Reasons To Stay

THREE

The following days went by very similarly. Every morning, little Jenny and I would have breakfast and leave rapidly to be in time for soccer. Then, she would spend two hours running while I drew. Sometimes, during breaks, Lance would come to sit with me and we talked for a few minutes. The days he did that, he would always beg to see whom I was drawing, but I never showed him. I hadn't drawn him again since that first day, but a part of me didn't want him to scrutinize every stroke of my version of him.

After soccer, Jenny and I would walk back home to have lunch with our sisters, although most of the time at least one of them would be at a friend's house, sometimes even all of them. If that were the case, I would just have lunch with Mrs. Goode. Even if in the beginning things had been somehow tense between us, we had become a special kind of friends. Special because when we talked, we didn't really talk about anything important. Still, she was kind and I could see she really cared about my sisters, so I had grown to like her.

After eating I always headed to my room to paint. I loved drawing, and it was something I did everyday, but my real passion was painting. Drawing was more like the warm-up, while painting was the sport I loved. And even if I loved using my iPad because of all the commodities it brought with it, there was something special about using actual pencils and paints on canvas.

Time went by very quickly while I painted. So quickly, actually, that before I felt like I actually did something, one of my sisters was knocking on my door and telling me dinner was ready.

That was what happened everyday. Everyday except one.

It was a Tuesday. It had been a little over three weeks since the first day I had taken little Jenny to soccer. For the fist time in all of those days, I was already in the table when dinner was ready. But even if I was sitting there, my mind was somewhere else.

Ro was the first one to notice. "Oan? Are you okay?" she asked, and, immediately, all of my senses came back into the room.

"Yeah. Fine," I told her, but my voice came out strangled.

"You don't look fine," little Jenny said with a frown, her eyebrows actually touching.

Mrs. Goode eyed me worriedly. "You look very pale, sweetie. Do you feel sick? Are you hot?"

I just shook my head. "No, no. I'm fine. Really. Please don't worry." I turned to look at my sisters. "Why don't you all say something about your day? That would make me feel better."

That's all I really needed to say for Trish to launch herself on a very detailed conversation (or monologue) about her day that I wasn't really paying much attention to. I was too worried to do so. At some point between breakfast and dinner I had managed to loose my iPad, and I was freaking out. I had saved quite a lot of money for it, but that wasn't really what I was stressing about. All of the drawings I had done in the last one and a half year were there. And now they were completely gone.

I had searched everywhere for it. I had even gone back to Jenny's school, but her coach hadn't found it. It was just gone.

"...So now, I decided I want to have a boyfriend, too," Trish finished saying just as I tuned in.

"Why?" I asked, not really interested in the subject.

"Because of all I just said," Trish snapped at me. "Seriously, what's wrong with you?"

"Are you in love, too?" Ro asked with hopeful eyes.

I sighed. "No, Ro. I'm not in love."

"But you like someone," Jenny inquired with a mischievous smile. She had seen Lance and I talking many times, and she had asked me about him and I quite a few times, too, but I hadn't told her much, since there wasn't anything to tell anyways.

"I don't know if I do. Do you, though?" I asked, trying to wear the same smirk. She immediately understood that if she said anything, I would tell everyone about her crush and the fact they were in soccer class together.

"I still think you should have boyfriend, Oan," Ro said with that bright smile of hers.

"Or a friend," Trish muttered, irritated.

"Excuse me?" I said, a little too loud apparently, because suddenly all of the eyes on the table were on me. Anger riled up in me as I said, "Why do you always have to–?"

"Say the truth? Because it is. You are a weirdo who..."

"Girls!" Mrs. Goode interrupted. "Please let's not get into a fight, okay?" she asked, looking between Trish and me with authority.

The whole table stayed silent for a while until the doorbell rung.

Since no one made a move to stand up, Mrs. Goode sighed and did it herself. "I'll get it."

I felt bad because of what we were putting her through, but Trish had stepped on a line that I didn't intend on allowing her to cross. My life was my problem, not hers.

"Um. Sloan?" Mrs. Goode said from behind me after a couple of minutes. "There's someone here to see you..." she finished, but her sentence sounded more like a question. A very surprised question.

It wasn't that what really got my attention, though. What did were the two sisters of mine that were sitting in front of me. Trish almost choked on her juice and little Jenny smiled glowingly at whomever it was that stood behind me.

I frowned and turned around, not really expecting anyone to be there. And especially not for that person to be Lance.

"Hey," he said with that cheerful smile of his. I don't know how long I spent staring at him, utterly confused, but I stopped when I realized his green eyes where shinning in amusement... and when I saw the see-through shopping bag with my tablet inside it.

"Lance, you found it!" I yelled in excitement, jumping off my chair.

"Yeah. I saw it in your bench after you guys left and took it home with me. Sorry I didn't bring it before, but I had to..." I cut him off with a hug.

I had no idea were that hug came from, or what I was thinking when I decided to just throw my arms around him, but I realized what I was doing a bit too late. To my surprise, after recovering from the suddenness, Lance laughed and hugged me back.

"Thank you," I whispered.

"You are welcome," he replied. And that's when the fact we were still hugging hit me and my cheeks turned bright red.

I pulled back, putting a much larger distance between us than seemed natural. As if sensing my newfound embarrassment, Lance handed me the bag. "Well, I have to go home now, so there you have it."

"Thank you," I managed to whisper. "Again."

"Anytime. Girls," he said with a nod in my sisters' direction. "Mrs. Goode," he addressed then, returning the smile she gave him. "S," he said finally with that playful smirk of his. "See you tomorrow."

"Mm hmm," I just muttered, which made him smile even brighter.

"Bye, Lance!" little Jenny yelled as he walked towards the main door.

"Bye, Jen!" he yelled back, but he had his intense green eyes on me as he said it, before he closed the door.