Chapter 22
TWENTY-TWO
I haven’t seen Jesse for two weeks.
In my defense, I don’t usually see Jesse that often, but now that I’m living on the King farm, it seems a bit more inevitable. Unless, of course, you’re avoiding him.
Which I am.
I feel bad, knowing from Wren that Emma’s been acting out a bit more over the past two weeks, but it’s what I need to be doing right now to protect my sanity and my heart.
But two weeks and a day after the night at The Mill, my phone rings as I’m folding laundry, and when I see Emma’s smiling face on the screen, my brow furrows. She texts me occasionally but never calls me. Quickly, I tap the screen and cradle the phone between my ear and shoulder as I answer.
“Hey, girl, what’s up?”
“Hallie?” she says, and pain lances through me at the realization of how much I miss her.
“Yeah, babe?”
“It’s Emma.”
I let out a small laugh. “Got that. You need something?” There’s a moment of silence that sits uneasy with me, and I drop the shirt in my hands, giving the conversation all of my attention.
“I…I need help.” Her voice is shaky, and she sniffs like she’s been crying for a bit, and panic takes over, my mind going through a million and seven different outcomes while I try to remain calm.
“Okay. Where are you? Are you safe?” That’s when she starts to cry, delicate sniffles and tiny whimpers that tug at strands in my heart. “Emma, are you okay? Are you safe? Are you hurt?” She sniffs again, but relief floods me when she finally responds.
“I’m, I’m okay. I’m at home. I just don’t know what to do.
” Her voice breaks, a squeak coming through the line.
My brow furrows as I check the clock. It’s eleven on a Saturday—Jesse should also be home.
Why is she— “I could ask Dad, but he’s a boy.
We learned about it in school, but they said it would happen in a few years, and none of my friends have gotten it.
” Understanding slams into me, grief riding its tail.
“And it hurts, and I don’t know what I should do, and I don’t have anything and, and, and—”
I can sense her spiraling, and I take in a deep breath and nod, even though she can’t see it, before sitting on the edge of my bed. My pulse is pounding with nerves, but I try to calm myself.
She needs that from me.
Emma just got her period, and she’s upset.
Emma, who lives with her dad and rarely talks to her mother, just got her period for the first time.
And for some reason I don’t quite understand, she called me.
I don’t ask any other questions.
Instead, I stand, nodding again as if she can see, and start making a list in my mind.
“I’ll be there in five minutes, okay?”
“Thanks, Hallie,” she whispers, and the relief and gratitude are clear in those words.
“Any time. Hang tight, I’m on my way.”
I don’t even knock when I get to Jesse’s front door, and I’m relieved when the door opens easily, though that feeling is gone in a moment when Jesse’s booming voice reaches my ears. I move toward the sound quickly.
“Emma, open the goddamn door,” he says, looking at his feet as he stands at Emma’s door, hands on his hips.
“Go away!” Emma calls through the door, her voice full of frustration and tears. It breaks something in me, and in a few steps, I have a hand on Jesse’s shoulder, tugging him to face me. He jolts with shock as he looks down at me, forehead furrowing.
“What are you—”
“You gotta go,” I say, putting a hand to his back and pushing him away from her door, but he doesn’t move, the giant lug.
“What the—?”
“I said, you have to go.” I tip my head toward the front door, and he looks at me in utter frustration and exasperation, but I don’t have the time or energy to deal with him and his ego.
“This isn’t the time for your games. Hal, seriously.”
“I know, which is why you have to go.”
“Hallie—”
I sigh, grabbing his wrist and tugging him away from the door, where a scared eleven-year-old girl is most definitely listening to this conversation, and dragging him toward the kitchen.
“Hallie, what—”
“Jesse, you’re a great dad. The best, really, but you are not what she needs right now.
” He opens his mouth to argue, but I break the news to him.
“She called me.” That silences him, and I take a deep breath before spitting the news out.
“She got her period,” I say low, and in a moment it’s all written over his face in heartbreaking detail.
