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I ignore her. “Keys?” I ask August, who nods and shifts his backpack to one shoulder so he can rummage through the contents. When his search sends a notebook plummeting to the floor, I stoop to pick it up, only getting a glimpse of page after page filled with scribbled words before August snatches it away. “What was that?”
“It’s just a journal,” he mutters, quick to clarify, “Mama makes us keep them.”
“It’s an English assignment,” Sunday musters enough strength to explain. “They write in their journals every day.”
“You read twenty eleven-year-olds’ journals?” Sounds like a nightmare.
Sage eyes open just enough to roll. “Iskimthem. Just to make sure they’re doing it.”
“I hate it.”
My gaze flicks to the backseat. “Why?”
August huffs, a long-suffering noise. “Because it’s boring. I don’t like writing. I’m not good at it.”
“That’s why we do it, Goose.”
“Mama.” Bug-eyed, August pointedly flicks his gaze my way.
God, if he knew the deep-rooted history of nicknames in my family, he’d feel right at home. I should sit him down with my niece—I don’t think Reese will ever forgive her big sister for christening herRay—and Amelia‘Tiny’Silva so they can commiserate together.
Pocketing that thought for another day, I ask, “Do you address it to anyone? Like a letter?”
August frowns. “No one.”
“That might make it easier. Like you’re talking to them, y’know.” As we pull up outside the Lane’s apartment complex, I half-turn towards August. “I do it. Therapist’s orders.”
August perks up, and I swear Sunday does too. “Really?”
I nod.
He eyes me with a newfound curiosity. “Who do you write them to?”
“Lots of people. My mom, my coach—” Lots of those lately. “—my brother.”
“You have a brother?”
“James. He lives in…” I have to think about it for a second. “Somewhere in Florida, I think.”
“Y’all aren’t close?”
“We are. He just moves around a lot. Hard to keep track of.” Because one doesn’t quit their decade-long career as an attorney to swap one stationary life for another, I guess.
“Huh.” August is intrigued, I can tell, but the elevator doors opening cut off any further line of questioning. While his mother practically throws herself into the hallway and stumbles the short distance to their apartment, August lingers. “Thanks for driving us.”
I nod at his pocket—at the scrap of paper inside it. “Anytime.”
“My mama would say thanks too but I think she really had to vomit.”
I roll my lips together to stem a smile. “That’s okay.”
August nods sharply and exits the elevator, but again, he pauses. Sticks a hand out to stop the doors from closing. Swallows hard and straightens up, shoulders strong and face serious. “Coach Morgan, can I write my journal to you?”
I catch my surprise before it shows, morphing it into something carefully neutral, an expression that hopefully doesn’t portray how much the sweet, simple question pleases yet terrifies me. “Only if you address them to Cass.”
10
CASS
