The kids greeted me and I bent down to hug and kiss them both, holding them in my arms longer than normal as I soaked in their comfort.
“You’re squeezing me too tight, Row,” Tristan squirmed his small body out of my arms.
“Sorry,” I told him.
“Row?” He tilted his head questioningly. “Are are you going to cry?”
I hadn’t even realized my eyes were filling with tears. The tears didn’t spill over and I didn’t even know why they were there in the first place—maybe for everything I had lost and was working so hard for my siblings not to have to experience. I had a suspicion that these tears were because of Trent too. He’d surged back into my life, making me feel again, and my emotions had burst forth like water from a dam.
“No, sweetie, I’m not going to cry,” I forced a smile as he gripped my face between his two small hands, looking at me in fascination.
“I don’t want you to be sad,” his lips turned down in a frown.
“Sometimes you have to be sad,” I told him, my voice shaky.
Tristan wrapped his arms around my neck and clung to me tightly. We had a special bond—one I didn’t share with Ivy.
I picked him up to carry him to the kitchen when my mom opened her bleary eyes from where she lay on the couch. “Don’t baby him.”
“Whatever,” I rolled my eyes as she passed out once more.
I was tired and didn’t even feel like boiling pasta noodles, so I settled on peanut butter sandwiches that the three of us dipped in milk—don’t knock it until you try it.
“This is yummy,” Tristan grinned, smiling up at me. Ivy nodded in agreement to his words. Watching the two of them, my throat clenched. They deserved more than peanut butter sandwiches eaten at a card table. I didn’t understand how a parent couldn’t want better for their children. But my mom, she wanted us to suffer like she had, while she escaped into oblivion—the coward’s way out.
Ivy helped me clean up from dinner, then I gave Tristan a bath, and read them both a story. I fell asleep in Tristan’s bed, my body wrapped around his, with Ivy beside me.
???
The wind blew my hair in my face, several long strands getting stuck on the gloss coating my lips. I pulled my hair way, my head lowered. When I looked up, my steps faltered. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.
This had to be a mirage or something.
Trenton stood straight ahead of me, his back leaning against a light pole with a coffee cup and something else in his hand. I was so confused. He was still supposed to be at school, what was he doing here?
He looked up then, a smile spreading over his handsome face as he spotted me. He was dressed nicely in a pair of jeans and a long black button down coat. His dark hair was brushed out of his eyes. To me, he looked like he should be on the runway, not chilling on campus. He looked so sophisticated and out of my league.
He didn’t jog up the steps. Instead he waited for me to meet him.
I walked slowly to him, butterflies assaulting my stomach.
“Hi…what are you doing here?”
God, even when I wasn’t trying to I still sounded like a bitch. There was something seriously wrong with me.
He chuckled, licking his bottom lip. “I brought you coffee,” he held up the paper cup.
“I can see that, but why are you here on my campus,” I hissed. “Aren’t you supposed to be at school?”
He shrugged his muscular shoulders. “I finished my school work early and decided to head home. There was no point in hanging around there when I could be home.” With you, the words hung there unuttered.
“Well,” I reached for the coffee, “thanks for this.”
“I
t’s caramel,” he assured me before I took a sip. “Caramel’s still your favorite right?” He asked hesitantly.
“It is,” I nodded. “I can’t believe you remembered that,” I whispered in awe, taking a sip of the hot liquid. It gave me a dose of much needed caffeine and warmth.