Confusion, followed by understanding.
Understanding morphing into hurt.
Hurt moving into pain.
Pain turning into acceptance.
His eyes shimmer with tears right before he closes them and whispers a low, quiet, “Fuck.”
A single word saying so much.
Fuck, my baby is growing up.
Fuck, she didn’t tell me, or maybe fuck, she didn’t feel comfortable enough to tell me.
Fuck, I’m ill-equipped to handle things.
Without thinking, I reach up, resting a hand on his cheek, and his eyes open again, hazel eyes I’ve seen so many times over my entire life, but somehow, in this moment, they look brand new. Open, unshielded. Terrified and trusting and confused.
My Jesse.
In another world, this would be my Jesse.
“I’ve got it,” I whisper.
“She called you,” is all he says, and I nod.
“She called me, and I’ve got her. She’s scared and going through a lot right now. Go. Go to Madden’s, work, hang with your dad, go to The Mill, go distract yourself. Honestly, I don’t care what you do, so long as you’re not here. Nat’s on standby to bring me anything I need. I’ve got it.”
“Nat? Not Wren?”
I smile at him, letting my thumb move over his high cheekbone as I watch him wistfully, his light scruff scratching at my thumb.
“I love Wren to pieces, but if she wanted Wren, she’d call Wren.
If she’s up for it, we can have a girls’ day with Aunt Wren tomorrow, but right now, I’m not bringing anyone she hasn’t explicitly invited here, and if I call Wren, she’ll be well-meaning, but she’ll want to stay.
” A look of understanding passes over his face, followed quickly by appreciation.
His arm moves, pulling me into him, and I let him, mostly because of the soul-deep sigh that escapes his chest when he does—a shaky sound that tells me this impacts him more than he knows what to do with.
When he pulls back, he looks down at me, and I look up at him, taking in his handsome face and forcing myself to remember that there’s a little girl in the other room scared out of her mind because of the changes she’s experiencing.
“I’ve got this,” I whisper, patting his cheek. He stares for another moment before another sigh leaves his lips, though this one is different, pained, but in a disappointed way.
“I want to kiss you right now,” he whispers, and even though I want to argue with him, even though I should argue with him, I don’t.
Partially because, while I managed to find the willpower to walk away that night after a long, emotional day and avoid him for the past two weeks, now that he’s here before me, staring down at me with his guard absolutely obliterated, I can’t exactly say I don’t want him to kiss me.
Instead, I stay on the topic at hand.
“I’ve got this,” I say, a small smile on my lips, before I tip my chin toward the front door. “Go.”
He stares another moment before nodding, and I drop my hands, expecting him to step back, but he doesn’t.
Instead, he bends, dipping to press a soft kiss to the top of my head.
He holds it for a moment before he whispers, “Thank you,” there.
Then he lets me go and turns, grabbing his phone, keys, and jacket before making his way out the door.
I stand there in shock for a moment before I remember what’s important right now, then turn on my heel, moving back toward Emma’s door and knocking gently.
“Hey, Emma? It’s me, Hallie,” I say against the door, my hand on the stiff handle.
“Can you unlock the door for me?” I hear a sniffle and feel a click under the cool doorknob before I turn it, and she’s moving away to sit on the floor beside her bed.
Her eyes are red from crying, her long hair pulled into a bun on the top of her head, and she’s still in her pajamas, despite it being lunchtime.
“Is my dad still here?” I shake my head.
“I had him leave. I figured you’d want to be alone for a bit.” She nods, and I move to sit on the floor next to her. I’m not sure what to do here. I never had to help a girl through her first period, but Mrs. King helped me through mine, so I pull from that.
I remember sniffling in a school bathroom stall, and Wren finding me there, asking what was wrong.
When I told her, she nodded, then called her mom, who picked both of us up for the day.
My mom had left barely six months earlier, and my dad and brother were so ill-equipped to help, but it didn’t matter.
