“Jaxon? Has somebody made you feel uncomfortable? Or hurt you?”
He was quick to shake his head. “No. It’s just”—I nearly died in the brief pause before he finished his sentence—“sometimes adults think I’m older.”
Two bright spots of red appeared on his cheeks and he kept his eyes on the floor.
“Jaxon, I need to know, are you in danger? Is somebody trying to force you to do something?”
“No,” he answered quickly. “Some older lady hit on me when I dropped off the rent check, but JD from the front office stepped in and it was fine.”
I let out a sigh of relief, genuinely surprised that anyone who ran a place like this would protect a vulnerable kid.
“I’m glad to hear that. Though, I’m sure it was...” I paused. “Actually, I have no clue how that must’ve felt.”
He grimaced. “I froze up. Like, I wasn’t scared, exactly, but I didn’t know how to handle it. She put her hand on my chest and...blech.”
“Ugh, I know what you mean,” I said, then decided that maybe I didn’t. “It’s hard to know what to do in those situations.”
He nodded. “I wish I’d known what to say.”
“It should never be up to you to have to say the right thing, whatever that means, even though that’s not the reality of the situation.”
“Nope.”
The way he said that so quickly meant he’d likely dealt with a lot of situations that even an adult would’ve struggled with.
“Thankfully, you’re a big guy and can say ‘I’m thirteen and you need to step back’ in that deep voice of yours, and that will take care of it in most situations.”
He chuckled. “Yeah, when JD said my age, she looked scared and left superfast.”
“Good. Did you tell your mom?”
Sadness filtered through his eyes. “She’s got enough to worry about.”
“Look, I know you’re, like, six foot tall?—”
“Six foot three,” he corrected.
“Jesus, dude. How does she keep you fed?”
He pressed his lips into a line, stealing another glance at his mom. “She says she gets all of her food from the diner, but I don’t think that’s always the truth.”
A gentle breeze made the trailer whine, barely covering the sound of my heart breaking.
Oh duh.
“I forgot,” I said, going back to the front door.
“What’d you forget?” Jaxon asked, far too concerned for someone his age.
“I stopped by H-E-B before I got here. I picked up a few things for y’all.”
He followed me out to the truck, his massive feet noisy on the disintegrating metal steps. Shaking his head, he gestured at the pile of groceries in my tiny back cab.
“This is too much, Rowdy.”
“Bullshit,” I said, handing him several bags. “It’s not enough.”
He went quiet as we carried them inside and put them away.
