Hope
"Baby shark doo doo doo .... " The kids sang. We were watching videos before nap time. I was looking at the kids, and I noticed the absence of one particular boy.
"Where's Skylar?" I said to myself.
"Tammy." I said to the other teacher. "Can you keep an eye on them?"
"Sure." She smiled.
I quietly stepped away from the kids so I wouldn't distract them. I walked around and looked for Skylar. I found him sitting underneath one of the tables covering his ears. His eyes were shut and his lips were pursed. I crawled under the table with him.
"Hey." I said. He didn't budge.
"Is it too loud?" I said. He slowly nodded his head. I stood up and went to find the remote. It wasn't loud, but I turned it down still. When I went back to the table, Max was sitting with his hands now on his lap.
"You wanna come with me?" I said, offering my hand. He looked at me and then nodded.
"Okay. Grab my hand." He took my hand and I pulled him from underneath the table. We walked back to where the rest of the kids were, but Skylar sat in the back close to Tammy and me. He didn't sing and dance with the other kids. He just watched the video.
The moment I started working at this daycare, I knew something was different with Skylar. He is smart, but he doesn't have any social skills. He doesn't play with other kids, and sometimes he has bad tantrums. Not your normal fussy kid tantrum, like really extreme. I truly believe that he has autism, but no one at the daycare says anything about it. A girl from my group home had autism, and her behavior was very similar to Skylar's.
During the kids nap time, I spend my time different ways. Sometimes I sketch, sometimes I nap; it honestly varies. Today I wasn't really tired, so I just scrolled down my social media timelines. I went to Instagram because I wanted to watch videos by @iamdesibanks. He literally cracks me up. When I got to my explore page, a picture of Rak and Iman caught my eye. I hesitated, but then clicked the picture. I then pressed Iman's profile.
There were pictures of her, but there were many pictures of her and Rocky. I tapped through the pictures. They all had nice and sappy captions. 'Mr. and Mrs. Mayers.' 'Match my fly' 'Feels good to have a love like this'. I felt my blood boil more with each picture.
I feel so stupid.
How could I let myself catch feelings for this nigga? I saw the ring on his finger the first day I met him, and I still let myself get close to him. I let myself damn near fall in love. I'm so used to not caring about guys and it not meaning anything if we did or didn't talk. The one time I actually give some of my heart up, it's to someone that is so unattainable. Now I'm pregnant by him. He has to be in my life for forever.
My heart started to beat faster. I pulled my stress ball out of my bag and started to squeeze it. I closed my eyes and took deep breaths. Since I'm pregnant, I can't smoke or take any medication. My anxiety can easily spiral out of control. That isn't good for the baby, so I have to keep it together.
Tammy was up knitting, so I sat my head down and continued to take deep breaths. Eventually, I fell asleep.
"So how was school?" I asked Lotus. We were hanging out in my room. I was painting a picture for the showcase, and she was just finger painting her own little picture.
"Good." She said. I looked at her with the side eye.
"Really?" I said. "Because Ms. Logan told me that you and Ken were distracting everyone else today."
