Total pages in book: 94
Estimated words: 94903 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 475(@200wpm)___ 380(@250wpm)___ 316(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 94903 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 475(@200wpm)___ 380(@250wpm)___ 316(@300wpm)
“Yeah, but moms know about periods and boyfriends. Dads are just … cringy.”
I grin and slide the board between us. She takes an apple and drags it through the peanut butter and caramel.
“Like, I know he means well, and he wants the best for me,” she says, crunching down on the fruit. “But he has no idea what it’s like to be a teenage girl.”
“No, he wouldn’t know that. But what about your aunt Kate? Can you talk to her about stuff?”
“Ha.” She drags the apple through the board again. “Kate is busy. I love her and know she’d do anything for me, but I can’t call her and ask her to buy me tampons.”
Wow. I never thought about that.
I nibble a piece of banana and watch Kennedy pick out a cookie.
I’ve always looked at Kennedy and this situation as a child with a fantastic family. She has love out the ass. Her behavior, I’ve decided, is just typical teenage crap.
But is it?
I’ve never considered having to ask a man for tampons or help when starting your period for the first time. Or how to do makeup. Or wanting pretty bras and panties—how does she manage that?
What about boys? Dating? Oh my gosh—birth control?
“Do you have a boyfriend?” I ask, testing the waters.
She laughs at me. “Right. Like Dad is going to go for that.”
“That doesn’t mean you don’t.”
She smiles coyly.
“Look, Ken, I’m not naive. I know what it’s like to be fourteen. You’re getting attention from boys. But are you giving them yours?”
She bites a cookie and watches me curiously. “I don’t know. Are you asking me as my friend or my babysitter?”
“I’m not your babysitter.”
“Yeah. You kind of are.”
I grip the edge of the counter. “Well, whatever you want to call me—I’m here. If you want to talk to someone, not your grandma or aunt, you can talk to me.”
“But you’ll tell my dad.”
“Tell him what?”
She grins. “Nothing. There’s nothing to tell.”
I shake a finger at her before taking another piece of banana. “You’re cute.” I head to the refrigerator to get a drink.
She sighs behind me. “You know what would make me happy?”
“I have no idea.” I take out two bottles of water and let the door slam shut. “Do you want to tell me, or do you want me to guess?”
She takes the drink I offer her. “It would make me happy if I could be seen just for me. Just Kennedy Marshall, a fourteen-year-old girl from Peachwood Falls, Indiana. A girl who loves beauty supplies and hates math.”
“Okay. Seen for that and not as … what?”
Her face falls, and she looks down at the board.
My heart immediately hurts for her. I want to reach out and hug her, but I don’t. I don’t know how she would take it. Besides, I don’t want to disrupt her from talking to me.
“Do you know about my mom?” she asks softly.
“Yes. Your dad told me.”
The corner of her lips rises before her eyes do. “And that’s what I am before I’m anything else.”
She holds my gaze with a decade of pain and frustration floating through the green orbs. It’s a shot to my soul because I know that pain. I’ve felt it too. Maybe differently, but I know what it feels like to carry a burden I did not create.
“Can I tell you a story?” I ask, hoping that if I open up to her, she’ll feel more confident in opening up to me. And hopefully trust me because I know what it’s like to have few people to trust.
“Sure.”
I walk around the counter and join her at the island. I slide onto the stool next to her and get comfortable.
“When I was growing up,” I say, “we lived in a tiny town in Texas. Literally in the middle of nowhere. My mother was born and grew up in that small town.”
“What’s her name?”
“Denise.”
She nods.
“My mom had a very rough life. She was dealt a shitty hand from birth. A lot of unfair stuff happened to her, and it made her make many choices that she wasn’t equipped to make—choices she shouldn’t have had to make,” I say. “I had a rough and lonely childhood. Do you want to know why?”
“Why?”
“Because I was the daughter of Denise Kramer before I was anything else. And that wasn’t a good thing to be.”
Kennedy takes a cookie and breaks it in half. “That’s how I feel, sort of. I mean, I don’t even know anything about my mom, so I don’t know if she made good choices or not. But when my family looks at me, they see that. They see the little girl they picked up in the office with blue carpet and a big metal desk. They don’t see me.”
A lump settles in my throat, and I can’t help it. I put an arm around her shoulders and pull her against my side. She rests her head against mine for longer than I anticipate and then sits back up again.