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I have no idea if any of that got through.
They just all blink at me, writing utensils poised up, their mouths open, before chatter erupts happily again as they start scribbling on their construction paper.
Well, fuck.
I tried.
Sara looks up at me quizzically. “What’s your name again?”
“August,” I say.
She frowns. “That’s a month.”
“It’s a month, but it’s also my name. Do you know how to spell it?”
She shakes her head, her eyes wide.
“All right. Why don’t you get that white marker? It’ll look nice on the purple.”
She grabs the last marker from the center of the table, wrestles the cap off, and stares up at me, and I realize she’s waiting.
“A,” I say, watching her draw an enormous, scraggly A that takes up half the inside of the folded paper. “U ... G ...”
It takes almost five minutes to spell my name.
By then she’s made a mess all over the page.
But she seems to be having fun, at least.
I steal the last marker, a red one, and write Dear Sara at the top of my page.
“I’m going to write something nice about you,” I say. “You can just tell me hello, if you want.”
“Okay!”
Sara sets busily to work. I’m not sure if she’s writing in any known language; it mostly looks to be squiggles and a few random stick figures.
Still, she’s enjoying herself, and that’s the important thing.
They all seem happy.
I shake my head slightly and set my marker to the page, the red bleeding in fuzzy lines on the soft green paper.
Thank you for being my friend, I write. That’s a good thing to say to a little girl who’s claimed you, isn’t it? Sincerely, August.
After I finish, I glance up and find Elle watching me, even as she stops a little girl from putting a glitter glue stick into her mouth, handling her with a gentle touch.
A touch that turns into a little tap of her lips as she blows me a kiss.
I clear my throat, looking away quickly.
I hope like hell my face isn’t turning red in front of all these little devils.
Not that they’d notice, anyway.
They’re having a grand time, slashing messages onto their construction paper, trading off glitter glue sticks and, worse, loose glitter.
Glitter that gets puffed in my face as Sara tries to get a canister open.
