“Ummm,” she says, tapping her pointer finger on the side of her chin. “I think we should bake cookies and watch a movie.”
I smile at the thought of her wanting to do that. My mom used to do it with me all the time, and then when Brynlee came along, it was us three. It’s been a while since we’ve done it. We would all go to the store and buy stuff to make homemade cookies. Then we would head over to the DVD section and pick out a movie we hadn’t seen. It was always a kid one since Brynlee was still too young to watch a lot of other movies. Once we finished baking the cookies, we served them on a tray with cups of milk and enjoyed them while watching the movie.
“That would be fun,” my mom says.
“Yeah,” Bryn says and points at me. “You can pick the movie, B, since you’ve been sick. That will cheer you up,” she says in her little voice.
Her thoughtfulness makes me smile. She’s so young and innocent. I’m glad she doesn’t know what I’ve been doing. I wouldn’t know how to react if she followed my path.
I swallow the lump in my throat as I glance over at my mom. She tilts her head as she continues eating her food. She’s still upset. When she took me to the mall, she seemed a little more at ease. I thought she was getting past it. Do I bring bad energy into this house? All the tension came back as soon as we got home.
“How was your weekend?” Kai pulls me into his arms.
“It sucked.” I groan. “I hate not seeing you. I miss you,” I tell him.
Each week that passes is even harder. We see each other in the morning and before he leaves school to go to work. That makes about ten minutes a day. I can’t talk to him on the phone because my mom won’t let me use the house phone. I know I’m a big disappointment, but she could make things a little easier for me so I don’t have to resort to sneaking out.
My life revolves around school and home.
That’s it.
I’m going crazy.
Thanksgiving is in a few days, and I thought by now I would be ungrounded. I don’t expect a new phone anytime soon, but the least my mom can do is unground me and let me get back to some kind of normalcy.
I worry Kai might get fed up and break up with me because it’s hard for us to hang out, and I’ve been grounded for most of the time we’ve been together.
“I miss you, too.”
“I applied for jobs on Saturday again. I haven’t heard back from any yet. Hopefully, we’ll be able to live together soon.” Applying for jobs at sixteen is harder than I thought. Paige andI have both been applying, and no one has even asked us for an interview. My mom keeps saying I should apply at a fast food place. I’ve never wanted to work fast food. At this point, I might have to. I thought stores would hire more help for the holidays, but it has yet to happen.
“That’s good,” he says with a smile. “Do you want to ditch today?”
After the cops caught me a second time, I’ve been too scared to do anything. I haven’t ditched since then. Deep down, I know I shouldn’t. At least this will give me the chance to talk to him about how I’ve been feeling.
“We can go get an ice cream cone from McDonalds. I know how much you like ice cream in the cold. Although it still makes no sense to me.” He chuckles.
The sound of ice cream makes my mouth water. Eating ice cream in cold weather somehow tastes better. Right now, it sounds better than it ever has before.
I giggle, grab his hand, and we walk out of the school.
Once we have our ice cream, I start feeling warm.
“Kai, it’s getting hot in the car.”
His eyes go wide. “B, we’re eating ice cream while it’s snowing outside. It’s cold. We need the heat.”
I wipe my forehead with the back of my hand as the heat blows at me. Tiny beads of sweat are forming all around my hairline and neck. I’ve never been this warm-blooded before, even when eating ice cream on a snowy day. But right now I feel like I’m heating up like an oven.
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah, why?” I lick my ice cream, trying to cool myself down.
Kai reaches over and turns the heat down tolow. “You’re really red.”
“I told you I’m hot.”
“Why are you so hot? It’s not that hot in here. Especially with this ice cream.”
