Page 9

I can’t understand what else she says because she starts to cry and blubber even more. But I keep nodding my head and acting like I understand everything she’s saying.
I think I need to calm her down before she runs out of tears after she cries for another minute. She could really get dehydrated from all the crying she’s doing. I don’t get why she’s so angry. I know she broke my snow globe on purpose, but it was an accident. In all the time I’ve known her, I’ve never yelled at her or gotten mad at her.
“Maisie, please stop crying and look at me. Can you do that, sweetie?” I say softly to get her to calm down. Maisie looks at me after a moment of heavy breathing. “Good girl. Now, I want you to pay close attention to what I say.”
She nods her head and sniffs a little, but at least she doesn’t start crying again. Moving forward.
I don’t pay attention to Jaxon and my mom, who are standing on the other side of the room and watching this interaction but pretending to be alone. It might bother me that Jaxon is watching this private family moment, but it doesn’t. It makes me feel good that he doesn’t want to leave me while I’m dealing with family problems.
“Not at all. It was just an accident, right?” I say.
She nods her head again, this time with more force than before. “That’s right. I’m not mad because you didn’t mean to do it.”
“Yeah,” she croaks, her voice hoarse from crying for so long. “But I broke the one from Paris, which was your favorite!”
I have to think fast so she doesn’t start crying again when her eyes start to water again. I hold her close and crush her body to mine, rubbing her back in a calming way again. “Maisie, don’t cry. I’m not mad. But you’re making me sad because you’re sad.”
Thank goodness that makes her stop crying. I pick her up off the floor and sit on the couch after rocking her back and forth for a few minutes. At some point during my conversation with Maisie, Jaxon and my mom moved to the couch, so I ended up sitting between them.
“Maisie?” I say softly.
She lifts her head off of my shoulder. “Yeah, Calla?”
“Can you tell me why you were so upset without crying? I’ve never been mad at you for anything, let alone a mistake. Did something happen today?”
When she frowns and looks down, my suspicion is right. She rubs her small fists against her eyes.
She starts with, “Today at school we had to make a family tree,” and my heart starts to race. When I look at my mom, I see tears starting to well up in her eyes. My mom holds Maisie’s hand and tells her to keep going.
“A girl next to me started looking at mine when I only put you and Mama on it. She said I didn’t have a real family. She said I needed a mommy and a daddy, but I didn’t have a daddy. He left because he didn’t love me and…” The rest of her sentence is hard to hear when she starts to cry again. I bit my lip to keep from crying.
I’m scared to look at Jaxon because I can see that his jaw is tight and he looks sad. I give him a look of shame because I know I will have to explain this to him later tonight.
“And when I broke your snow globe, I thought you might get mad at me and leave me like Daddy did.”
That hurts me. I cry a little, and then I feel a hand on my back. Jaxon. He’s here for me. This only makes me like him more. This family drama doesn’t make him run away. He also knows exactly what I need right now: strength. He gives me that strength when he shows me that he will comfort me.
I wipe my eyes once to get rid of any signs of my tears, then I stand up quickly. I let Maisie go, and then I took her hand. “Maisie? You’re my sister. You’re my family. The family never leaves the family. That man, our father, was never our dad. He wasn’t a good person, and I’m so glad you never got to see him. All the family you’ll ever need is right here. I will never leave you. It would take an army to separate us, and even then, we would use our ninja skills to fight them all.”
I lightly karate-chop her arm, which makes Maisie laugh. It makes me feel good. This little girl should be happy all the time. She shouldn’t be sad and let down by our terrible father who left us.
We began to karate-chop each other, and when she hit me in the stomach, I pretended to fall to the ground. “I give up! Please have mercy on me!” I scream.
I get up and take her hand after she stops hitting me. “Okay, let’s clean up the mess together. Then it’s time for bed.”
“Okay,” she says with a smile. She looks next to me and finally sees that Jaxon is there.
She yells, “Jaxon!” and runs into his legs, hugging them tightly. It was as if the last half hour had never happened, and she was back to being happy.
“Hey there, Maisie. It’s good to see you,” Jaxon says with a small smile.
I went into the kitchen and got paper towels and a small trash bag to put the broken glass in while they were talking. I tell Maisie to come with me. We go up, and Jaxon follows. He does follow, though, after my mom gives him a little nod of approval. That surprised me because I thought she would have told Skyler not to come up after he came into my room before she knew he was gay. I guess my mom thought Maisie was a good enough c**k-block.
