AllFreeNovel
Share Us
We glance at each other for one second. Two. “Yeah,” I mumble, “we should definitely hold off on the kid thing until we’re both ready.”
“Agreed,” she says, moving the marker from the back of my hand, over my wrist, and up my arm.
“How’s that full sleeve design going?” I’d asked her to come up with something to go with what I already have, and she said she would—on one condition. I wasn’t allowed to see it until it was on me. Permanently. She thought she was being so smart, as if I care what’s on there. She could design a giant dick and balls with a backward cap, aka my self-portrait, and I’d happily walk around with it just because she drew it.
“It’s definitely a work in progress.” She pauses with the marker on my skin, letting dark ink float in the creases of my flesh. She looks up and around, trying to work out where we are. “We’re going to your grandparents’?”
“Yep.” I tap her leg, a reminder to keep going, and she rolls her eyes, does as I ask.
“What are we doing there?”
“I have to pick up something real quick.”
Only minutes later, Jamie’s standing next to me as I open the front door of my grandparents’ house. “Your favorite grandchild just entered the building!” I announce. I’m theironlygrandchild, but who’s counting.
I can hear Granny’s laugh before she rounds the corner, her arms already open wide for me to walk into. Only she doesn’t go to me. She goes to Jamie. “Hello, my darling,” she greets, taking Jamie in a soft embrace.
“Bro, what the hell,” I murmur.
“I am not yourbro,” Granny says.
“Kids these days,” Grandpa mumbles, bypassing me to kiss Jamie on the cheek.
“Comeon,” I huff out. “Do I get no love anymore?”
“She’s nicer to look at,” Grandpa says, ignoring meagainto return to the living room.
“That was a nice welcoming,” I call out.
“You live five minutes away and can’t even make the time to visit your grandparents!” he yells jokingly… Ithink. “Jamie’s checked in on us more times in the months she’s been here than you have in years.”
Jamie sticks her tongue out at me, and I glare back. “That’s because Jamie’s old like you!”
“Who you calling old?” Grandma says, stepping up to me in all her five-foot-nothing.
I bust out a laugh. “Dang, Grandma, them’s some fightin’ words.” She playfully punches my torso, and I feign hurt. “Stop, you’re going to break a rib.”
“Oh, hush!” she says, reaching up to stroke my cheek. “You know I love you.”
“Cool. Pity adoration, just what I want.”
Jamie giggles, and I look down at my grandma. “I just need to grab something from the spare room, okay?”
“Sure thing,” she says, waving a hand in the air. “You kids go ahead.”
I take Jamie’s hand and lead her down the hallway and into the spare bedroom, where three cardboard boxes are stacked in the corner.
“What are you getting?” Jamie asks, standing in the middle of the room.
I motion to the corner. “Look in the boxes.”
She eyes me sideways a moment, before carefully approaching them. When they’d arrived here months ago, I’d opened them to make sure everything that was in there was still intact. On her toes, Jamie lifts the flap of the top one and peers inside. A moment later, her sharp inhale fills the room. “These are Esme’s…” she whispers, turning to me. Her throat moves with her swallow as her eyes widen. “But you said you donated them...”
I shrug. “I lied.”
“Why?”
“Because I could tell they meant something to you, even if you didn’t want to admit it to yourself.” I move over to the closet and open the door, revealing the only thing hanging on the rack.
