It was true.
I did become confused at times. Braylen asked me to spend the night at her house once, and I told her I needed to ask my mom.
She softly reminded me that my mother was gone. Braylen was never rude about it. As confusing and painful as grief was for me, I knew it was harder for her. She had never experienced loss and had never felt the ‘the pain.’
“I’m gonna go to the bathroom.” I muttered, and Braylen tried to come along. “Alone.”
I sat on the girl’s bathroom floor for an hour. The tears burned my eyes, and each time I had them under control, they would start to flow again. This bathroom was all the way on the other end of the hall, so no one was in and out like the bathroom closer to the gym.
Anytime I needed to feel better and stop crying, I had to become angry with my parents. I had to almost hate and blame them for leaving me.
Us.
It was the only way to stop crying and stop feeling that stupid pain.
Pulling myself together, I washed my hands and left the bathroom. I walked the dark and lonely halls for a while before I made my way towards the gym. Nobody was looking for me or missing me.
“Zoya Bean,” I heard that low voice.
Slowly spinning around, I saw Maverick standing in the blue hall. It was darker down that hall, but I saw him clearly.
“Hi, Maverick. I didn’t call anyone to pick me up.” I questioned.
Our house was only three blocks over, so I was going to walk home after filling up on the junk food at the dance.
He nodded towards the gym. “What’s happening in there?”
“Some Valentine’s Day dance.” I lied, not wanting to make him feel sad, or feel that pain. “It’s nothing big. We can go home.”
“Lie to me again.”
I looked down at my shoes. Kora picked me out the most perfect pair of shoes. I worried that they were expensive, and she said Maverick wanted me to have what I wanted.
I didn’t know how my brother made money for us. I knew the deliveries of food from our uncle stopped, and we never went hungry. He told me that we could have pizza every day if I wanted, and it was a promise that he never broke.
“Father and daughter’s dance,” my voice cracked.
He rubbed his hands together in a circular motion slowly. Although he never told me, I could tell that he was very familiar with the pain Kora and I felt.
“Why didn’t you call me?”
“Didn’t know… we can go home. I don’t want to stay.”
Maverick looked down the hall, and then back at me. Hesitantly, he reached his hand out for mine.
I stared at his hand briefly before I placed mine into his. He pulled me behind him into the school’s gym. The lights were low with the glimmer of the stars on the ceiling from the projector. On stage, there was a screen with a digital slide show with pictures of the fathers attending and their daughters. Looking away, I fought to swallow that lump that always appeared. No matter how much I tried to swallow, it never went anywhere.
The lump and the sudden need for tears coexisted with one another. Maverick stopped walking and he pointed toward the screen.
There was a picture of me and my father at my kindergarten graduation. I blinked back the tears, as another picture of me and Maverick in front of our old house came across the screen.
Our father was in the background with his phone to his ear, and Maverick had me on his back.
God.
Maverick resembled our father so much. The older he became, the more he carried himself like him.
I remembered the day so vividly. We were going on a business trip with my father. He never took us, but me and Maverick begged him to go. Kora wanted to stay home with my mother, and we wanted to travel with dad.
