More Than I Could (74)

She sighs behind me. “You know what would make me happy?”

“I have no idea.” I take out two bottles of water and let the door slam shut. “Do you want to tell me, or do you want me to guess?”

She takes the drink I offer her. “It would make me happy if I could be seen just for me. Just Kennedy Marshall, a fourteen-year-old girl from Peachwood Falls, Indiana. A girl who loves beauty supplies and hates math.”

“Okay. Seen for that and not as … what?”

Her face falls, and she looks down at the board.

My heart immediately hurts for her. I want to reach out and hug her, but I don’t. I don’t know how she would take it. Besides, I don’t want to disrupt her from talking to me.

“Do you know about my mom?” she asks softly.

“Yes. Your dad told me.”

The corner of her lips rises before her eyes do. “And that’s what I am before I’m anything else.”

She holds my gaze with a decade of pain and frustration floating through the green orbs. It’s a shot to my soul because I know that pain. I’ve felt it too. Maybe differently, but I know what it feels like to carry a burden I did not create.

“Can I tell you a story?” I ask, hoping that if I open up to her, she’ll feel more confident in opening up to me. And hopefully trust me because I know what it’s like to have few people to trust.

“Sure.”

I walk around the counter and join her at the island. I slide onto the stool next to her and get comfortable.

“When I was growing up,” I say, “we lived in a tiny town in Texas. Literally in the middle of nowhere. My mother was born and grew up in that small town.”

“What’s her name?”

“Denise.”

She nods.

“My mom had a very rough life. She was dealt a shitty hand from birth. A lot of unfair stuff happened to her, and it made her make many choices that she wasn’t equipped to make—choices she shouldn’t have had to make,” I say. “I had a rough and lonely childhood. Do you want to know why?”

“Why?”

“Because I was the daughter of Denise Kramer before I was anything else. And that wasn’t a good thing to be.”

Kennedy takes a cookie and breaks it in half. “That’s how I feel, sort of. I mean, I don’t even know anything about my mom, so I don’t know if she made good choices or not. But when my family looks at me, they see that. They see the little girl they picked up in the office with blue carpet and a big metal desk. They don’t see me.”

A lump settles in my throat, and I can’t help it. I put an arm around her shoulders and pull her against my side. She rests her head against mine for longer than I anticipate and then sits back up again.

“I understand what you’re feeling,” I say softly. “I understand why you feel that way.”

“I know they love me. How could I not? They practically love me to death.” She grins. “But I feel like I’m stuck in a toddler’s life, and they refuse to let me … I don’t know—breathe. And no matter what I do or what happens, they feel this stupid guilt like it’s their fault. Like, ‘Oh, Kennedy got detention again. How did we screw her up?’ They never think, ‘Oh, maybe Mrs. Falconbury is just a twat and says rude things to Kennedy, so instead of dealing with it, sometimes Kennedy just avoids it.’ It never occurs to them, ‘Well, Kennedy couldn’t tell us about the party because we wouldn’t even have considered it, so she had to sneak out.’”

“Okay, I see your point. But sneaking out isn’t safe. Don’t do that, okay?”

“I’m not ignorant, Megan. I know Dad tries to protect me from getting hurt, and I appreciate that. I love him. Some of my friend’s parents don’t care, and I’d rather have Dad going berserk over me sneaking out than not caring. But can’t there be something in the middle?”

I sigh. “I’m not your parent, so I feel uncomfortable discussing what can and can’t be possible. But I think that your dad can be a rational person.”

“With you, maybe.” She laughs. “Can you imagine me telling my dad that I want to be on birth control?”

Oh, I can imagine, and it’s not pretty.

“Are you having sex?” I ask her.

She shakes her head.

“I know you think I will snitch you out to Chase, but this is important. This isn’t whether you wear makeup at school or not.”

“You don’t care about that?”

“In the grand scheme of things, no. I don’t. But I’m not your parent.”

“Unfortunately.”

I laugh. “But sex is a different thing, Ken. If you’re having sex, there are conversations and precautions that you need to take. Woman to woman, this is nothing to play around with.”

“So are you giving me your consent to have sex?”

“No, I am not.”

“Don’t you say it’s because I’m fourteen.”

“Kennedy, you’re fourteen.”

She glares at me. “That’s not a reason. That’s an excuse to give me more rules.”

I sigh, twisting in my seat to face her directly. God, help me. I have no idea what I’m doing here. “Look, I don’t know how to talk to you about this, and there are a few reasons maybe I shouldn’t do it in the first place.”