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“Mama?” Matson tugged at my shirtsleeve.
“Yes?”
“Can we go see Ryan at his work?”
I choked on a small laugh. “Why do you want to go see Ryan at work?”
“Because he hasn’t been here in forever, and I drew a picture at school today. I wanted to give it to him and you said he’s always at work, so I thought we could go there.”
Matson dug through his backpack and pulled out a purple folder. I watched as he opened it, clearly searching for his drawing.
“Here it is!” He sounded so excited as he retrieved the drawing and pulled me toward the kitchen table.
I sat down and he sat next to me, placing his picture on the table and pointing things out.
“That’s Ryan,” he said, pointing at a stick drawing he’d made with big arm muscles, a giant smile, and blue eyes. “Ryan has blue eyes just like mine. And he has a cape on because he’s a superhero. He fights the bad guys. Remember the bad guy from the beach?” He pointed at a stick drawing that had a frowning face.
“I remember,” I said, my heart breaking at the fact that Matson’s villain was his father, and he had no idea.
“That’s you.” He pointed at a stick figure of me smiling with long brown hair. “And that’s me.” He’d drawn himself holding on to Ryan’s waist, the same way he had that day. “Do you think he’ll like it?” His head cocked to the side as he waited for my answer.
“I think he’ll love it. Especially the muscles,” I said with a smile as I pointed at them.
“I think he’ll like the cape best.” Matson rolled his eyes at me before hopping away from the table.
“You might be right.”
“Probably. Because I know what boys like.” He grabbed a magnet off the fridge and used it to anchor his drawing. “It can stay here until we give it to him, okay?”
“Sounds perfect.” I smiled, my heart warming. “Hey, I have an idea.”
“What?”
“How about you hold up your drawing, and I’ll take a picture of it and text it to Ryan so he can see it right now.”
“Okay!” Matson immediately took the drawing down and held it in front of his chest, a huge grin on his face.
I snapped the picture with my phone and sent it to Ryan, wondering how my life had changed so quickly. My phone pinged out a notification, and Matson reached for it.
“Is it Ryan? What did he say? Did he like my drawing?”
I read the message out loud. “He says that’s the coolest drawing he’s ever seen. He loves the cape.”
“Told you he’d like the cape best.”
Matson sounded satisfied, so I kept the rest of his message to myself. Ryan had also said that I made one hell of a sexy stick figure.
About an hour after Matson had gone to bed, I sat on the couch catching up on my shows, and jerked with surprise when someone knocked on my door. I wondered who could be here this late, and hoped it was Ryan, showing up to collect his drawing in person.
My smile dropped when I opened the door to see Derek standing there, looking shifty. His tie was loosened, his shirt unbuttoned at his neck and wrinkled. Although he always maintained appearances, Derek looked uncharacteristically disheveled, his eyes wild.
“We need to talk.”
“You can’t be here,” I said, but there would be no point. Arguing with an irrational person was like banging your head against a wall.
I started to close the door when his words stopped me.
“Since your boyfriend is too stupid to listen, maybe you will. I know he was here last night. Stop seeing him, Sofia, or he stops breathing.”
