I pulled out the stuff to make him a sandwich and took the time to cut it into triangles before putting it on a plate. I added his favorite cheese puffs and carried it to the table. I sat down and watched him eat. He was such a sweet boy. How could anyone want to hurt him? He was sweet and funny.
“Who hit you?” I asked him.
“Cash,” he said.
“Cash? Who is that? I don’t think I’ve heard of him before.”
“He’s just some kid,” he muttered.
“Why did he hit you?”
He sighed. “Because he said I wasn’t a boy and he wanted to know if I fought like a girl.”
I had to keep myself from saying too much. “Jace, you are a boy. I don’t understand why these kids are messing with you. It isn’t nice.”
“They said I’m going to be a girl because I don’t have a dad.”
And there it was. What could I possibly say to that? “Jace, a lot of kids don’t have dads at home. You are not any different from those kids. Having a father in your life does not make you any more of a boy.”
He took another bite of his sandwich. “It isn’t fair.”
“What isn’t fair?”
“I don’t have a dad and everyone else does,” he pouted.
“If someone wants to hurt you because you don’t have a father, that’s on them. They are wrong. You are a good boy. A great boy. I will happily talk to this boy and his parents. It isn’t polite to make fun of someone for something they can’t control.”
“But they do it anyway,” he said.
I nodded. “I know,” I said with a sigh. “It sucks. It really sucks and I wish I could make it better.”
“You can’t,” he said and jumped up from his chair. He rushed out of the room, and a second later, his bedroom door slammed shut.
“Good job, Mom.”
I buried my face in my hands. I didn’t know what I was going to do. I couldn’t let him be bullied. I refused to let him get his ass kicked because his mother got knocked up by a man that didn’t want to be a father. I was the one the kids needed to start beef with.
It wasn’t like I could go back in time and fix this. I couldn’t pull a dad out of thin air. If only I could rent a dad. Just one day a week. It seemed like it would be so easy if I could just find a guy to throw the ball around with him a few hours on the weekends. I was sure I could handle the other six days a week. Jace and I had a great relationship, and any kind of outside interference would just get in the way.
I dumped the rest of the sandwich and rinsed the plate before going to his room to talk to him. He was sitting on his bed with a baseball in his little hand. The ball was a gift for his last birthday. It was still pretty much new.
I sat down on his bed and put my hand on his knee. “I really am sorry,” I told him.
“They hate me,” he mumbled.
“They don’t understand you,” I said. “They will one day.”
“It’s going to take too long.”
“I know it feels like it, but the time will fly by.”
“Did you get beat up?” he asked.
My heart was breaking. “I didn’t get beat up, but kids were mean to me. I was really skinny when I was little. They used to say I had bird legs. When I walked down the hall, they would squawk. Sometimes they would throw birdseed at me.”
His eyes widened. “They did?”
I sighed and nodded. I wasn’t going to tell him the teasing carried on through middle school. It wasn’t until I finally grew boobs and hips that the teasing stopped. It had been a rough few years. “It hurt my feelings, but I survived.”
“Why did they say you had bird legs?”
“Because kids are mean. Like I said, I was really skinny, and my legs were kind of boney. I don’t remember when it started but I remember I was very sad. It hurt my feelings.”
“Did you cry?” he asked.
I nodded. “I did. A lot.”
“I don’t cry,” he said.
“But if you want to cry, you can,” I told him.
“But then they’ll call me a girl,” he said in a small voice.
“Jace, you are safe here. You can cry here if you want to. I’m not going to tell anyone.”
“I don’t want to cry,” he said.
“Okay, then you don’t have to. I know this is going to be hard, but I want you to try and ignore this stuff. You know you are a boy. What they say doesn’t matter. They are just a bunch of mean kids who probably feel bad about themselves. They might have their own problems.”
He didn’t look convinced. “I’ll try,” he said.
I smiled and ruffled his hair. “I’ll leave you alone. If you want to watch a movie, I’ll be in the living room.”
He nodded and went back to his book. I was so sad for him. All I wanted to do was protect him. I wanted to keep him in a little bubble for the rest of his days.
Chapter 16
Nash
Bobby pulled to a stop in front of the building. I was not looking forward to going in, although I did have a bone to pick with Saige. I went to find her at the end of the day, and she was gone. I discovered she’d left hours earlier. No one was willing to tell me why.
I barely stepped into the building when Saige ambushed me. “I was thinking you weren’t going to show up.”
“Would that have made you sad?”
“Not at all,” she said.
“You left early yesterday,” I said.
She nodded. “I did.”
“Why?”
“Girl problems,” she said with a tight smile.
“Oh,” I said, but I didn’t believe her. She wasn’t a girl. She was a woman and every woman I knew had their girl problems well in hand by this stage of the game.
I started to move to the elevator when she stopped me. “No,” she said.
“Excuse me?” I asked.
“I told you we have work to do today,” she said.
“Yes, we have a lot of work to do. We should probably get up there.”
“Nope. I’ve let them know we won’t be in until later, if at all. I have no idea how long this will take. You’re a difficult student.”
“Student?” I scoffed. “I haven’t been a student in a long time.”
“I think you missed good social skills one-oh-one. We’re going to get you up to speed.”
I could have told her no. I could have told her to kiss my ass, but I was feeling feisty. I wanted to see what she had up her sleeve. “Are we going to be staying in the building?”
“No.”
“I’ll have my driver pull back around and he can take us to school,” I offered.
I expected her to tell me we didn’t need him. “That sounds great.”
I grabbed my phone and called Bobby. He was in front of the building within minutes. I held the door open for her. “Where are we going?” I asked.
“We are going on a little field trip,” she said and gave Bobby an address.
“Where exactly is this place? A tearoom? Am I going to be taught decorum?”