Page 11 of Beautiful Small Things
Callan picks me up in a hug and holds me tightly to his chest. He stinks. I wiggle to get free and grab some more Skittles from Colby. She pours a few into my hand, and I hear a boy laugh, so I turn around. Callan is talking to a boy with blonde hair. He has a friendly smile and seems happy.
“Hey,” he asks, turning his attention to me. “Can I have one of those?”
Without a second thought, I open my hand. It’s sticky and gross but he just smiles and grabs a red candy and pops it into his mouth.
“Thanks,” he says, putting his fist out to bump mine. He turns to walk away, still smiling, and I feel happy that I shared my candy with him, even though he took my favorite one. Normally I’d be mad if someone took the last of my favorite candy, but for some reason, it doesn’t bother me with him.
Iris
“That’s cute. You shared your candy with him.”
“Mmm,” I say, biting my lip to stifle a laugh. “He took my favorite one.” Jerk.
“Tell me what else you want to say,” she states. “You’re thinking about something.”
Iris is a strong girl, not easily offended. Plus, she knows her father. So I decide if she really wants to do this little project, then I will be honest to a fault.
“It’s just that me giving him something of mine, in order to make him smile, set a destructive precedent that took me a long time to break.”
She cocks her head to the side, indicating that she’s listening.
“Iris, your father became my Achilles heel. I would have given him the stars to see him happy. I thought if I gave enough of myself, he would eventually return those feelings. I just gave and gave until I didn’t recognize the person I once was.”
Her face drops in sadness at my admission.
“It’s OK. Everyone has moved on from the hurt. It was a long time ago. We are all happy where we are now.” I place my hand over hers as she smiles at me.
“I understand, rationally. But it still hurts to hear.”
I nod in agreement. “It was a difficult time, for sure.” Looking around the space, I let go of a heavy sigh. “I can’t believe we still have so much to do before we open. I have so much to do today.”
“Do you need help?” she asks sweetly.
“No, I have some of the other dance instructors coming over in a bit to help.”
She nods and gathers her things, heading for the door.
“Wait!” I call. “Don’t leave yet. You drove all of the way here.”
“It’s fine. I drove with Orion. He went to a coffee shop to hang out while we chatted.”
“Oh. Next time tell my nephew if he doesn’t say hello, I’ll kick his ass.”
“I definitely will,” she says with a laugh. “Thank you for doing this for me, Jem,” she says, giving me a hug. She smells like flowers and sunscreen, just like she always has.
Even though I don’t have time for this, it’s important, and I will help her. I will always help Iris. She’s a part of me, ingrained from when I was a lost girl in her twenties helping care for a baby who I needed as much as she needed me.
Chapter six
James, the Tiny Dancer
Marcus
“Hey Babe,” I say to Iris as I approach her in the kitchen. She’s sitting at the counter furiously working on something in her notebook. Her pencil is flying across the paper at lightning speed, while she wears an expression somewhere between bored and amused.
“What are you doing,” I ask, grabbing a bottle of carbonated water from the refrigerator.
“Just doing some math,” she shrugs. “I’m working on the indefinite integral of one plus tangent theta all over secant theta D theta,” she says effortlessly, lifting her notebook to show me the equation on the paper.
