Sharp Edges

Chapter 5

She returned back to the class along with the bell, which started to ring just as she stepped in. Oscar was already there.

A nervous bunch of knots formed in Jeanette's stomach.

"Hey," she smiled as she sat down. "Did you like lunch?" Trying to make her voice sweet, the question felt weird as soon as it left her mouth and she felt stupid.

What was I thinking?

Luckily, he didn't think of it as weird. "My blind grandpa could make better," he laughed, scrunching his nose at the thought of the food served that day.

Something briefly akin to a lasagne.

She didn't even registered how or when, but Jeanette found herself laughing along and replying, "my dog could, probably."

She hadn't laughed in such a long time and hearing someone else laugh with her, not at her, warmed her inside. Her throat felt raspy and her laugh odd to her ears.

Oscar laughed harder at her joke and she felt a mixture of happiness and surprise bubbling in her chest.

"You have a dog?" he curiously asked after calming down. He was looking at her with anticipation.

She nodded her head softly, "his name's Jeff."

Jeff, like her grandfather who had gifted her the dog with way back when their family was still somehow alright.

But that was such a long time ago Jeanette could not even remember it, could not remember the last words of kindness from her mother or the last pat on the shoulders from her father.

She could only remember growing up without any real parents, only two people living with her as she desperately tried to hold onto any tiny sign of affection from them.

She couldn't remember a time they smiled at her even when she was still a kid attending kindergarten.

Jeanette could only remember coldness and resentment, yet could never bring herself to hate them.

She could never hate them, she still loved them.

They still were her parents and she still was their daughter.

And she was only a lost, confused child, still somehow hoping that the love she can't stop feeling for her parents no matter how hard she told herself not to, that the love can still make them return it, can still make them love her as well.

She knew they didn't care at all, though.

They have stopped trying a long time ago to love her.

"Jeff, named after my dead grandfather."