And this was what it came down to. We couldn’t even be honest with each other about how we were doing, let alone the reason he moved home. What was I doing talking to him, really?
“I missed you,” he said, almost vulnerable.
The Landon I knew was vulnerable, but the man in front of me? He didn’t look like he’d touch vulnerability with a ten-foot pole.
At least that lie snapped me out of whatever funk I had sunk into.
“Don’t you dare,” I snapped, clutching the canvas tote under my arm closer. “You don’t get to leave me, then tell me you missed me. In fact, you don’t get to talk to me ever.” I took in a sharp breath. “I never want to see you again.”
I’d finally hurt him—or at least surprised him—with my words. He ran a hand across his forehead, like he couldn’t believe what he had just done.
I could.
He had been hurting me for years, so why stop now?
“I’m—”
“No.”
I knew what he was going to say.I’m sorry.
The last time he said, or rather wrote, those words to me, I was still a child. At eighteen, I was convinced I was fully grown, but there was so much I hadn’t experienced yet.I’m sorry, he wrote in the letter that served as our last correspondence. The same one I kept in a box at the back of my closet.
Before Landon could say anything else, anything that could get me to stay, I turned and ran, not stopping until I made it to the Community Connections Center.
As it turned out, I could run a lot longer than three minutes when I had something to run from.
I entered the community center with the gusto of someone outrunning the law, not an ex-boyfriend. During my commute (read: sprint) here, I allowed myself to be angry at Landon. To feel upset about the situation. But now, strapping on my cherry red volunteer badge, it was time to let those emotions go. Besides, I would never see Landon again.
It would be like it never happened.
I would make it feel like it never happened.
Instead, I forced my anger to gutter like a candle in a draft and pushed open the door to the art classroom. I was ten minutes early, so I guzzled down one of the water bottles we kept on top of the fridge. The main classroom was a large, open area where kids worked on projects and collaborated on group activities. Long tables were scattered throughout the room, bulletin boards and chalkboards covering the walls.
Inside the craft closet, I filtered through the supplies for what we needed today. Watercolor paints, sketchbooks, and tissues, at least.
Funding was minimal at best, so we had to make supplies last.
“Hey, Kira,” a familiar voice called out from outside the closet.
I balanced all the supplies on top of my arms as I emerged, then dropped them onto the table. “Good morning, Mary.”
Mary Singh, a tall and blonde older woman with small eyes the color of amber, was the administrator of the entire community center and had a tendency to press her hand to her chest and askDid Michelangelo paint this?every time a kid showed her their painting.
I didn’t see her often outside of the volunteer meetings she ran at the start of each month.
She wrung her hands out. “I’m afraid I have some bad news.”
On the bright side, I didn’t think anything would be worse than what happened this morning. “What’s wrong?”
“Jordan’s dropped out of the volunteer program.”
I picked up the sketchbooks and began distributing them in front of all the chairs. “I’m sorry to hear that.”
Jordan was my volunteer partner. He was a fantastic sketcher—way better than me—and had been pursuing a career in photography. Maybe he landed a job that required weekend work. He was a nice guy, but it wasn’t tragic to see him go or anything.
We had volunteered together for about three months, but I had been volunteering here for one year. I wasn’t sure what overcame me the day I saw an ad on a local bulletin board, but I immediately applied for the opening. Thankfully, they trusted me enough to run an art classroom.