I had Mrs. King. Wren wouldn’t get her period for another two years, but when she did, Mrs. King pulled both of us out of school, and we repeated the process with Wren.
”How do you feel?”
She looks at me, those big eyes watering again.
“Terrible.”
I let out a light chuckle, then put my arms out to her. “Come here, babe.”
Instantly, she does, moving to my side and letting me hold her, and she feels so much younger than she actually is right now.
“I was so excited because everyone says it’s this big moment, but this sucks.”
“Yeah, well, welcome to the next thirty years, at least.” Her head snaps back to look at me with horror, and I bite back a laugh, cutting through the heaviness of the moment. “But don’t worry. I’m here to help.”
The afternoon went as well as one could expect, with a few tears, a lot of junk food, and some female bonding.
I’ve made sure to send Jesse a text about once an hour to keep him in the loop and reassure him that she’s safe, without sharing too much information.
Hours later, Emma and I are sitting on the couch in pajamas, watching another Mary-Kate and Ashley movie she requested, when I finally get the nerve to ask her.
“Hey, Emma?” I ask.
“Yeah?” She’s happier now as we sit on the couch, in full veg-out mode.
For dinner, we had a Chinese food takeout extravaganza, ordering way too much, though I know the leftovers won’t go to waste.
I’ve seen how much Jesse can eat, and if he doesn’t want it, I can probably tell Madden there’s leftover up for grabs at his brother’s place, and it will be gone in an hour.
Nat, being the best, even brought a tiny cake with Welcome to Womanhood! written on the top that made Emma laugh. With her permission, I texted Wren an hour ago to update her, and we made plans to have another girls’ day tomorrow at Wren’s place.
“Why’d you call me?” I ask finally. There’s a pause, and her face loses some color, so I quickly add, “Not that I’m complaining, of course.
I’m honored. I’m just wondering. Your aunt would drop everything to be here, and your grandma was just as close.
” Her eyes are locked on the bowl of candy before her, her fingers move through wrapped packages as if looking for something, but clearly she’s buying time before she finally speaks.
“You don’t treat me like a baby, for one,” she says, and I can tell she’s giving me the easy answer first. “Aunt Wren is the best, obviously. But she’s Aunt Wren. She babies everyone.” I let out a little laugh in agreement. “And Grandma, she’s great, but I’m her baby’s baby.”
I nod, understanding in part, but not in total.
Until she says her following words.
“You get it. You’re…you’re like me.” An arrow pierces my heart with her words.
“Like you?” I ask, but I already know before she says her next words.
“You get what it’s like, not having a mom.”
The breath leaves my lungs.
“Well, honey, you know,” I start, unsure of what to say because every variation of words that could leave my lips feels…
wrong. The truth is, Emma and I are much more alike than I’d like, not because she’s not the most amazing, gorgeous, cool girl I’ve ever met, and it’s an honor to be like her, because she is, but because I don’t want that for her.
Both of our moms left, though I was lucky enough, if you want to call it that, to have the illusion of a perfect family for my first ten years.
In contrast, Emma’s mom was in the picture for just a few years that Emma probably doesn’t even remember before she told Jesse that she didn’t want to be a full-time mom, instead wanting to follow her dream of being a model or singer or actress—honestly, I can’t really remember, mostly because I don’t care—and leaving Jesse full custody of their daughter.
And just like my mom in the first few years after she left, Kim occasionally makes plans to see Emma, but, more often than not, backs out at the last minute with some elaborate excuse as to why she can’t come.
“You didn’t have a mom to help you through this, either. You get it.” She says it with cheer instead of the sadness I feel settling in my chest, and I force myself to mirror it.
She doesn’t have to know what I’m thinking or how it clearly isn’t weighing on her in the same way.
“Well, I’m honored you called me, Emma. And any other time you need something, I’m your girl.” She gives me her soft Emma smile, then nods.
“Yeah. I know.”
Emma then turns back to the movie and starts chomping on chips, but all I can think about is just how right it feels to be back here.