Page 44 of The Tattered Gloves
“My mother picked it out. It’s a stupid name,” I replied, my arms instantly twisting around my chest.
He must have noticed my change in tone because his lessened as well, matching mine. “I like it. I mean, it’s a little hippie-sounding and makes me think about trees, but it’s pretty.”
There was that word again.Pretty.
“My mom loves TV. It was maybe the one thing we did together — if together was even a word for it. It was the one thing she allowed me to do with her, I guess. She watched everything from soap operas to cheesy cartoons. It was her way to escape from… well, anyway. When she was pregnant with me, she was on a big Buffy kick.”
“Buffy?” he asked for clarification.
“Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It was a TV show about this—”
“Vampire slayer?” he said, smiling.
“Right,” I said, a small smile peeking out the corners of my lips. “There was this character, Willow. She was a witch or something. Anyway, when she delivered me and they asked what I was to be named, that was what she decided on. I’m named after a redheaded witch.”
“Better than a tree,” he said, causing me to laugh.
“True. Very true.”
WHEN I’D FIRST moved to Sugar Tree, I would never have guessed I’d fit in, let alone have people to call my friends.
Sitting at the long table in the cafeteria, listening to Allison prattle on about Spanish homework and the football game on Friday, I felt like I barely knew the girl I once had been.
I was still quiet, still unwilling to sit too close to anyone, but I was different.
I felt different.
“My partner for this project is the most boring person in the world!” Margie, a girl I’d recently met, exclaimed.
She was a friend of Allison’s, and like her, Margie had a sweet disposition. She was curious about me. Her eyes would linger around the frayed edges of my gloves, and I could almost see the questions forming on her lips.
But she never asked.
None of them did.
“Her family has literally done nothing but farm. For generations. I have nothing.” She groaned. “Nothing but four generations of crops. I tried to get something interesting from her — a story or family tradition or, you know, anything — but nope. All I have is farming. I’m screwed.”
“Maybe talk to her about an event that happened in your family’s past, and it will hopefully spark a memory for her?” I suggested, surprised to hear my own voice responding to her.
By the looks of everyone around the table, so were they.
“Um, okay,” she replied. “I’ll give that a try. So far, it’s been really awkward between us. So, I’ll see if approaching it differently might help.”
My cheeks felt hot from the sudden attention, and Allison, who was most likely loving every moment, didn’t make it any better.
“How is your project going, Willow?” she asked, determined to keep me talking for as long as humanly possible.
“Um, good,” I answered.
“You have Sam as a partner, right?” Margie asked. “He’s pretty cool.”
I nodded in agreement. “Yeah, he’s been fairly easy to work with.”
“I knew he would be. He’s a good guy,” Allison agreed before taking a casual sip from her water bottle.
In the last few weeks, I’d noticed her fixation on Sam lessen. Her eyes no longer followed him in the hall, sad and wanting. When she spoke of him, her words carried no regret or remorse.
She’d moved on.
