Chapter 7
2237words
Skye sat on the floor, covering her face with her hands, sobbing, while Clay stood over her, confused.
“What’d you do?” Luke asked.
“Nothing! I told her I was making dinner. She followed me in here, and started crying.”
Luke got to his knees next to Skye. “What’s wrong?”
She didn’t answer.
“We can’t help you if you don’t tell us what’s wrong,” Luke said softly. “Did you hurt yourself?”
Skye shook her head. The first sign she understood anything Luke had ever said to her. It was a relief. Luke was beginning to worry she didn’t understand anything. Still, she covered her face with her hands as she cried.
“Did something scare you?”
She shook her head again.
“Then what’s wrong?”
Of course, she didn’t answer. What could have gotten her worked up? Luke looked to his father for guidance.
Clay shrugged at him. “Whenever you did something like this, I’d send you to your room.”
“But she hasn’t done anything wrong.”
“Take her there anyway. Maybe she hates our kitchen. God knows it could do with some redecorating.”
“Do you hate being in here?” Luke asked Skye.
To his surprise, Skye nodded. He was only joking.
“There’s your answer,” Clay said. “Take her to her room. I’ll start making dinner.”
Luke helped her up off the floor, and she followed him out, still covering her eyes.
“This is your new room,” Luke said, as they walked into his former bedroom. Per Allison’s request, Luke had to move into his father’s room. Apparently, a little girl had no business sharing a room with a grown man.
There was just a bed, a nightstand with a lamp, and a dresser. Luke turned on the light. Skye stopped crying, and stopped covering her eyes. Instead, she went back to picking the front of her dress.
“Why do you keep doing that?” Luke asked.
She only continued to pick at it. It reminded Luke of all the times he’d pick at all the tight, itchy clothes he’d been forced to wear as a child. Her dress didn’t look too tight on her, but neither did the tight-feeling clothes Luke was forced into. “Is it too tight?”
Skye nodded, and Luke grabbed her suitcase on the floor, and set it on the bed. He opened it. “Which one do you want to wear instead?”
She walked over and dug through her dresses, eventually pulling out a nightgown. Luke had planned on having her take a bath later, and figured she’d wear one after. “Wouldn’t you rather save that for bed, and wear one of your other dresses now?” He pulled out a blue dress that glittered. “What about this one?”
“Too tight!”
Luke blinked at the sound of her voice, then grinned. “So you can talk.”
“They’re all too tight.”
“Really?” Luke dug through the suitcase. She had about eight dresses. “Every single one? Why do people buy you dresses that are too tight?”
“They say they aren’t, but they are!”
Luke ran his fingers through his hair, imagining how terrible it would be if the only clothes he owned were too tight. He'd rather not spend money on new clothes for her so soon. But he did have enough money saved up. “Well, we’ll just have to buy you looser dresses.”
Skye’s eyes widened. “You believe me?”
“Of course. Why wouldn’t I?”
“Nobody else did.”
Luke’s jaw clenched at that. People who weren’t even her actual parents disregarding her feelings like that. He stood up, loosening his muscles. “You can wear the nightgown. But when we go out tomorrow, you’ll have to wear one of these dresses until we get ones that fit.”
“I’ll let you get changed then.” Luke patted her back, and headed for the door.
Skye turned her back to him, and pulled her hair aside, revealing a zipper on the back of her dress. She probably couldn’t get it herself. Luke unzipped it for her, wondering at what age children dress themselves. He assumed most five year olds did.
With no sense of modesty, Skye let her dress fall to the ground, and pulled on the nightgown. Good. He wouldn’t have to worry about dressing and undressing her. Just unzipping zippers she couldn’t reach.
Not for the first time, Sebastian turned on the TV to be greeted by his face in the news. The usual two news anchors, Dave Asher and Jimmy Rodgers, told the story.
“Last night, Mayor Barstow’s son was caught harassing three women at a Kovyn’s,” Dave Asher said. “The two were out shopping when Sebastian Barstow tried picking up not one, not two, but three women!”
“Not literally, of course,” Jimmy Rodgers said.
The news anchors laughed. Sebastian cringed.
“Last time Sebastian ended up on the news, he had been caught making out with a man,” said Asher.
“I heard it went further than that,” Rodgers said.
It did not!
“It did, but that’s not appropriate to talk about on television.” Asher continued. “That conversion camp must have worked wonders on him.”
“I'd say. Moving on to international news, there's a hurricane forming in the Gulf of America that's expected to touch down in Texas. Unlike Sebastian, who touched nothing."
Asher snickered and high-fived Rodgers.
Sebastian turned off the TV, rubbing his face. Great. Just great. As if last night hadn’t been embarrassing enough.
“This is actually a good thing,” Waylon said over breakfast. “Now people will know that camp fixed you.”
Somehow Sebastian didn’t think so. He had read the comments on a news article about it. A lot of them said Sebastian was trying too hard to prove he wasn’t gay. Apparently, it was a big sign of being gay.
“That worked in our favor. Even if we can’t get you married, there’s no denying you’re normal.”
Sebastian didn’t think “normal” men harassed women. He nodded anyway. His watch pinged, and he checked it, fighting back a smile at the name that popped up.
“What was that?” Waylon asked. Celine studied Sebastian curiously.
“Spam,” Sebastian said quickly, avoiding the eyes of his parents. He shoveled in his last bites of pancakes, then swallowed. “I’m going to my room.”
Once in his room, Sebastian tapped at his watch, and listened to Axel’s text.
“I saw you in the news. Is it true?”
Axel needed to hear the full story, and it would be easiest to call him. So Sebastian did, and Axel picked up.
“Hey. Care to explain yourself?” Axel’s voice sounded lighthearted.
