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Claire pulls her hands away from her face and wipes at the tears that are still streaming. “It’s okay. I’ll eat down here. Thank you.”
“For what?”
Claire looks taken aback by this question, then she shrugs. “For being nice.”
Forever Awkward
My first week with Jackie and Chris Knight is the least awkward first week I’ve ever had in a foster home. Jackie and I spent Sunday, the day after I arrived, running all over town to make sure I have everything I need. Then she took me to Athens Drive High School on Monday to get me registered and I began classes on Tuesday.
Walking into a new school is always nerve wracking, but walking through those front gates with Chris on Tuesday morning made everything less awkward. He has so many friends and most of them are just as nice as he is. They greeted me like I was one of them. Which is why I didn’t hesitate when Chris asked if I wanted to sit with them in the cafeteria for lunch.
Rachel and I are the only girls in the group, but she didn’t look too relieved to have another girl join them. But Chris was pretty good at diffusing the awkward questions that are inevitable in my situation. When his friend Tristan asked if I was going back to my parents soon, Chris answered for me. “She’s going to be with us for a while.”
A couple of days later, when Rachel asked if I had any siblings, Chris’s reply made me blush. It was just a simple no, but the way he looked so uncomfortable with her question gave me butterflies. I may be totally wrong, but I feel as if his response was meant for me.
And the way they talk about music, especially Chris, is awe-inspiring. I’ve never heard kids my age talk about the future the way they do. I’ve heard some of my foster siblings talk about college and getting jobs, but the way they talk about music is not at all like that. It’s like a calling for all of them—even Tristan who seems to have fallen into playing the bass sort of by accident.
The only thing I didn’t like about hanging out with Chris and his friends this week was how temporary it all felt. Jake and Rachel are graduating in three weeks. And I’m getting a strong feeling that Chris wants to drop out of high school after this school year ends. If I manage not to get myself kicked out of the Knight house by the end of the summer, will his friends still consider me “one of them” if he’s gone?
When I come down from my bedroom on Saturday morning, Jackie has gone to work at the bakery, as usual. She usually leaves for work around four a.m. and returns sometime between four and seven p.m. Chris and I take the bus to school every morning, though he claims he’s going to get a motorcycle on his birthday in four weeks so we can get around while his mom is gone. The thought of being that close to him, straddling a motorcycle and wrapping my arms around his waist, makes me nervous. But it seems like no big deal to him.
Chris is sitting at the kitchen table with a bowl of something yellow that may be scrambled eggs and a glass of something white. Mr. Miyagi, his ten-year-old Shiba Inu, is sitting at his feet panting as he waits patiently for Chris to slip him a treat. Chris grimaces as he brings a spoonful of the yellow food to his mouth.
“What are you eating?” I ask, wondering if maybe Jackie left us some breakfast to heat up before she left. She does that often.
He swallows the food and shakes his head at me. “The worst scrambled eggs I’ve ever had. They taste like ass.”
“You know what ass tastes like?” My eyes widen as I realize what I just said and he laughs. “I mean, did you make them?”
“Yeah, I tried to make them the way I saw my mom make them, but I think I might have forgotten a step.”
I step closer to the table to peer down into his bowl and I try not to laugh. “I think you forgot the step where you cook the eggs. Those scrambled eggs are practically raw. That’s disgusting.”
He narrows his eyes at me, looking slightly offended. “Can you make better scrambled eggs than this?” I don’t answer right away and he answers for me. “I didn’t think so.”
I chuckle as I grab his bowl of eggs. “I’ll make you some real scrambled eggs. It’s one of the few things I know how to make. What are you drinking?”
He grabs his glass off the table and follows me into the kitchen. “It’s a banana protein shake. It’s not so bad.”
I place his bowl in the sink then head for the refrigerator to get the carton of eggs. “A protein shake and eggs? Are you trying to build muscle?”
He’s silent for a moment. When I look at him, he looks like he’s calculating a response. “Why? Do you think I need to build muscle?”
I laugh as I set the carton of eggs on the counter and reach into the cupboard beneath the counter for a large bowl. “No, I’m just curious. That looks like a body builder’s breakfast.”
“You know a lot of body builders?”
“No, but I’ve had some foster siblings who were into that.”
