Right. Right. I restrained from rolling my eyes. “Okay. It’s stupid. I’m almost embarrassed about it, but—” I took a deep breath. “Okay. Here goes. I know you started calling me a quokka because that day we watched a documentary about them.”
“You remember that?” He pulled me to sit on his lap, his hand falling to my thigh.
I nodded. “I was ten.”
“You weren’t feeling good.”
I rested further against his chest. I reached down for his hand and began tracing his fingers. “You’d already left the house for the streets. Miss Marcie didn’t approve of what you were doing so you didn’t come around that much anymore. But I’d been sick and feeling horrible that day, and you came.”
He brushed some of my hair from my forehead, still watching me with those dead eyes, but his touch was tender. “You were a no-show at school. I got notified, so I went to the house to see if you were okay. No one was there to take care of you.”
“Miss Marcie had to leave me alone because she had some meetings at one of the other schools all day.”
“I know. I messaged her, said I could stay with you.” He smoothed some of my hair back, tugging it behind my ear. “She’d never let me do that for another kid. Not that I would’ve asked, but she knew it was different with you.”
“When you saw how sick I was, you went and collected all of the stuffed animals everyone had in the house, which doesn’t seem sanitary now. I’m surprised I didn’t get even more sick, but you dumped all of them in my bed and crawled in with me.”
His mouth strained. “I was on top of the covers, and the door was open.”
“I know. You had someone bring an iPad to the house. You let me use it that whole time I was sick, but that day, we watched all of these animal videos. I loved the one about the quokkas. The smile they make. They’re adorable. And then I read all about them, and I used to think how cute they were, and you started calling me Quokka, and I thought it was the best ever.”
“What changed?”
I grew tense because this was the part that was embarrassing. I began idly drawing a circle on the back of his hand. “I—some of the girls at school found out about it, and they only cared because it was your nickname for me. They began to tease me with all the bad things about quokkas. That I was stupid to wish I had a quokka as a pet because they were illegal to have and that meant I needed to go to Australia to have one. That they only looked cute, but they were really a rodent. I don’t think that’s true. I looked it up later. They’re marsupials. They said other stuff. I couldn’t touch one because I’d make it sick and I’d kill it. I had the touch of death. They teased me about that stuff, but it wasallthe time, and after a while, it got in my head. It went on for a full year.”
“When did they say this stuff?”
“In class so you wouldn’t have heard about it. I knew you had older kids on your payroll by then, but none in my class. I always sorta worried what you would do if you ever found out they were saying that stuff to me.”
“You were bullied.” He tilted my head up.
“I was being teased.” I relented at his look. “But yes, it was hurtful enough. I got those girls back eventually. We played volleyball the nextyear in gym, and I made sure to spike the ball at every one of them. They were horrible.”
He cupped the side of my face, moved his thumb over my cheek. “I’m sorry they did that to you.”
“Yeah. Well.” I wanted to shrug it off, but I couldn’t. They’d poisoned that endearment for me.
“Wolverines are ugly.”
“What?” I laughed, confused. “Random much?”
“Hmmm. And they’re sometimes called a skunk bear because they give off a bad smell when threatened.”
“Uh. What are you doing?”
“And they cheat, in my opinion. They’re polyamorous. I am not a cheater.”
“No ...” Where was he going with this?
He reached for my free hand and held it up, playing with my fingers as I’d been fiddling with his. “They’re weasels too. Glorified weasels. Their scientific name means ‘the glutton,’ which is appropriate because even if they’re only twenty-two pounds, they’re willing to fend off wolves or a bear for its meal. The name fits, right?”
My laugh came easier. I felt lighter in my chest. “Again. What are you doing?”
“Ah. There it is. Made you smile.”
I fell silent. He said that with such seriousness.
“That day you were sick, you laughed the rest of the afternoon. That’s not nothing. You hadn’t smiled in seven days. You smiled that day. You laughed that day. Even if it’s a silly animal like a quokka that did that, I don’t care. Those little girls were cruel. I wish I had known because I would’ve done something about—”