“Don’t believe everything the news said.”
“I really don’t want to. I take it something innocent was taken out of context?”
“I wouldn’t say innocent.” Sebastian paused. “My dad took me to Kovyn’s to try finding a wife for me. His idea.”
“Why did he think that would be a good idea?” Axel asked. “Women don’t go to stores to be picked up by men.”
“That’s what I said. But he disagreed with me and said that’s how he met my mom.”
“Yeah. My dad says it’s good that everyone thinks it is. He says people will finally start believing the camp worked.”
Axel snorted. “Personally, I think you’re trying a bit too hard to prove that you’re straight. That’s a sign you’re gay.”
His tone was joking, but Sebastian flinched anyway. “You know that’s not true. I’m normal.”
“Yep. So normal, you go to clothing stores to pick up women.” Axel paused for a moment. “Now that I know you’re still a decent human being, want to hang out today? I have the day off.”
Sebastian was grateful Axel couldn’t see his giddy facial reaction to the invitation. He tried keeping his voice level. “Yeah. Sounds great. Where should we go?”
“It’s not like we have very many choices here,” Axel said. “We got, what? A movie theater and a few stores. And you can’t be trusted to go to a store without trying to pick up women, so those are out.” His tone was playful at that last sentence.
Even if that fiasco hadn’t happened, Sebastian wasn’t interested in shopping at all. Or a movie. And the only other place he could think of, was Callahan Mansion. The large bulk of possible activities to do were there. Knowing his luck, he’d probably run into Barry, who would mention seeing Sebastian with a Hispanic man to Waylon. Waylon would easily figure out that Sebastian had befriended the mechanic he hated. Sebastian would rather avoid that drama. “This town sucks. There’s nothing to do.”
“I just remembered Golf World.”
“That’s still around?” Sebastian hadn’t been there since high school.
“I think. We can meet there and find out. Figure out what to do from there. Noon sound good?”
“Yeah. See you then.”
The previous night, Luke had fallen asleep on an air mattress in his father’s bedroom. But that morning, he woke up in his old bed in his old room. What was now supposed to be Skye’s bed and Skye’s room.
Allison had warned him about random tantrums. About how she rarely talked or listened. What she failed to mention were her nightmares. In the middle of the night, Luke woke up from the sound of screams coming from her room. He had to wake her up. She was too scared to be alone, so Luke laid in bed next to her. He planned on returning to Clay’s room after Skye fell back asleep. But Luke fell asleep before her.
Skye must have woken up before him, because she was nowhere in the room. The smell of bacon and eggs filled the house. Luke got out of bed, and walked into the kitchen. Sunlight poured in through the window. Clay cooked. Skye sat quietly at the table with a glass of milk and a coloring book.
Strange. Last night, they all had to eat in the family room due to Skye’s mysterious hatred of the kitchen. She didn’t seem to hate it now.
Luke sat down next to her. “Are you done hating our kitchen?”
Skye focused all her attention on coloring in a picture of a turkey with a blue crayon.
“Where’d you get the coloring book?”
She continued to ignore him. Luke sighed. He’d hoped after their conversation about tight clothes, followed by the nightmare, brought an end to her silence. But it hadn’t.
“It was in her backpack,” Clay answered for her. He put a plate in front of Skye. It had a single egg, a piece of toast, and two slices of bacon. Skye didn’t look up.
“Come on, Skye.” Clay sat down across from her, with a plate full of eggs, bacon, and toast. “You’ve got to eat your breakfast.”
Luke hated eggs, so he got up to grab the extra toast his father had made for him, along with some bacon. He remembered what Allison said about her being a picky eater. “Maybe she doesn’t like it.”
“She hasn’t tried it yet.”
“I’m sure every family she’s stayed with has made her bacon and eggs. She’s probably tried it then.” Luke slathered butter on one of his toast slices. “Have you tried bacon and eggs, Skye?”
Skye continued coloring.
“Okay, enough of that.” Clay reached for the coloring book, and pulled it away.
Skye finally looked up at Clay, then at Luke. Her eyes darted between them under her furrowed brow.
“You can have it back after we eat.”
Luke braced himself for an argument, or a tantrum, or some form of protest. Instead, Skye’s eyes landed on the plate of food in front of her as though noticing it for the first time. She picked up her piece of toast, and bit into it. Luke’s shoulders loosened with relief. He picked up a second slice of toast, slathered it with jelly, then put it on top of the first slice to make a sandwich out of it.
Skye stared at his creation with rounded eyes as he bit into it.
“Do you want butter or jelly on yours?” Clay asked Skye.
Luke passed her the jelly and the knife. Skye stared at it. Clay stared at Luke.
“Right,” Luke said under his breath. Five year olds needed help with that sort of thing. He took Skye’s toast slice, and put jelly on it.
Skye pointed to one of Luke’s slices.
“You want another one?”
She nodded. Luke put jelly on it, and handed it over. Skye put the second slice on top of the first, making a sandwich similar to Luke’s. Luke smiled.
“Ain’t that cute.” Clay grinned. As Skye ate, he directed his conversation towards Luke. “You still planning on taking her dress shopping today?”
“She needs dresses that are comfortable on her.”
“Are you sure you have the money for that?”
“I have enough in my savings.” Thankfully Clay inherited the house from his parents, so rent was never an issue. Just everything else.
“On top of vaccinations? That should be your first priority.”
Before Luke arrived, Clay had asked Allison about what vaccines Skye had. The answer was none. It wasn’t surprising. A lot of people weren’t. “I plan to soon.”
“Don’t wait too long. I’ve had measles and polio as a kid. There’s a reason I got you vaccinated as soon as you were old enough. It was horrible.”
