I opened the front door quietly, listening.

After a few moments of silence, it became apparent that Pa was on a call. His speech pattern changed when he was on the phone with clients.

I quickly raided the kitchen for snacks and began to sneak up the stairs, trying not to disturb him.

"Please hold for one moment." I heard from the back office, then footsteps in the hallway. "Philip?"

"Hey Pa." I leaned over the banister. He was standing in the hallway, holding his phone with one hand over the speaker.

"I'll come up after I'm finished with my call, alright?"

I nodded. He lifted the phone to his ear again and walked back towards his office. "My apologies, Miss Danforth, I had to check on something. Continue."

I continued upstairs and dropped my stuff on the desk, then flopped on my bed and pulled my pillow over my face. I wanted to scream.

After about ten minutes I heard footsteps on the stairs, but didn't bother to move from where I was.

"So how was school?" I heard my door hinges creak. I groaned loudly in response.

"Not good, huh?" Pa chuckled.

"It sucked." I drew the word out.

"You want to talk about it?" I felt the weight of the bed shift and realized with a small start that he'd sat down.

Pa wasn't the greatest at being a 'dad.' The lawyer in him was too strong. But he was trying. And he was trying hard.

"I'd rather not discuss it." I muttered into the pillow still on my face.

Pa pulled it off and looked down at me. "I'm sorry, what?"

"I said I'd rather not talk about it." I told him.

"You sure? Sometimes it's good to get something off your chest-"

"Pa!" I sat up. "I don't wanna talk about it!"

"Alright, alright, sorry." Pa stood. I figured the conversation was over and flopped back onto my bed again, but he turned at the door.

"Did you talk to that girl?"

I tensed at the mention of Theodosia, but forced myself to relax.

"Uh, yeah. Yeah I did."

The memory was bordering on painful. She was so nice and sweet and we had so much in common, but she hated my guts for no reason other than my parentage.

"How did that go?" Pa leaned on the doorframe, curious.

"Pretty well, for the most part." Until she found out I'm related to you.

"For the most part?"

"For the most part." I confirmed, trying to keep my tone neutral.

"Did something happen?" Pa asked.

"She, uh, she found out what my last name is..."

"Why was that a problem?" Pa frowned.

You'd be surprised, Pa.

I took a deep breath and decided to take the plunge.

"She's a Burr."

I sensed, rather than saw, Pa tense up.

"Aaron Burr's daughter."

"Yep." I sat up, avoiding his gaze.

"Theodosia." He seemed to be in a state of shock.

"Uh, yeah." I glanced up.

After a long, long moment of silence, Pa sighed. "Alright then."

"You aren't mad?" I was surprised. Usually the very mention of anything to do with Aaron Burr could easily send him into hour long fits of rage.

"Well nothing happened, right?" He looked at me meaningfully. "And you won't be associating with her anymore, right?"

I nodded, but this didn't seem to satisfy him.

"Philip, promise me you'll stay away from that family. They're trouble." He stepped forward and grabbed my shoulder.

I bit my lip hard to stop myself from saying that they seemed to think the same thing about us and just nodded.

"Good. Dinner's in the fridge again." He smiled. "I'm working late, if you need me to go into the basement so you can sleep, come down and tell me."

I nodded and waited until he was out of the room, then sighed and pulled my hair out of my face.

"Working late. Seems like that's normal hours for you." I muttered at the door, grabbing a ponytail elastic from my desk.

"Oh, I went to the store earlier for some stuff," Pa was in the doorway again, "and I found something I thought you'd like."

I looked at him curiously and grinned when he pulled a high quality sketchbook from behind his back.

"It was on sale." He handed it to me and I leafed through it, feeling the thick drawing paper between my fingers.

"Wow, thanks Pa!" I grinned.

"I thought you'd like it. Your old one is getting kind of beat up, right?"

"Yeah, it's pretty old." I'd actually started saving up for a new one, better than the one I already had, but now that money could be put towards other things.

"Well, you have fun with that." Pa clapped me on the shoulder and I smiled at him, genuinely happy. Like I said, he may not be the best dad, but it certainly isn't for lack of trying.

"Don't forget to do your homework." He reminded me as ye left.

"I'll do it, don't worry!" I grinned and walked over to my desk. "But first...."

I yanked the second drawer open to reveal a large cache of rather expensive art supplies that I had accumulated. Pulling out the various cups of Copic markers and watercolor pencils, I flipped to a random page in the sketchbook- I can't use sketchbooks in chronological order of pages, it bugs me. Don't ask- and began to draw.

After letting my hand do it's own thing for several minutes, I looked down at my drawing.

It wasn't colored yet, but I could already envision the dark brown eyes staring back at me.

"This isn't gonna be as easy as I thought." I sighed at the image of Theodosia. She was just to pretty to forget.

I considered ripping the page out, then shook my head and grabbed one of my markers.

"Might as well finish it."

Pa never checked what was in my sketchbooks. Theodosia wasn't close enough to my desk in any classes to see what was in it if I showed Dominic. He'd probably be the only one that saw it.

Granted, he'd give me hell about it, liking a girl so much that I draw pictures of her, but I could handle that.

Underneath the drawing I scrawled my signature, then in the neatest writing I could muster, wrote a title.

'Dear Theodosia'