Page 27 of Anything (Mayberry University #1)

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Colorado sunshine blazes through the window as banana bread crumbs fall from my mouth.

Perched on my kitchen stool, I stuff the last bite in.

Comfort captured in a moment. This dry mountain air on my skin, in my lungs.

My toes in fuzzy socks point diagonally from my barstool, switching position absentmindedly in a seated changement .

I blame Levi. My toes want to point and my legs extend since he asked me about ballet again.

My brothers are at school and have soccer till late tonight. I’ll see them Saturday. I consider texting friends who stayed in town or are visiting for break, but brakes squeal in my mind at the thought.

What was that?

I step from the island and try a pirouette.

Yep, it’s like riding a bike, so to speak.

A pirouette is far more natural to me than bike-riding.

I try a double. Not great. It’ll take some more practice.

I use the fireplace across the room to spot and try again.

And again. Deep plié. High passé . Press my shoulders down. Spot once, twice.

I slide in my fuzzy socks back to my bar stool. Even in my failing, dancing again feels like … freedom. Freedom from my thoughts, my worries, the past, the future. I wonder if my ballet slippers are still around. Maybe in the basement? But my feet have grown since.

“You have a crazy month at work.” My parents are in Dad’s office, arguing like Hermione and Ron.

“Right, so it’s good timing for you,” Dad says.

A pause.

“What am I going to do with you?” Mom says.

“It’s settled then.” A grin in his voice. “Next Sunday for your day of solitude. Make me a list, and I’ll cover your stuff that day.”

“Thanks, darling. I’ll put in a good word for you when I talk to Jesus.”

Dad laughs.

Those two have something special, extraordinary even, something most married people don’t seem to have.

The spark is still in their eyes, the like with the love, after all this time.

They end every day chatting and joking on the front porch or on a walk.

They choose each other over all the lesser things, even my brothers and me.

Neither of them gets it right all the time—believe me, I’d know—but what they have is exactly what I want some day.

My chest tightens. If that’s even on the table anymore.

I can’t sit still, so I stand and try the turn again.

Mom glides into the kitchen and catches me. “Was that a double?” She rests her hip on the island.

She remembers. I used to practice constantly. I could usually land a triple once upon a time.

“Nearly.”

“I love that you’re dancing again.”

I shrug. “Ready for our walk?”

“Ready.”

I pocket my phone by habit but lay it back on the island. Lately I have a stronger impulse than usual to check for messages, not that Levi sends me any. I had hoped he’d make an exception since we can’t talk otherwise. He doesn’t even have socials to stalk.

She notices with a Mom-smile and leads the way to the front door.

The crisp October breeze is a pleasure. Eighty degrees instead of a hundred is Texas’s idea of fall weather. Here, I wake to frost, and the streets brim with color. The trademark aspen-yellow, bright red, deep purple. A few trees still have their vibrant green leaves. A rainbow of color.

“It’s so beautiful, huh?” Mom says. “God timed your trip home perfectly to see this.”

“He really did.” The trees in the mountains must have already lost most of their leaves by now. I would have missed it all if I’d been a week later. “You’re going to the mountains to pray next weekend?”

“You heard about that? That man …” Mom calls him that when she’s feeling particularly affectionate.

I roll my eyes, but a smile tugs at my lips. Cringey as ever, but I wish Levi could meet them. “Anything specific you plan to pray about?”

“My time mostly. I want to be openhanded with it. Things are so different now that you three are growing up.” Her elbow nudges mine. “I could get a job, but it doesn’t always feel like the best way I can contribute. It’ll be so good to have space to listen. I need to know what Jesus wants from me.”

Now that I go to a Christian school, I know more than ever to appreciate that Mom never uses churchy language. She just talks about Jesus like the friend he is.

We stroll in comfortable silence down the sidewalk, surrounded by fall’s beauty. I wave to Judy across the street as she persuades Stella the basset hound down the sidewalk.

“What are your Mayberry friends doing for fall break?” Typical Mom.

“Nice of you to ease into it. You want to know about Levi? ”

Mom purses her lips guiltily.

“He flew to Connecticut to see his granny. She’s not doing well.”

Her expression softens in compassion as she leads the way across the street.

“He’s around a lot, hangs out with that group I’ve told you about. With Austin and Haymitch.” I’ve told her about my activities during our weekly phone calls, but I avoid mentioning Levi, so this is coming as a confession.

Her face alights with excitement and maybe relief. She silently asks for more information, but I don’t offer any.

“I see,” she says. From her voice, I know she does.

