Page 99 of Unbreakable
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Hi Jeanine! I just wanted to see if you or Dylan were coming to Bella’s art show. We’re going to wrap it up in about a half hour.
Holy shit. Oh shit.I checked my calendar.I thought the art show was tomorrow?
Either way, it didn’t matter. I called Dylan in a panic.
He answered quickly. “Done already, baby?”
I jammed my legs in a pair of underwear, getting my foot stuck in the compression leggings. “No, shit, Dylan, Bella’s art show is right now!”
I hopped around trying to get the leggings on my feet and fell over the bench behind me. I did my best not to yell even though my ass took a beating on the hard floor.
“I thought it was tomorrow?” Dylan asked.
“No, her teacher just texted me. There’s only another half hour of it!”
“Shit. Oh god. She’s probably crying.”
“Come get me now, Dylan!”
“Slow down, slow down—” he tried.
“We have to go now! We’re going to miss it!”
“J, I think only one of us can go. It’ll take too long if I come get you.”
At that point I was fully crying. All Bella wanted was for me to see the Christmas ladybug she made.
Dylan’s keys jangled in the background. “It’s okay, baby. I’ll go now. Take an Uber. Pay whatever you need to. And they have my card on file at the spa. Just go.”
I opened my ride-share app, and of course, it needed to update. I screamed, and a spa employee came by to check on me, AKA to shush me.
I left my favorite sports bra behind because it was one of those compression ones and was too hard to put over my head. Despite the odds, I was in a car headed to the preschool ten minutes later. I was like a coked-out guy at a strip club, pouring twenty-dollar bills into the passenger seat to get him to run red lights.
Irresponsible? Absolutely. But I would do anything for my children.
Even with my continued efforts to make it rain, I pulled up outside the school to find Dylan holding Bella on the sidewalk. Bella looked especially grumpy, with her face all tear-stained. I waved in the most upbeat way possible, and Dylan gave me a pained look. The whole scene shattered my heart. There went all the muscle relaxation from the massage and facial, not to mention the pedicure I’d never get to experience.
“Hi, ladybug!” I chirped as I ran across the street to her school. “Can I still see your Christmas ladybug?”
Bella scowled at me.
“Miss Cece just left,” Dylan said, giving me sad eyes. “I’m sorry, Mommy.”
I nodded quickly, trying not to cry because I let down my preschooler, who would also likely cry. “Bella, honey, I’m so sorry. I made a mistake on my days and that made me miss it. I really thought it was tomorrow.”
“It’s my fault,” Dylan said. “I probably read the calendar wrong.”
“No, it was in the email,” I admitted. “I just read it wrong. I thought it would be on your last day of school. Did you and Daddy take any pictures of it?”
“I did just for you, Mommy,” Dylan said, pulling out his phone. “Can Mommy hold you?”
Bella clung tighter to Dylan and I waved it off. “That’s alright, honey. Oh, wow, would you look at that! Did you make that all by yourself, Bella?”
“Yeah,” Bella said, starting to brighten.
“Is that his Santa hat?”
