Never Letting Go

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Eleven

By the time Kenzie and her siblings had to leave, Ashley had managed to verbally get permission from Colton that, if she were able to get him to go with her, she could have Whiskers, Carter was planning to be attending all of "his new best friend's" soccer games, and Kenzie seemed to be avoiding Trey even more than usual. She was also being more silent than usual.

"Are you okay?" I asked her, unsure of whether to be concerned or happy with the lack of words flowing out of her mouth.

"Just tired," she murmured, giving me a slight smile, "I'm ready to go to bed."

"You sure?" I asked, glancing over in the direction or Trey's retreating body headed down the street towards his house.

"Yes, Olive." She responded and put her hands on her hips, "My current state has absolutely nothing to do with Trey."

"I wasn't sure if having to spend a whole evening putting up with him had exhausted you," I teased, "Why, should I have been thinking it was something else?"

She rolled her eyes, "No. Your first assumption is correct. But it has been a long day."

"Go home then." I said and nudged her, "Colton's wrangling the kids and taking them to the car."

She took a few steps backwards and gave me a wave, "See you at school tomorrow."

"Please tell me the calendar is incorrect and today is not October 6."

Kenzie threw her body into the chair next to me and gave me a panicked look, "I could have sworn I looked at it the other day and it was only the 1st."

I glanced up towards the front of the room, where the teacher had a calendar and there was a big red circle around tomorrow.

"Please tell me that you finished your paper."

She gave me a sheepish look, "Oops."

"Kenzie," I scolded, "It is due tomorrow! Please tell me you at least have most of it done." At the blank look on her face, I continued, "Half of it?" She didn't respond and I gave her a look.

"Hey, don't be judgmental! Not all of us get the work handed in a week early," Kenzie folded her arms and rolled her eyes, "I have some of it done. I didn't completely wait until the last minute."

"I thought you were going to work on it over the weekend. What happened?" I asked.

"My grandmother was having some health problems and my dad went to visit her, so I've been on babysitting duty since Thursday night."

"All five of them?"

"Just four. He took Seb with him. But still, I could barely get 5 minutes of quiet to do anything."

I gave her a sympathetic look and reached out and squeezed her hand, "Well, hopefully over lunch you can work on it."

"Yeah, hopefully," she murmured and gave me a tired smile.

The teacher began then, stopping our conversation. I looked over at Kenzie though. She looked exhausted and as if she was fighting to keep her eyes open. I made a mental note to ask her if there was anything I could do as soon as class was over.

However, I didn't get the chance. Several minutes before class ended Kenzie was called to the office. I looked for her in the next class we had but didn't see her.