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Kennedy and I had been writing each other letters back and forth all school year, and each time I got a letter in the mail, I’d read it five million times. I couldn’t wait to see her in person. I couldn’t stop thinking about her, and honestly I never stopped thinking about her. Would she look different? Would she be taller? Would she talk as much as she used to? I really hoped she still talked a lot, because even though at first I thought she talked too much, I really liked that she talked too much because it meant I had less talking to do.
I guessed she’d looked the same, only better. I wondered if she would think I looked the same, too. I had different glasses and was an inch and a half taller based on Mom’s markings on the living room wall, but other than that I was the same Jax who’d last seen her. Well, my hair was longer too. I should’ve cut it.
I wondered if she’d notice anything that’d changed about me.
“I am excited to see her. She’s my best friend,” I told Mom.
“Hey now,” she said, nudging me in the side.
I laughed a little. “You know what I mean. She’s my best friend. You’re my best mom-friend.”
She leaned in and kissed my forehead before folding up another shirt of mine to put in the suitcase. “That works for me. I’ll gladly accept the best-mom-friend role. Now, do you want to grab the gift you got for her so we can pack it?”
I hurried over to my dresser where two gifts were wrapped perfectly—and I meant per-fect-ly. I’d wrapped them over and over again until each crease line was smooth. It took me over two hours to get it right, but I didn’t care. I wanted it to be exactly right for Kennedy.
I hoped she’d like the bright neon green ribbon. I would never have used neon green ribbon if it was my choice, but I knew it was her favorite color because she was my best friend and I knew those kinds of things about my best friend.
“Do you think she’ll like the gifts?” I asked, my heart feeling like it was stuck in my freaking throat. I’d worked on one of the gifts for months, and the idea of Kennedy not liking it kept passing through my mind.
Mom smiled the kind of smile moms do to make their kid feel better. “She’s going to love it, Jaxson. Trust me. I’m your best mom-friend, after all—I wouldn’t steer you wrong.”
The mom smile worked. I instantly felt better.
“Do you think you want to come down to the shop and help me lay out some plans for the houses I’m designing the landscaping for before you leave tomorrow?” Mom asked, closing up my suitcase.
She was trying to open her own landscaping company called Millie’s Haven Landscapers. It was Mom’s heart and joy, and I couldn’t wait until the day she opened up her shop. I loved helping her plan out designs for people. Even though she didn’t have a big official business yet, she helped a lot of people around town with their yards. Plus, she was drawing up blueprints for the acres of land we lived on. “Flowers everywhere,” she’d always say. “Wildflowers blooming throughout the year. That’s my dream.”
I didn’t like getting my hands dirty too much, but I did like being her righthand man. She said someday I could even take over the company for her, but I told her there was too much dirt involved.
I didn’t like messes.
I liked things perfectly neat.
“Or he could come fishing with Derek and me,” Dad said as he walked into the doorway of my bedroom. “Do manly things for once in his life.”
I hated fishing.
I hated the idea of the worms.
I hated the idea of the fish flopping side to side.
I hated watching Dad gut them afterward.
But even more so, I hated how Dad always looked disappointed in me when I didn’t want to do the things he was into, like fishing, hunting, and sports.
I liked libraries, and spelling bees, and writing, and Kennedy.
Dad didn’t understand any of those things, which made it hard for him to understand me.
“Landscaping isn’t a woman thing, Cole. The landscaping world is mostly filled with men, and to make Jaxson feel bad about it is disrespectful,” Mom said, backing me up like she always did when it came to Dad being disappointed in me not being more like him.
I guessed that was why she was my best mom-friend. She always had my back.
“Yeah, but he doesn’t get dirty with the job. He doesn’t do any heavy lifting or actual work,” Dad argued. Every time he did this—put me down—my stomach would flip.
Last month, Mom said if he didn’t stop it, she’d leave him, but I didn’t think that was true. She had a way of loving him even when he didn’t deserve to be loved that much.
“Drop it, Cole,” Mom ordered.
