“Are you serious...” I muttered to myself, my eyes falling on my note from the night before lying amongst a stack of bills in the garbage when I threw away the sticker off the apple I had plucked from the fridge. It shouldn’t have mattered, it was only a silly piece of paper after all, but a pang of something twisted my gut. Taking my foot off the pedal of the trash can, I walked out of the kitchen, needing to leave for school as soon as possible.
“Emma,” my mom called out as soon as my first foot hit the top step, and my movements paused as I waited to hear what she had to say. “I just wanted to say sorry for missing dinner last night.”
The words were out of her mouth, yet for some reason I didn’t seem to care, nor did it seem like she did either with how flat and hollow her apology sounded. A night of endless swirling thoughts, weeks of being treated like I wasn’t a good person or daughter because I stood up for myself, and finally several attempts at fixing our relationship... all to have the one night I needed for her to prove to me that she cared thrown away.
“Yeah,” I responded simply, my disinterested tone mirroring hers unintentionally. “I need to get to school.”
“Before you go,” she stated, stopping me as I tried to continue back down the stairs. “There’s someone coming by the house tonight I would like you to meet.”
“All right.” I sprinted down the rest of the way down the stairs before she could say anything else, grabbing my backpack on my way out. The cold air of the never-ending Nebraska winter swirled around me, a nice contrast to the hot patches I felt on my cheeks. If I looked in the mirror, I knew they’d be bright red in my emotional war.
Unlike last night, the drive to school seemed to take forever. I somehow hit every red light, got stuck behind only abnormally slow drivers, and ended up nearly fishtailing on a slick ice patch. By the time I was safely parked in the lot of the school, I was trembling.
“Note to self, practice driving in snow,” I ground out under my breath as I climbed out. “Or get a damned four-wheel drive vehicle.”
“Curse words coming out, Cali girl is fired up this morning.” Reid’s voice startled me, but when I looked over and saw his soft smile, the irritation that swirled in me melted.
“Hey, babe,” I murmured, doing my best to muster up a smile. Based on his brows knitting together, I didn’t accomplish it. “Where are the others?”
“Jesse’s volunteering ran a bit long, so Kingston drove separately to get him in case they were late. So it might be another ten or fifteen before they’re here depending on traffic. Didn’t want me to possibly get in trouble for being tardy right after my suspension ended. Come here, Cali girl,” he instructed, holding his arms open. Stepping forward, I appreciated the sweet gesture as he curled me against his chest. The familiar scent of Old Spice filled my nose, his hoodie soft against my cheek.
After a long moment, Reid spoke. “What’s wrong?”
“Hey, Reid,” Kingston’s voice cut me off before I could respond, him and Jesse climbing out of King’s Chevy Impala. “Good morning, Babydoll.”
“Hi, Em,” Jesse greeted, but his head tilted as soon as he was close enough to see my face. “What’s wrong?”
“My mom never came for dinner,” I said quietly, my voice cracking as I admitted how awry the night before had gone. “She tried to apologize this morning, but honestly, I don’t know if I can forgive her anymore.”
“Oh, Babydoll, I’m so sorry.” Kingston swept his hand over my cheek lightly in comfort.
“Ugh,” Reid grumbled. “What is up with parents all being shitty lately?”
“Save for his parents,” Jesse countered, pointing at Kingston. “But I have to agree. Come on, we can talk and walk. Poor Em’s nose is bright red from the cold.”
“Well, it’s freezing out, so...” I trailed off with a smile, stepping out of Reid’s arms and starting toward the front doors.
“It’s winter, Cali girl. It’s supposed to be cold. You’re the one who loved sledding, remember?” Reid teased.
“Yeah, true, but we’re not sledding right now; we’re going to school,” I whined. Their laughter radiated around me as we finally reached the building, the air from inside brushing over my chilled skin in a blissful wave of warmth.
“Unfortunately,” Reid agreed with a frown when the bell rang. With kisses from Kingston and Reid, Jesse and I broke away from them and headed to our homeroom hand in hand.
“Em,” Jesse murmured, his words nearly lost amongst the hustle and bustle of the hall. “I didn’t want to say this in front of Reid since he’s having such a rough time after his parents kicked him out, but it’s all right to walk away from blood. She may be your mom, and you can still love and care about her, but you don’t need to keep putting yourself through things like this. Down the road, if she realizes she messed up or wants to try and bridge that gap, she can, but one thread can’t hold an entire family together. Not well at least. I just wanted to... you know... tell you that,” he stuttered slightly, his other hand coming to fiddle with one of his square stud earrings.
I didn’t say anything at first, my mind processing everything he had said. How he had known that was something I’d been worrying over was beyond me, but I was happy someone understood what I was feeling.
“But blood is thicker than water,” I said, quoting the famous phrase in hopes it would explain everything I couldn’t seem to articulate.
“Blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb,” Jesse responded. “That’s the full quote.”
“Huh, the more you know,” I whispered as we sank into our seats. Jesse let me think, knowing that in the wake of everything, I needed some time to process. His hand never left mine despite his focus being on reading his textbook for the remainder of homeroom. Before I knew it, we were making our way through the halls to my next class, thankfully with no bullying from douchebag Dylan.
The longer the day went on, the more I realized Jesse was right. I had a lot on my plate to worry about with the trial, the bullying, college, work, and there was only so much of my energy I could spend on things before I was ready to pull my own hair out. A very large portion of me felt it was selfish to step back from my mom, but in my heart I felt it was what I needed to do. I had tried to reach out, but with my increasing nightmares and stress levels, I knew it was only a matter of time before my grades started to slip. By the time lunch ended, Reid and Kingston had convinced me to go talk to Ms. Rogers, so I found myself sitting in the waiting room area of the counselor’s office anxiously.
“Emma, you ready?” Ms. Rogers greeted cheerfully, her red cat-eye glasses matching her suit jacket as she smiled over at me. Nodding, I grabbed my bag and followed. “So, anything in particular you wanted to talk about since you came to see me?”
“Uh,” I started, sinking into the seat I always took, “I don’t know, I guess?”
“I’m here for you to talk to regardless of what it is. This is a safe place,” she reassured when I hesitated.
That was all it took, and the dam finally broke. Everything that had been going on, not just with my mom, but my sleep issues, the trial, all the random tidbits that had been plaguing me came tumbling out. Ms. Rogers listened without interrupting, no judgement coloring her face as I talked. By the time I was done, I felt emotionally raw yet lighter than I had in a while. Everything that I’d been dying to get off my chest for weeks had finally been purged. I’d hoped to talk about all of it with my mom, but since that hadn’t worked out, I really appreciated Ms. Rogers’s open-policy and reassuring attitude. Talking about everything couldn’t make all these issues go away, but they definitely felt less overwhelming; in fact, I felt... good.