Scars

Voicemails and Crying Children

I thought that it might be best if I drove myself to school for once, leaving a crying Ren behind with my mother.

 The whole week she had been crying and asking for 'Daddy.' We all thought that by now, she would have cried and whined enough to lose 10 pounds in tears. I was starting to grow increasingly tired and angry. But I wasn't angry with Ren.

Why did he even have to come back in the first place? Before he decided he wanted to come and ruin everything, everything was just fine. We had a good system. Mom would watch Ren, I would go to school, and I would take care of everything after that. We had plans. We were going to move out and get a good place by ourselves. Maybe even including Sam in the group.

Now I feared Ren might never get over it.

"You'll never guess what happened yesterday, Brin" Kristie said as she plopped down beside me, shaking the rickety lunch table and making me choke on my diet coke.

"What?" I asked as I tried to compose myself. Kristie was now bouncing up and down in her chair like Ren after three cupcakes.

She squealed, "Yesterday James—" she stopped and looked around like she was about to reveal a deep dark secret about her boyfriend. She leaned in close and whispered, "He said... ready... he loved me." She went into a series of giggles and squeals.

I let out a slightly exaggerated, "Wow. Kristie that's...great."

Her giggling quickly stopped and her face became serious. "What's with you?"

Am I really that transparent? "Nothing. Promise."

Kristie stared at me for another long moment before shrugging and continuing on talking about James.

The day seemed to drag on forever. Three more torturous classes, a ride home in congested traffic, and returning home to Ren, who believe it or not, was still crying.

I had grabbed a box of popsicles and a bag of crappy candy from the store to bring Ren. The popsicle was currently keeping the whimpering to a minimum and I was able to get some homework done. Ren was sitting on the floor, fully focused on the sugar placed before her, when my phone started ringing.

Nick's name popped up on the screen, causing me to scramble for the ignore button. Some part of me was angry that he had called, but another part of me was regretting ignoring his call. I hated to say that I needed his help now more than ever. Nearly weeks had passed and I've barely gotten any sleep.

My phone lit up again. I looked down to see that he had left me a voicemail. I hesitated, wondering if I should listen to it or not. I quickly turned off my phone and returned to my calculus homework.

With all these calculations, there still were none that could tell me what to do about all of this.