9. Wren #2
The elementary school pickup line is already moving when I pull in. Daisy waves from the curb like she is directing an airplane to the gate. Lily stands beside her with both backpack straps pulled tight, expression serious, as if she has spent the entire day being disappointed.
Daisy climbs in first. “You smell funny.”
“Hello to you too.”
“It’s not bad like Holden after his games,” she says, buckling herself in. “It’s just weird.”
Lily slides in beside her. “Daisy lost her library book.”
“I did not lose it. I know where it’s at.”
“Where?”
Daisy pauses. “Not with me right now.”
Lily looks at me in the rearview mirror. “That means lost.”
“That means I don’t know,” Daisy says.
I pull away from the curb. “Everyone, take a breath. We will find the book.”
“It’s about a dog,” Daisy adds.
“That narrows it down to every book you’ve ever chosen.”
“She only chooses books with dogs,” Lily says.
“Dogs are so cute.”
“Dogs eat socks.”
“So does our dryer,” Daisy says.
Fair.
By the time we get home, Justin is at the kitchen table with a poster board and markers, while Holden is on a chair in the kitchen with a towel, fanning the smoke detector furiously so it doesn’t start going off.
I look toward the stove, finding what appears to be a sad, sad attempt at grilled cheese. My guess would be he got a text and got a little distracted for a few seconds too long.
“I had it under control,” Holden says.
The pan says otherwise.
I set my bag down. “Uh-huh.”
Justin looks up. “Do we have glitter?”
“No.”
“For sure?”
“Justin.”
“What if my project needs visual impact?”
“Your project needed to be started before today.”
He points a green marker at me. “That kind of negativity blocks creativity.”
“Your creativity is about to be blocked by a failing grade.”
Daisy gasps. “Can I use glitter?”
“We do not have glitter.”
Lily appears beside me. “We have glitter.”
I turn slowly. “Where?”
Her eyes go wide, realizing she just gave away something she wasn’t supposed to. I crouch down so that I’m eye level with her.
“Lily, where is the glitter?”
Daisy sighs heavily behind me. “She hid it in the bathroom under where our extra hair things are.”
Lily takes off toward the stairs, and I take off after her, making sure I confiscate the glitter before our entire house turns into a unicorn dreamland for a second time. It’s been weeks, and I am still finding freaking sparkles everywhere.
An hour later, dinner is made, everyone is fed. Holden and I stand side by side at the sink while Justin and the twins are sitting in the living room, watching a documentary on the ocean.
“How was the job?” he asks quietly.
I rinse the burned pan. “Smelly.”
“That all?”
“No. There were also labels.”
He chuckles at that, knowing just how different organization is from my chaos. “Living the dream.”
“Try not to be jealous.”
He nudges my shoulder with his. “Kai there?”
I keep my eyes on the pan. “Yes.”
Holden goes quiet.
Too quiet.
I glance at him. “Don’t even start.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You were going to.”
He shrugs, which on a sixteen-year-old boy is basically a legal statement. “Was it weird?”
“Yes.”
“Bad weird?”
Seeing him in a tight white tank top? Definitely not weird. Hot, but also embarrassing when I totally got caught checking him out, which I will not be sharing.
“No,” I say. “Not bad weird.”
By 8:30, the twins are in pajamas.
By 8:40, Daisy has asked for water, a hug, another hug, a different blanket, and confirmation that dogs can go to college. Lily wants to know if library fines affect your standing with the tooth fairy.
By 9:00, they are asleep.
Justin is still working on his poster board, but the poster has a title now and fewer glitter piles than I expected, so I count it as a win. Holden takes the trash out without being asked, which makes me suspicious until I realize he’s just tired too.
The house is finally quiet around 10:00.
I stand in the kitchen under the harsh overhead light and look at the mess.
Dishes.
Glitter.
A towel on the floor.
Daisy’s socks under the table.
I clean what I can. Dishes first. Counter. Table. Glitter, which is a lie because glitter is never really gone. It just relocates and waits for you to believe in peace.
By the time I make it to my room, I have soup on my sweater. I peel it off and toss it toward the laundry basket, and miss by two feet.
Close enough.
My clean clothes are not folded because I haven’t had time to become the kind of person who folds her own laundry before everyone else’s. I dig through the basket on my chair for something soft enough to sleep in.
My hand closes around worn cotton, and I know I’ve found what I was looking for.
Kai’s old high school hockey shirt.
The dark blue material has faded over the years from washing, MERCER in black, cracked vinyl across the back, the letters starting to peel even more near the edges. This is one habit I’ve never been able to quit, no matter how much time passed.
For a second, I am fifteen again, standing in my bedroom with this shirt pulled over my shorts, trying not to smile too hard because wearing it felt like a secret and a promise at the same time.
Kai gave it to me after a game because I was cold, then acted like it was casual when we both knew it wasn’t.
I kept it because I loved him.
Then I kept it because throwing it away felt like throwing out a piece of my soul.
I sit on the edge of my bed with it in my hands.
The fabric is thin now. One seam near the hem has started to tear open.
It smells like my detergent, not him, which I am not sad about.
Not at all. I also most definitely didn’t sniff colognes anytime I could, trying to find whatever he smelt like.
Sadly, I had no luck, which also wasn’t a big deal.
You know you are more than full of shit right now.
That is the problem with Kai Mercer. One simple memory can make me feel like I’m still seventeen, still waiting for headlights in the driveway, still listening for his text tone under my pillow.
But I’m not seventeen anymore.
I’m almost twenty-one. I have a job, classes, a family that needs me, a financial aid appeal still sitting somewhere in a system that doesn’t care whether my dad pays what he owes.
Even then, after I hop in the shower and quickly wash off the day, it’s Kai’s shirt I slip on before crawling between the sheets.