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My feet start moving before I know what I’m going to say or how I’m going to comfort her. All I know is that I can’t let her sit alone with whatever thoughts she’s having.
“Ladybug,” I call out as I knock and push open her bedroom door. She’s a pile of tears and misery on her bed.
I kneel by the bed and stroke her back as her body trembles. For a long while I don’t say anything. I let her cry her tears and get them out. I run my fingers through her curls and push them behind her ears, doing my best to comfort her.
It feels as if a band tightens around my throat, constricting any words that might come out.
What do I say?
I never had a mother or even a real father figure to help me understand what the hell I was feeling at such a young age. The closest thing I had was Ms. Edith when I went to live at the homeless shelter.
Look on the bright side.I’m sure that’s what she would say at some point.
“Ladybug, can you tell me why you’re so upset?”
“I ruined dinner. Just like I ruin everything else.”
I have to blink away the tears. “You know that’s not true.”
She slowly sits up. Her face is beet red and blotchy from crying. I grab a couple of tissues from the box at the side of her bed and wipe her face.
“Why would you say something like that?”
“Because I wanted to make a nice dinner. You love lasagna and Kyle said he really likes it, too. He told me his mom makes it for him on special occasions. But I messed it all up.” Her face crumbles again.
“Why didn’t you let Charlotte help you?” I ask.
“I wanted to do it on my own. Because … because now that we’re a family, we should do things like that for each other.”
I have to look away from her. I feel like the shittiest person in the world. She’s really latched on to this family thing.
Shaking off the shame I feel, I look back up at her. “You know what else families do for one another?”
“What?”
“They forgive when one of them makes a mistake. You haven’t ruined anything. It’s just a meal. We’ll have thousands more together. You’ll have more chances to cook for me.”
I make sure to say me because I don’t want her to continue to focus on Kyle as part of our family. He’s a short-term thing. I hope.
“But I get so careless. That’s why I messed it up. Even my dorm leader says I’m a mess. That’s why my bedroom is always such a disaster and why I can’t clean it up like everyone else. I’m just a scatter-brained person.”
I blink and then blink some more. I’m doing my best to suppress the hot anger I feel rising in my belly. “Is …” I pause and clear my throat to remove the growl. “Is that what she told you?”
Eve’s watery gaze meets mine. She shakes her head slowly. “No, not to me. I heard her laughing about me with some of the other girls in my dorm.”
“What?”
She startles as I surge to my feet.
Get ahold of yourself, Riley.
It takes a few attempts, but I gather myself enough to calm down and sit on the bed next to Eve.
“You know that’s not a nice thing for an adult to say about a child, don’t you? And she was completely in the wrong for doing something like that.” I wrap my arm around my niece and hug her to me.
“You know I love how smart you are, right?”
She nods.
