mean, hopefully mine get that big someday,” she said wistfully. She held her phone closer to her face, almost as if in disbelief. “God, I’m so jealous.”
Marcus felt uneasy and hoped to change the subject back. “Were you gonna look up someplace cheaper?” he asked.
“Oh yeah. Aerie’s not that bad.” She found a recent post by them advertising a sale. “What about 25?”
He scratched his neck, “OK, I guess that’s not that bad. But I don’t know if I wanna get 7, that’s still $200. How about 4? You might need to do laundry twice a week, but it’ll be easier on my wallet. Maybe you can keep one or two old ones as a backup.”
That seemed fair to Jessie, considering buying 7 would’ve been more than she already had anyways. “Yeah, that’s fair I guess.”
“Great,” he said, smiling. “I think I still know where Aerie is,” he added, turning the car around to take a different route.
They arrived a few minutes later, and Jessie hopped out of the car. “Hey, you don’t need me to come in with you, right?” he asked. It sounded like what Jessie would say whenever he did errands and she wanted to stay in the car and play on her phone, except for him it was anxiety about being a 2’7 guy in a lingerie store populated by women twice his height, one of which was his daughter.
“No, just gimme your credit card and I’ll make sure to get a receipt for you,” she answered, and he pulled out his wallet to hand Jessie his card. “Thanks!” she said, closing the door, and Marcus watched as she headed into the store without him.
She was taking longer than Marcus had expected, but he figured she was just trying on a few pairs, and around half an hour later he noticed her skipping back to the car with a bag in hand. “Got everything you need?” he asked as she got in the car and handed his credit card back.
“Yep! And uh… I got five pairs actually, instead of four, just so you know,” she said, looking at him intently in hopes that he wouldn’t be angry. “I can Venmo you for the extra one, or you can take it out of my allowance. I just really wanted to have at least five though.”
Marcus looked back at her, and could see her honesty shining through her eyes. He knew she wasn’t trying to take advantage of him, of course there was no reason to be mad. I did tell her that I’d buy as many as she needed. An extra 25 won’t hurt. He took a deep breath, “That’s OK honey, don’t worry about it. You don’t need to pay me back, it’s my treat to you.”
Jessie’s eyes widened, “Thank you so much daddy!” she exclaimed, and reached over to wrap him in a quick hug. Marcus blushed, and hugged her back. He’d never grow old of the warm feeling he got from making his daughter happy.