Page 63 of Fall of Us
Teresa glared at her brother. “Jesus, Joe. Can you please watch what you say around her?”
The small girl kicked her feet as she kept scribbling on her piece of paper. Instead of getting irritated, I kneeled next to her and watched her as she drew.
“McKenzie, I’m just a friend. I’m going through a hard time right now and your uncle offered to help me out. Is that okay?”
She didn’t answer, just stuck her tongue out as she continued to scribble. I let her be for several moments before she finally spoke up.
“But you like him?”
She was dang cute, and I scrubbed my hand through her messy brown hair before standing back up. “Not in a boyfriend type of way.”
She stared up at me with wide eyes, the marker finally stopping its scrawl across the page.
“What about mommy? Mommy could use a boyfriend.”
Teresa blushed, turning away, laughing. The child was downright precious.
I crouched back down next to her. “McKenzie, your momma is just another friend helping me out. I have someone that I love very much, but we’re not happy with each other right now and I needed some space.”
The little girl tilted her head to the side.
“But you don’t want to be angry with them?”
Leave it to small children to be the voice of reason.
“I don’t. It’s not always that simple for grownups. You see, he hurt me pretty bad.”
She looked back at her drawing and set her marker on the table. McKenzie lost herself in thought for a moment before she turned back to blink at me with her wide hazel eyes. “Did he take the last of the cookies? When Uncle Joe takes the last of my cookies, I always get upset, but I know he doesn’t mean it. Then he replaces them and I forgive him.”
Damn, this girl was too cute for her own good.
McKenzie Bishop had just compared my relationship to cookies, and in a weird way, it made sense. Deep down, I knew that Brandon hadn’t meant any harm. It didn’t make it sting any less. The fact that he still hadn’t reached out since the ordeal made it burn all that much more.
“It’s a bit more complicated than cookies, kiddo. I appreciate the effort.”
She nodded, picking back up her marker and going back to drawing. Teresa shrugged, and I stood back up. Joe took his water bottle back from her and motioned for me to follow him back to the basement.
Chapter 38
Brandon
There was absolutely no reason that a week later we still hadn’t talked to each other. This was a new type of hell.
I’d never lived in a world where I couldn’t pick up my phone and reach out to my best friend to tell him how my day had been or ask him how his day had gone. It was only made worse to come home to boxes of his belongings still piled in a corner of my living room.
It was pathetic to think that after a week I imagined that I was forgetting what his face looked like. Or even what he smelled like. If it weren’t for the fact that I had all of his clothes, I would have forgotten that entirely.
As it was, I curled up every night in the University of Washington hoodie his mom had gotten for him when we were first accepted into college.
Why was the other half of the bed still empty?
My brain still scrambled to form ideas on how to apologize, to make it up to him. If I were Andrew, I’d never forgive me. He deserved so much more than being a secret.
As if moving through a mud puddle, my body moved through the apartment when someone knocked at the front door. Atthis point, I had lost all hope that Andrew was miraculously going to turn back up. This time was no different when Nathan greeted me on the other side of the door. I couldn’t even bring myself to smile in greeting, just moving to the side to let him in.
“Have you been back to work yet?”
His question should have caught me off guard, but I knew my friends cared. I looked like a wreck. My hair was greasy from not being washed in several days, and I probably smelled awful.
