Chapter 12

We pull up to my house in under ten minutes and I quickly unbuckle my seatbelt and get out of the car. Grayson follows closely and before I make it to the front door my mom opens it for me. "Hey, mom," I say. She gives me a grateful smile and opens the door even wider to allow me to enter. When she sees Grayson, her smile only seems to grow. Evie begins to cry again, so my mom tells us that she's going to check on her and leaves the two of us alone on the front porch. "So... I had fun tonight," I say shyly, my voice almost in a whisper. I don't know how it's possible for it to be so easy yet so hard to speak to someone. I felt compelled to tell Grayson about how I felt, but I was also still extremely nervous around him. “I had fun tonight, too," he smiled at me, and at that moment I completely forgot where I was. I forgot that Evie was crying inside the house. I forgot that my mom was right on the other side of the door. I forgot I was standing on the front porch of my house in the dark with a guy I had only met a couple of times. I forgot all of that because it didn't really matter. I was here with Grayson, who has somehow become really important to me in the short period of time I have known him. “It’s okay. That just means that we have to go out for dessert another time." "Another time?" I asked as I fidget with the edge of my dress. "Yeah. Date number two," he smiled, which caused me to blush even more than before. My cheeks probably looked like two tomatoes at this point. I didn't know it was possible to be this affected by one person. This sucks! I'm probably way more into him than he is into me. I'm already hanging onto every single word he says. I'm scared that now that we'll be going on another date I'll become even more attached and when he figures out that he's bored of me, I'll be heartbroken. "Hey," Grayson whispers and grabs my hands, his large hands stopping the movement of my own. That's when I realized I had been pressing my fingernails into my palms which had formed crescent marks into my skin. "What's wrong? What are you thinking?" he asked quietly, yet I could still sense some urgency in his words. I opened my mouth to reply when Evie's loud cry sounded even through the front door. "I'm sorry, I need to go take care of her." I pulled my hands out from his, unwillingly, and began to walk towards the front door which still remained unlocked. I turned the handle and intended to turn around to say goodbye when I saw Grayson standing right behind me, which caused me to let out a squeal of surprise. "Oh my- What are you doing?" Grayson placed his hand gently on my shoulder, warming me. "You seem upset. If it's alright with you, I thought I'd come in with you. You can talk to Evie, and then after we can talk. It isn't too late right now. Only if it's okay with you," he finished. "Yeah, that's okay with me. Let's go in before the neighbors call the cops. It sounds like she's being tortured," I joke. Grayson laughs. Once we're inside the house, I follow the sound of crying to the living room where Evie is facedown, crying into the rug. "Evie?" I call out in the smallest voice I have. I want her to know I'm in no way mad at her and am trying to coax her into talking to me. Her wailing stops immediately and she lifts her head up to see me kneeling next to her. I bring my hand to her back and gently rub up and down. "Hey, E. Why are you crying?" Evie gets up quickly and runs into my arms, which tackles me to the floor in the process. I let out a small "oof" sound as the wind is knocked out of me by a six-year-old... yeah, not my proudest moment. Especially when my mom AND the guy I just went on a date with both began laughing at me for my lack of strength and balance. I quickly recover and hug her back, wrapping my arms completely around her as I begin to rub her back soothingly, my nails lightly scratching her back through her t-shirt. "I'm so sorry, Thee! I promise i-it was an accident! I was playing d-d-dolls when..." I don't understand the rest of what she says because she begins crying and blubbering more. However, I keep nodding my head and pretending that I know exactly what she's saying. After she cries for another minute, I decide I need to calm her down before she runs out of tears. For real, she could get dehydrated from the amount of crying she is doing. I don't understand why she's so upset. I know she broke my snow globe, but it was an accident. I've never yelled at her or gotten upset with her once in my entire life. "Evie, I need you to stop crying and look at me. Can you do that, sweetie?" I say, gently coaxing her to calm down. After a moment of harsh breathing, Evie looks at me. "Good girl. Now I want you to listen to me, and listen very carefully." She nods her head and sniffles slightly, but at least she doesn't start crying again. Progress. I ignore Grayson and my mother who is standing on the other side of the room, watching this interaction but giving the illusion of privacy. Maybe it should bother me that Grayson is watching this intimate family moment, but it doesn't. It actually warms my heart that he doesn't want to leave me while I'm dealing with family issues. "I'm not mad at you. Not at all. It was just an accident, right?" I ask. "I'm not mad at you. Not at all. It was just an accident, right?" I ask. She nods her head again, more vigorous than the first time. "That's right. You didn't do it on purpose, so I'm not mad, okay?" "Yeah," she croaks out, her voice raspy from crying for so long. "But I broke the Venice one. Your favorite!" Her eyes begin to water again, and I have to think quickly so she won't start crying again. I