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"You sound like a girl who's been having a rough season... or a year. I know because I've been there."
Leia huffed. "You don't know anything."
I heard Juniper click her tongue. "Maybe you're right. But how about I tell you something that happened to me when I was your age?"
The quiet pause said that Leia was willing to listen.
"Well, I was a pretty quiet girl. Wanted to do my classes and come back home to my books and games and be left alone. But that doesn't happen when you don't fit in, does it?"
"You didn't fit in?"
I could hear the interest in Leia's voice growing. Wow. Okay.
"Oh, I stuck out like an absolute sore thumb. I was too much for the kids there—too chubby, too vocal, and too ready to stand up against what I didn't believe in. And the number one example of that was little Harry Wallace."
"Who was that?"
"A pesky little rat who kept pulling up my skirt for no good reason except he had to understand ‘human anatomy'. My mama thought it'd pass when we were a little older.
“Honestly, I think she was a bit afraid to cause a ruckus because Harry's parents were bigshots in the school's academic somethin'. I can't remember now, for the life o' me. And that wasn't all he did, by the way.
“So, my mama used to cook me some damn good midday meals. I wasn't the one with boiled egg and peanut butter sandwiches, no sir. I had something new every day, from fried chicken wraps and salad to baked pies that could make classes two buildings away from mine drool.
“And that pesky kid kept eating all my food. I took it for as long as I could. But one day, he really went and did it.
“He not only picked up my skirt, but he also tried to touch my leg. And ma'am, I wasn't havin' that. So I turned around and whacked him across the face with my math book. And it was a damn heavy book. Left a cute little red line across his cheek. He took off running, crying like it was the end of the world.
“And I got called to the office, and then the works followed. Suspended for a bit, grounded for even longer, you know."
I could hear Leia breathing.
"This is happening to me at school too," she whispered, her words sounding slightly jumbled, "and I don't want to be bothered. I have enough going wrong, anyway. Yesterday, I stood up for myself, and I punched that nasty boy."
At this point, I would have straight up gone into explaining how I understood why she'd done it, but also why it was bad. But Juniper took a different route.
She actually asked her what he'd done—and I wouldn't have thought of that.
I would have been too busy trying to protect her from further damage to stop and consider what had happened to make her act this way. I felt a bit ashamed—but at the same time, I couldn't help thinking Juniper was amazing with kids.
It touched a raw nerve. "What did that pest do to you?" Leia actually began sniffling. "He kept calling me names. He told me no one loves me. That my mama ran away with a new guy so she wouldn't have to take care of me, and my dad's never there anyway. Not like he was lying. It's true."
It was like someone had stabbed me in the chest with the sharpest knife, pulled it out, and done it again and again.
How could I have been so oblivious to her emotions? Hell, I'd never even tried to speak to her about how she was handling stuff since Ellie bolted.
Asher and Miguel stood by my side. Their faces were understanding, but I didn't want any empathy from them—not when I was in the wrong.
"Hey," Juniper replied, her voice soft, "your dad loves you more than anything else in the entire world. You know how he is, right? He's not big with words. But when you came here needin' someone to give you a home, he didn't just open his doors for you, Leia. D'you know he watches influencer cooking videos every day just so he can cook up fancy stuff for you? That doesn't always work out too well, but hey, it's the effort, right? Isn't that what we look for in the people we love the most?"
There was a lump in the back of my throat. How had Juniper figured out these little parts? I'd never told her.
All she knew about my cooking was the pie and the one odd line I'd said about watching cooking videos.
How had she guessed I was doing all of this because I wanted Leia to... I wanted her to know she had a home here and that my heart and doors would always wait for her to run in and tell me she wanted to stay?
I couldn't find any words to say these things that kept revolving in my head.
If I'd gone to that damn shrink like Asher had tried to convince me to, he'd have told me this was a classic symptom of PTSD and that I needed to find healthy ways to channel all the pent-up feelings.
