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It made her feel alive.
But maybe her mom was right. Her pants were getting looser again. She was going to have to up the calories a bit. She’d always been underweight. But so were Cashlyn and Hope, so what was the big deal? Her mom and her aunts and her sisters and her cousins were all really skinny, too.
It was a family thing.
Coleson girls were basically girl sticks with stick arms and stick legs and stick-straight brown hair and brown eyes.
They looked like cartoon characters, Crispin had always thought. Well, Joy and Samia at least had curly hair and were really short. Joy’s was almost white blond. But that was about it. Joy and Samia were justshortstick-people with curly hair.
They were Coleson Stick People.
No denying a Coleson girl when you saw a Coleson girl, that was for sure.
She headed toward her mom’s car. There were a lot of people milling around. She didn’t want her mom to not see her in the crowd.
Her mom worried. They all stuck pretty close to each other now, since Uncle Nick’s murder and everything.
She was going to go home, eat something, and then hit the pool for an hour or so. She had some things she needed to think about. There had been this guy in her statistics class who had asked her if she wanted to go to someplace called Mamaw’s Place a week from Saturday. She was considering it. He was really smart, and he seemed more serious than the other guys in their class.
They were working on their masters’ degrees. They shouldn’t act like children, after all.
He was cute, with honey-brown hair, blue eyes, and really broad shoulders. He was six three, too. So she didn’t feel like an overly tall, weird-eyed freak like some guy had called her a few weeks ago, just because she’d told him she had to watch Joy’s kids when he’d asked her out. She’d suggested they go the next weekend, but that hadn’t been good enough, apparently.
He'd thought she should cancel with her aunt, and just not live up to her word, so she could hang out with him at some reservoir somewhere.
Jerk.
That was not the way a Coleson rolled. She’d given her aunt herwordthat she would be there. Joy needed her and she’d promised.
Crispin was never going to understand guys, that was for sure.
Everything with guys was just far too complicated, for one thing. Why couldn’t she find at least one that she could actually talk to?
Her mom’s car was there. Crispin climbed in the front seat. “Hi, Mom!”
Her mom smiled at her, big Coleson brown eyes lighting up like they always did when her mom saw her multitude of girls. Crispin had to smile back every time. Her mom was the prettiest Coleson of them all.
“There you are. I could have sworn I saw you a few minutes ago, with a redhead and a little brunette in the cutest pink hat. They were headed that way. Toward the auditorium.”
“There is some really popular band there again tonight, or something. Everyone is going.”
“Did you want to go? Hang out with other kids your age? I can give you enough for a ticket, if you want?” Her mom had thatlookagain. The one that said she thought Crispin was spending too much time with numbers instead of real people.
“No. I’m good. That kind of crowd just gives me the shivers.” She had never done well with large groups of people, with all the noise and all the smells, and people moving in every different direction. The lights usually hurt her eyes, too. “Besides I want to go swimming.”
“Sweetheart, you are going to have to make some friends here, remember? We’ve talked about this.” Her mom’s brown eyes met hers for a moment, while they were at the stoplight. Her mom worried. Crispin had never really made friends that easily.
No one wanted to talk about the things she did—or even cared. Or listened. Just her family. They mostly understood her when she talked—just like she listened to them talk about the weird things they all liked, too. Nobody understood a smart Coleson like another smart Coleson, after all. “I know. It’s just…finding people to connect with is hard. Really hard. Besides, what do I need friends for? I have you and nine big sisters. Who else do I need, anyway?”
“And we all love you, Crispin Maria Coleson. Even if you are the most exasperating child on the planet.”
“I’m eighteen, Bonita Bianca Coleson. I’m not a child, Mom, but…the truth is—I’m a freak around here. And I know it.” And she was mostly ok with it—she had an IQ of 186, after all. She was always going to be different, even if her eyes weren’t funky, too. But as she looked at all the people her own age milling around as if they didn’t have a care in the world, people who had friends, maybe she wasn’t so ok with it, after all. But she didn’t really know what to do about it. “Besides, I’ll make friends eventually. When I find the right ones. We just haven’t lived here long enough, that’s all.”
“I love you. You are not a freak, sweetheart. Someday you’ll find the crowd who gets you. No matter what. Don’t you ever forget it. Promise?”
“You’re the best mom in the world. Don’t you ever forget it. Promise?”
Her mom just laughed. Her mom had the prettiest laugh of anyone Crispin had ever known.