As soon as I opened my door, I saw the broken glass on the floor. “Maisie, I want you to stay right here. There’s broken glass, and I don’t want you to cut yourself.”
She nods and stays where I told her to. I walk up to the glass, crouch down, and start to gently pick up the pieces. It didn’t break all the way, so most of the glass stayed in pieces.
“Please, Calla, let me do it,” Jaxon begs. He looks really nervous when I look at him in the doorway. And scared.
“It’s okay, I got it. I can clean this up,” I said as I kept picking up the glass.
Jaxon speaks up again in less than two seconds.
“Please, Calla? You’re going to hurt yourself. I’ll do it.” He starts to walk over to me.
“Nuh-uh,” I say, holding up my finger and pointing to my bed. “Sit down. I’m almost done, anyway. Plus, I don’t want you to get hurt.”
I could feel his steel eyes on me as I finished cleaning. I did what I said I would do and cleaned it all up without getting hurt.
“All done, Maisie. No more mess. Are you okay now?” I ask, still a little worried about her.
She says, “Yeah, I’m fine,” but her yawn makes her words sound funny.
“Okay, time for bed.” I took Maisie’s hand and led her to my doorframe. I call down to my mom, and she quickly hops up the stairs. She can tell right away that Maisie is tired.
“Baby, let’s go to bed,” my mom says as she picks her up. “Also, Calla, please be responsible. I’m letting him up here because I trust you and he seems like a nice young man. But if I see anything strange happening, I’ll be very upset.”
“I got it, Mom,” I say quickly. She gives a nod and walks down the hall to Maisie’s room, where she closes the door. I turn around and close my door, and when I do, Jaxon is looking at me. While I was sitting on my bed… when the two of us were alone in my room…
Why does my mom trust me again?
I am standing still against the door. I don’t know what to do or say. There has never been a guy in my room before. I fight my fears and decide to say something before Jaxon leaves.
“I’m really sorry about Maisie, my mom, and this whole thing in general,” I say. “I didn’t think you’d come here and see that. I mean, it’s a lot of…” My voice fades away as Jaxon gets up from my bed and walks over to me. I can only watch as he stalks over to where I am by the door. He doesn’t stop until he is only a few inches away from me. He doesn’t leave much space between us, but because we’re not touching, it looks like there is space. I think I forgot how to breathe because I took a breath as soon as he got close to me and hadn’t let it out yet.
Those beautiful Jaxon eyes are the only thing that can tell me what he’s thinking when he looks at me.
“Stop saying you’re sorry.” He takes my hand and leads me to my bed. It’s funny that he’s in my house and my room, and he’s the one showing me around and making me feel at home. But I guess that’s just who Jaxon is.
He sits down on the edge of my bed again and gently pulls on my hand to get me to sit next to him. But he won’t let go of my hand. He holds it in his hand and lightly strokes it back and forth with his thumb to calm it down. It feels good and helps me relax even more.
“Breathe, Calla,” Jaxon whispers, and I let out the breath I’ve been holding. How did I not know that I wasn’t breathing? It’s something that all people need, but when I’m with him, everything else seems so unimportant.
I don’t know. I’m staring at our hands until he lifts my chin with his other hand so I can see his face. His hand stays on my skin just like it always does. I don’t move to get his hand off my cheek.
For a few moments, he keeps looking at me before he speaks. “I’m guessing that you’re scared of me being here.”
Oh no! How does he know? I don’t know what face I’m making, so I don’t know how to change it. He has no idea how fast my heart is beating right now.
I nod my head because I’m afraid to say something stupid.
“Okay, I get it. I don’t want you to be nervous around me.” Pfft, like I could stay calm around him!
He says, “Just so you know, I’m nervous too.” “Touch my heart.”
He puts our hands together and puts them on his chest, right above his heart. My hand is stuck between the warmth of his chest and palm, and for a moment, it’s hard not to think about the muscles under his shirt. I don’t even want to picture what he looks like without a shirt on.
As soon as I calm down enough to listen to his heart, I know he’s right. His heart seems to be beating at the same speed as mine.
“How… Why…” I shake my head.
“You, Calla. Being around you makes me nervous. And I don’t get nervous.” He starts to slowly lean his head forward. I sit still and let him take the lead. The more he gets closer, the faster my heart beats and the more my head spins. When his nose touches mine, I suddenly stand up and let go of his hand. I can think more clearly when I have space.