“Come sit down, Bailey,” my mom’s voice commanded, and I dragged my feet over to the armchair while my mom and Shawn took the sofa.
“Bailey,” my mom said, “Shawn is my boyfriend, and he wanted to meet you.” I nodded at her, not seeing the relevance of meeting him. She’d never made me meet any of her other boyfriends before. I always assumed she was dating, but she usually kept me out of that side of her life
“Yeah, your mom has met my boys and we felt it was time to meet her daughter. She talks so much about you and how smart you are.”
I smiled at him, trying to be polite, but I was struggling with having him in my environment and I didn’t want to talk to him. He continued speaking, impervious to my nervousness, “And since things are beginning to get serious with your mom and me, I wanted to get to know you a little.”
I found my voice and squeaked out, “What do you want to know?”
It sounded rude and his back stiffened a little, but he continued to smile. I wasn’t trying to be rude, I was trying to make an effort, but the look my mom gave me made me shrink back on the chair.
“Well, I’d like to know what you want to do with yourself after school? What interests you?” He spoke softly to me as though I was a horse ready to bolt. I sat back and stared at him. He had brown hair with gray in it. His gray eyes were kind and his smile was wide, but I still couldn’t relax. He was changing things and I hated change.
I’d been through enough change since my dad left and Louis had died. I’d had enough and didn’t want anything to change in my life because I was sure that if things changed again then I’d be completely and utterly alone.
“I’m not sure what I want to do after school yet, but I love to draw, read, and watch movies with my best friend.”
My mom made a gesture with her hand and I stared at her for a moment, not understanding what she meant, and then I realized she wanted me to leave. I stood up and whispered, “Excuse me,” before running from the room and heading straight into my room, locking the door behind me with my face burning with hurt and embarrassment.
I heard my mom speaking to Shawn, “Sorry about that, she’s shy. Shall we get going?” Her tone was low and sultry, and I cringed against the door.
“Will she be okay, Henrietta?” He sounded worried and the fact that he used her full name made my stomach roll. He was serious about her, and he’d said he had boys. God, what if they were snot-nosed brats and wanted to hang out with me. The thought left me cold all over because they would change everything and they would likely be like the boys I knew, mean and callous, no matter what age they were.
As the front door closed, I grabbed my cell and called Wendy. She answered on the second ring.
“Yo, my biatch.” Her usual greeting helped to relax me, and I glanced around my room, taking in my posters, clothes on the floor, lemon walls, and purple bedding, where my bed was still a mess from the morning. I walked over to my computer desk and pressed the button on my laptop.
“My mom’s new boyfriend was here,” I answered her without missing a beat, and she screamed in my ear in response.
“What, seriously? What’s he like? Is he a fox? Your mom’s a total babe, so he’d have to be a fox? Tell me everything.”
She was so excited, but my stomach dropped. I’d wanted someone to be as upset as me about my mom being serious about a man, but she was excited. Wendy got excited about pretty much everything in life.
“He was nice and pleasant. He has sons, but I don’t know how many. I wanted to run away as soon as I met him. You know what I’m like.”
Her sigh told me she did know what I was like, but I continued speaking without interruption which surprised me and told me that Wendy was distracted.
“I hate meeting new people. I hated it and then my mom cut me off and made me feel like she didn’t want him to get to know me. It was like I was irrelevant or something. I bet he’d pushed her into meeting me…”
Wendy, with her eternally cheerful nature, red hair, and pretty green eyes, she should have been one of the most popular girls in school, but because she wasn’t slim, she was ridiculed. She ignored them completely, but sometimes I wondered if it hurt her.
“My mom’s calling me for dinner. You okay, Bails?” I nodded at her question, then realized she couldn’t see me, so I answered.
“Yeah, I’m fine. I’m going to do my homework and then read that new book I bought yesterday.”
“Okay, speak to you tomorrow. Love ya, bye.”
And with that, she was gone. I sat on the window seat and opened up my kindle, falling asleep there and crawling into bed early without eating. When I awoke the next morning, I had a cream cheese bagel and some coffee for breakfast, before going to get the school bus.
I popped my earbuds in and listened to some music, ignoring everyone on the bus as we rolled along to school.
School was as much fun as always. I was mostly ignored until it was time to take part in a debate. I hated being on the debate team and usually hid at the back, but my teacher was trying to force me into a more focal role.
The private school from the other side of town were our opponents that day and I hated it when they came. They were rude, obnoxious, and entitled. Plus, with the private school, the bullies were out in force from them.
As we took our seats each person stood to speak. My eyes wandered the room and I couldn’t help staring at this boy across from me. He had rich brown hair and a chiseled jaw and when he smiled it made my insides warm. He caught me looking at him and I tried and failed to smile at him because he glared at me and I averted my eyes.
He continued to glare at me throughout the debate with our school. We wore uniforms with a red tie and St. Marcus wore a green striped tie with black sweatshirts.
Their school won the debate and still the boy from St. Marcus’s glared at me, making sure to barge into me hard as he passed me by. As I turned to walk out of the dining hall where the debate had been held, one of the girls from my school sidled up to him and linked arms with him.
“Hi, Cooper, why didn’t you call me Saturday?”
His voice when he answered, “Because I didn’t want to,” sent a chill down my spine that had nothing to do with the words he spoke. His voice was rich and enticing and I wanted something I’d never wanted before. I wanted him.
I moved beyond them, and he stuck his foot out, almost sending me sprawling. I managed to keep myself up by grabbing hold of Pete Thompson, the most popular boy in my school. He glared at me as I stood back up mumbling an apology before taking off for the girls’ locker room.
The rest of my day passed without incident, but at the end of the school day Pete and his friends trapped me in the classroom and didn’t let me out until the school bus left, meaning I had to walk the twelve miles home. I tried to call my mom and Leah on the way home, but my mom’s call went to messages and Leah was held up in a meeting and couldn’t pick me up, so I walked.
I made it home from school at nine p.m. I was exhausted and my feet ached. My mom wasn’t home and as I let myself into the apartment I glanced around and saw a silver car I didn’t recognize parked at the end of my street.
While I stared at the car it revved its engine and reversed around the corner, before taking off. I collapsed into bed without dinner, thankful that it was Saturday the next day. My mom woke me up when she arrived home at twelve and I stared at her bleary-eyed, wondering why she was waving her hand in my face, until I saw it sitting there, mocking me. There was a rock the size of a small country on her finger. My mom was engaged.