Scars

Too Much Juice

As it turns out, Nick actually made a decent juice smoothie. Ren seemed to agree as well. She sat in the seat next to me at Mix a Lot, slurping down her children's sized mango madness juice smoothie. Nick sat in the chair across from me, on his lunch break. He had a sad looking sandwich in front of him that he had barely even touched.

I sipped my strawberry banana smoothie, avoiding conversation for as long as possible. I had only come because Nick wanted to discuss something "important." School had been snowed out and it seemed as if I had no other option but to get it over with.

"So you know how I mentioned my brother stopped by?" Nick started.

I nodded. "Yeah. He got you drunk. What about it?"

He breathed in sharply through his nose and fixed his position in the chair. "Well, naturally he noticed I had Ren with me in the apartment due to excessive amounts of pink and the stock pile of colorful goldfish and squeezable applesauce. I mean I was trying to avoid this because he loves to tell my parents about everything I do wrong."

"What are you saying?" I said cutting him off, "Your family knows that you're a father?" I took a moment to let that settle in. From what I could tell, it was obvious his parents would not be in the least happy about it.

"From what I can tell, he told them yesterday."

I sighed, "Nick why are you telling me this?" I didn't understand how this would be so very important to tell me. Sure his parents would be angry at him, but what did this have to do with me?

Nick sighed as well. "So my mother called for the first time in over five months. She asked me if it was true and I told her it was. She, uh, cried for a while. I could practically feel the disappointment seeping through the phone." He laughed lightly. "Well, now she wants to, uh... meet Ren. She just wants to make sure I'm actually being a good father. Frankly, I don't think she trusts me in the least."

I took it in for another moment. "Yeah, okay, then what day do you need Ren? This Saturday?"

The corners of Nick's lips turned up slightly. "No, Brin, I don't think you understand. She wants to see you too."

My heart dropped a thousand feet and shattered. If there was anyone who really scared me, it was Nick's family. They were all gigantic, as Nick was, towering over me, a sad 5'4."

Ren interrupted us then, thankfully preventing me from answering. "Full," she said, patting her stomach lightly, completely unaware of our conversation.

"Uh, yeah. I should probably go." I stood and reached over to pick up Ren, but Nick leaned over the table and laid a hand on my arm, stopping me.

"Come on, Brin. Just this once. No strings attached." I crossed my arms and sat down, defeated. Nick's smile returned to his eyes. "Great. I can pick you up on Sunday around seven." I just shrugged my shoulders in reply and took Ren in my arms. Then I got out of there as normally fast as I could.

I could barely focus on the road in front of me because I discovered just how scared I was to see his parents. On top of all that, I was driving in snow with my one good hand which proved to be very difficult. I had to admit that I was exhausted by the time I pulled into the driveway.

Ren was in the backseat, fast asleep in her juice induced "coma." I could hear her snoring slightly over the purr of the engine.

The ringing of my phone woke her up suddenly, but she slowly drifted back into her coma again. I dug my phone out of my back pocket and read the screen. It wasn't Nick, which made me slightly relieved. I answered the call and put the phone, cold from the weather, up to my ear. "Hey Kristie what's—." I stopped abruptly when I heard her sniffling. "Are you okay?"

"No." More sniffling.

"Kristie what happened?"

"It's James." Then the sniffling turned to crying.