He stands next to me as I crack the eggs into the bowl, taking each discarded shell and tossing it into the garbage for me. His arm and hand keeps brushing against mine and I have to keep taking deep breaths every time he turns away to calm my nerves.
“Have you ever…?” He shakes his head as he seems to decide not to finish this question.
“Have I ever what?”
“Nothing. Do you need the salt or something?”
I don’t press him for an answer. I finish making us some scrambled eggs and we eat in relative silence until he asks me something that catches me totally off-guard.
“Do you miss your mom?” I clench my jaw and stare into my bowl as I try to think of an appropriate response. “I’m sorry. You don’t have to answer that. I just…. My dad left when I was six and…. Anyway, it doesn’t matter. Just forget I asked.”
I nod my head and when I look up from the bowl he’s looking straight at me. “Yeah. I miss my mom.”
He smiles at this answer, but something about his smile makes me feel like I’ve shared too much with him. I quickly wipe at the tears that begin to fall, then I bolt up from the table to take my bowl to the sink.
“I have to clean up.”
He quickly stands up after me and follows me into the kitchen. “You don’t have to do that. I’ll clean up. You cooked.”
He catches up to me at the sink and squeezes in next to me so he can do the dishes. As soon as his arm grazes mine, the tears come faster.
“Hey,” he says, grabbing my elbows so he can turn me toward him. “My mom always says that the easiest, cheapest gift you can give someone is a hug.” He holds out his arms and beckons me. “Come here.”
I stare at him for a moment, then I let out a deep sigh and allow him to take me into his arms. My arms feel awkward at my sides, so I slowly raise them and wrap them around his waist. I feel him let out a breath, as if he were waiting for that, then I cry. I cry on his shoulder for so long, I know he must think there’s something deeply wrong with me. But he doesn’t mention it. In fact, he just encourages me, telling me every so often to let it go and that it’s okay to feel this way.
And I believe him.
Forever Curious
Normally, Tristan accompanies me to all my tattoo sessions. This time, I decide to take Claire. Tristan would have to ask his grandma to drop him off here first. My tattoo artist, Shayla, lives just half a mile away from our house. It’s 1:30 p.m. Today was an early day at school and they let us out at 12:45. Claire and I can walk the mile to her house and be back in time before my mom gets home from work tonight. I hope we’ll be back by then.
“Your mom won’t be mad about you getting a tattoo?” Claire asks as we set off away from the house toward the main road.
“She won’t be mad if she does
n’t find out.”
The fourth Wednesday of May is warm and sunny with the occasional breeze that blows Claire’s blonde ponytail into her eyes every so often. I find myself stealing glances at the spot on her neck where her hairline melts into her nape. It looks so soft. And the way the sun radiates off of every inch of her makes me wish I could touch her glowing skin.
“How many tattoos do you have?”
“I only have four tattoos, so far, but each one is special to me.” I push up the sleeve on my left arm to show her the electric guitar that’s wrapped in a bar of music from one of my favorite songs, “Little Wing” by Jimi Hendrix. Then I hold out my left forearm for her to see the antique stopwatch tattoo with the hands stopped at 3:15 p.m., the time it was when my father left. “You’ve already seen this one. Then there’s this one on the back of my neck.” I show her the Chinese characters on the back of my neck that spell out, What we think, we become. “I have one more on my chest.”
I don’t ask her if she wants to see it, but I watch her face for her reaction. She glances at the cars passing by on Avent Ferry Road, then she looks back at me. I can see she’s contemplating whether or not she wants to see it.
“What kind of tattoo is it?”
“It’s stupid.”
She smiles. “What do you mean? All those other tattoos were really cool. I’m sure it’s not stupid.”
“No, really. It’s probably the stupidest tattoo I’ve ever seen on anyone. This is the tattoo that got me in trouble. I got it while Tristan and I were super drunk a couple of months ago and my mom flipped when she saw it. Then she made fun of me for weeks.”
“Okay, now I have to see it.”
I smile and shake my head. “Nope. I’m getting it covered up soon and you’ll never know what it was.”
“Aw, come on. That’s not fair.”
“Why?”
She shrugs and turns her gaze back to the sidewalk ahead of us. “I don’t know. Tristan got to see it.”