“Can I ask you something?” I ask.

Her thankful look pangs my conscience.

“I can’t stand the thought of seeing any of my friends while I’m home.”

That wasn’t really a question, but her head bobs.

“Incomplete love. Your old friends stuck by you for years but let you down when you blossomed into this beautiful young woman. You are God’s incredible creation, Kit, like a sunset or the night sky or wildflowers.

Your beauty isn’t about you—it’s meant to point us to our creator.

Anyway, your new friends last year did the same, really, just opposite.

They accepted you for how you looked but were too self-consumed to ever care who you are.

Incomplete, conditional love messes us up. It’s not what God wants for us.”

My thickening throat tells me she’s probably dead on, as usual.

That’s it, isn’t it?

“How do your friends at school treat you?” Her voice gentles. “Do they love you unconditionally?”

“Ayumi yes, but she’s not around that much.

Sophie, I don’t know. It’s weird between us sometimes.

” Levi has been a true friend to me, even while I confuse him and reject his advances and refuse to explain my bizarre behavior.

Is that unconditional friend-love or is it strategic?

“Mia seems to. She word-vomited on me last week, but I think that was her way of taking care of me.”

Mom watches.

“She said I make myself small, that I let Sophie walk all over me. But, last year …” I nearly whisper. “I can’t do that again.”

Mom side-hugs me as we walk. “You think you make yourself small so your friends don’t have a reason to bolt?”

I shrug and nod.

“God will provide, sweetie. You can trust him.”

I can trust you. If these friends leave, you’ll bring others. You did this year.

I can tell Mom’s praying too. It’s so good to be home.

I run my fingers along needly leaves as we pass a spruce tree. The pine needles on campus are too high to reach.

I would ask Mom’s advice about getting him—both hims—out of my head, but she can’t help with that.

She wouldn’t understand why I want to be freed from my feelings for Levi.

She’s been with Dad since they were younger than me.

And Mom doesn’t know anything about memories that haunt, about moving on from someone because it couldn’t work.

I need so much more help, but she couldn’t possibly understand.

Cozied into the chair on my front patio, feet crossed on the ottoman, I finally admit it to myself—I’ve made zero progress since Mia cornered me at the sink last week.

My walk with Levi and car ride weirdness prove that I’m still not taking up space, and the few times I speak up are only to avoid some worse fate.

Mom helped me see I have reasons, but I wish I could be brave and fierce like Mia.

I wish I could just go and do like Sophie.

I wrap Mom’s chunky white cardigan tighter against the chill of the morning.

I wanted to tackle this personal development thing on my own. I feel like I’m already spending up my prayers on my broken mind and my broken sleep and my confusing relationships with Levi and Sophie. But spending up my prayers isn’t actually a thing. And I can’t live like this. I need help.

So … even this “smaller” problem is too big for me. I can’t even discern my own motives half the time, much less change them.

Trust in me with all your heart,

and do not lean on your own understanding.

In all your ways, acknowledge me

and I will make your paths straight.

Whole heart. Not my own understanding. I guess this is how you want it then, huh?

You want me to come to you for everything.

Well, here’s yet another problem. I plop open hands onto my lap.

You’d better take it too. I’ve got a long list I keep sending off to you, but it’s not too long for you.

It’s most definitely too long for me. I’m too overwhelmed to even think about it.

I let the breath out of my cheeks and follow a squirrel’s path as it jumps to the blue spruce near me.

So Mia’s speech …

I don’t know what to pray, so I grab the journal and green pen I brought out with me. Time to write it out.

Apparently I needed to hear that I don’t take up space, but yuck. I hate seeing this in myself. I thought I was just being polite. Sometimes it is that, right? But you’re showing me how I’m trying too hard to be

I click my pen as I think.

I write,

Lovable. I don’t want to be too much trouble. I just want to slide by unnoticed. To avoid losing friend after friend like last year. But I can’t afford to be such a follower.

I stare at the curb along my street. I can almost see Aiden’s gleaming blue Audi parked there .

Please help me see it right so I don’t mess up my life again. And so I can be a genuinely good friend, not just an overly agreeable friend. Kind and not just nice.

See what kind of love I have given to you,

that you should be called my children;

and so you are.

That verse again. I chew on my lip.

I’m your child. You love me, and that’s enough. Make me like you. Change me so that any deferring I do comes from love for people and not from protection of myself.

I slump down and lay my head on the top of the chair. I try to make it stick.

You love me already, and that’s enough. Help me get it through my head.