crush her body to mine and hold her close, rubbing her back soothingly again. "Don't cry, Evie. I'm not mad. But you're making me sad because you're sad." Thank goodness that gets her to stop crying. After a couple of minutes of rocking her back and forth, I pick her up off of the floor and sit on the couch. Sometime during my talk with Evie, Grayson and my mom had moved to the couch, so I end up sitting in between the two of them. "Evie?"I whisper. She picks her head up from my shoulder. "Yeah, Thee?" "Without crying, can you tell me why you were so upset? I've never gotten mad at you for anything, let alone a mistake. Did something happen today?" My suspicion is correct when she starts to frown and looks down. She brings her small fists up to her eyes and begins rubbing at them. "Today at school we had to make a family tree," she starts, and my heart already begins to constrict. I look to my mom and see tears start to collect in her eyes. My mom holds onto Evie's hand, urging her to continue. "A girl sitting next to me started looking at mine when I only put you and Mama on it. She said that I didn't have a real family. She said you need a mommy and a daddy, and I don't have a daddy. He went away because he didn't love me and..." The rest of her sentence is muffled when she begins to cry again. I bite my lip to prevent a sob from coming out. I'm almost afraid to look at Grayson, and when I do I can see his jaw clenched tightly and a sad look in his eyes. I give him a look of embarrassment, knowing I will have to explain this to him later tonight. "And when I broke your snow globe, I thought that you might get mad at me and leave me just like daddy did." That breaks me. A few tears escape, and then I feel a hand on my back. Grayson. He's here for me. This just makes me like him even more. This family drama doesn't scare him away. He also knows exactly what I need at this moment- strength- which he gives to me when he shows me he will comfort me. I wipe my eyes once, removing any evidence of my tears, and stand up abruptly. I put Evie down, then grab her hand. "Evie? You're my sister. You're my family. And family doesn't leave the family. Ever. That man, our father, wasn't ever our dad. He wasn't a good person, and I'm so glad you never got to see him. All the family you'll ever need is right here. And I will never leave you. It would take an army to separate us. And even then, we would use our ninja skills and fight them all. I karate-chop her arm lightly, which makes Evie let out a light giggle. It warms my heart. This little girl deserves all the happiness in the world. She doesn't deserve to be sad and disappointed by our sorry excuse of a father who left us. We started to karate-chop each other until she chopped me in the stomach and I pretended to fall on the ground. "I surrender! Please have mercy on me!" I scream. After she stops her attack, I get up and grab her hand. "Come on, let's go clean up the mess together. Then, it's time for bed, okay?" "Okay," she smiles. She then looks next to me and finally realizes that Grayson is here. "Grayson!" she screams and runs into his legs, hugging them tightly. It was like the last half-hour had never happened and she was back to her peppy self. "Hey there, Evie. It's good to see you." Grayson replies with a small grin. While they were talking, I went into the kitchen and grabbed paper towels and a small trash bag to put the broken glass in. I motion for Evie to follow me. We go upstairs, Grayson following. Well, he follows after getting a small nod of approval from my mother. That surprises me because based on how she responded to Cooper coming into my room- before she found out he was gay- I expected her to bar him from coming up. I guess Evie was a good enough cock-block in my mom's eyes. When I open up my door, my eyes instantly traveled to the broken glass on the floor. "Evie, I want you to stay right here. There's broken glass and I don't want you to cut yourself, okay?" She nods and stays where I wanted her to. I walk up to the glass and crouch down and begin gently grabbing the glass pieces. It didn't shatter completely, so the majority of the glass remained in shards. "Thea, will you let me do it?" Grayson begs. I look at him in the doorway and he looks really antsy. And worried. "It's fine, I got it. I'm fully capable of cleaning this up," I say as I continued to pick up the glass. Not two seconds later, Grayson chimes in again. "Please, Thea? You're gonna cut yourself. I'll do it." He begins walking over to me. "Nuh-uh," I hold up my finger at him, then point to my bed. "Sit down. I'm almost done, anyways. And besides, I don't want you to get cut, either." I could feel his eyes of steel as I finished cleaning up. As promised, I cleaned it all up without cutting myself. "All done, Evie. No more mess. Are you okay now?" I ask, still slightly concerned about her. "Yeah, I'm okay," she says, but her words get distorted through her yawn. "Okay, time for bed." I grab Evie's hand and walked to my door frame. "Mom?" I call down to my mom, who quickly hops up the stairs. With one look, she can see how tired Evie is. "Let's go to bed, baby," my mom coos to her while picking her up. "Also, Thea? Please be responsible. I'm allowing him up here because I trust you and he seems like a nice young man. But any indication that anything funny is going on-" "I got it, Mom" I quickly reply. With a nod, she walks down the hall to Evie's room and shuts the door. I turn around and close my door as well to find Grayson looking at me... while sitting on my bed... while the two of us are alone in my room... Why does my Mom trust me, again?