Page 37 of Genesis

I take a seat, exhaling as I look at the TV and running my hands over my jean-covered thighs. She’s watching some movie,Pretty Woman, I think is the name. I only know because she’s watched it before.

“Everything all right?” I ask, not looking away from the TV.

“Yeah,” she replies. “What have you been doing all day?”

“You really want to know?”

“Maybe not,” she says. She’s still dressed in jeans and a tank top.

“Come on,” I say, standing up.

“Come on where?”

“It’s your fucking birthday, Little Girl. Let’s go have some fun.”

“I don’t know Danny. Mom’s really sick tonight.”

And that’s why she’s at home. She’s always looking after her mom. I hate that shit. I hate it for her, but mostly, I hate it for me, because when her mom dies, she’s leaving.

Part of me wants to stop coming to her room so much, so I can prepare myself for what’s to come. I’m a selfish prick. I should be there for her.

“Your mom has her brother if something goes wrong. You only live once. We’re going out.”

She pulls her bottom lip into her mouth, contemplating what I’ve said, but she doesn’t have a choice. She’s coming. “Grab a jacket or whatever. You don’t need to wear that tank top.”

She scoffs. “It’s nearly summer. I’m not wearing a jacket, and besides, what’s wrong with this?” she asks, looking down at her shirt.

Bexley’s thirteen now, and men are perverted assholes, especially some of the ones I know. “Just do what I say,” I tell her.

She rolls her eyes. “Fine,” she says, standing up. She turns away from me and lifts her shirt up over her head as she walks to her closet. I stare at her back. She has a birthmark near her right hip, and I count the small freckles crawling up her spine. There are four.

She pulls a shirt over her head and turns back around.

“Better?” she asks.

“Better,” I reply. “Go tell your mom you’re going out with some friends.”

“Okay,” she says. “Be back.”

I sit in her room as she goes and talks to her mom. I’ve been in here several times since she moved next door. Her mom is getting sicker by the day, and Bexley is a sad person. She doesn’t talk about it, but it’s the elephant in the room.

I look at the white comforter with colorful flowers on it. My eyes roam over the CDs she has near her stereo and the posters she has up of boy bands. Candles sit on her dresser, and on her nightstand rests a small picture frame of her and her mom. She walks back into the room.

“She’s asleep, so I left a note.”

“Okay.”

We both climb down the ladder, and I move it out of sight as we take off down the street. Johnny will have something to say about this, but I don’t give a shit. Tonight, I’m hanging with my girl, because she isn’t like other girls.

Bexley is cool. She may be younger than me and the girls I mess around with, but she’s older in the way she acts and carries herself. She’s not immature and doesn’t laugh when something is not funny. She doesn’t get mad for no reason, and she doesn’t play games.

Bexley’s straight-up.

“Where are we going?” she asks.

“I want to take you to where I hang out.”

She looks over at me. “Danny, I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

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