In An Instant

Chapter 2: Summer's End

It had been a week since our movie night with Trey and Dawson, which Kaden only watched about ten minutes of before he got up and left. He made sure to let us know he'd be close by, though, so we would behave. His warning was probably more for Bri than me, since she was practically sitting in Dawson's lap the entire time, while the only thing Trey got to touch was my hand.

Surprisingly, I'd been wrong about Trey. He did have a personality, he just kept it contained until he got to know you. After talking to him this past week, he was actually a really nice and funny guy. The fact that he liked books almost as much as I did was just a bonus. Since we'd started talking, he'd visited the book store I worked in a couple of times, choosing to hang out and read during my shifts. Normally, that would've been creepy, but I enjoyed watching him read.

Trey wasn't Kaden, but no one ever would be, and that wasn't a bad thing. Actually, I looked at it as a positive. I had to get over Kaden and opening myself up to someone different might be exactly what I needed, especially when that someone only had a brother, who I'd never met, and was in no way capable of thinking of me as his sister.

It was Sunday evening and I'd just gotten off work when Mom called and gave me a list of things to get at the grocery store. As much as I hated shopping, I didn't complain, since I knew how much she appreciated me helping her. She practically worked seven days a week and didn't really have time to do much anything else.

A few days ago, after she'd worked ten days straight without a day off, I fussed at her. "You can't do this to yourself. You're not getting any younger, you know, and your body needs to rest."

"Thanks for the 'I'm getting old' reminder," she retorted with a tired smile.

"Well, I'm being serious. I work now, too, and don't mind helping out with bills and food, so why don't you tell your boss you want to cut back?"

She leaned back into the couch and sighed. "Because if I cut back and I'm not there when they need me, they'll replace me with someone who is."

"Well, just know I'm always willing to help out. I know I'll only be working about twenty hours a week when school starts back, but it will still get us groceries, maybe put a little gas in your tank, if prices stay down."

"Thanks, sweetie." She patted my leg rather hard-love pats, as she called them. "I really appreciate that and will keep it in mind."

I'd been putting most of my checks into my college fund, which Mom had started for me years ago, but we ended up taking out a huge chunk of it to buy me a car when I'd started working. I want to be a writer, and not just any writer, but a good one, and had already planned out all my classes in detail, which revolved entirely around that desire. I'd already started writing a few things, novellas, mostly, but had never let anyone, even Mom or Bri, ever read them. I knew I'd have to let someone read them at some point if I ever wanted to make a living at writing, but I was afraid. Fear kept my dreams locked away, and I knew I'd never be able to live them unless I set them free. Hopefully, college would give me the confidence I needed to allow me to conquer that fear. I was doing a dual-enrollment in a local community college this year, so I guess I'd find out soon enough.

Mom stood up, pulling my mind out of my future and back into the present. "I'm proud of you, Emersyn. I know I've been absent a lot, having to work so much, yet you're still growing up to become an amazing, young woman, despite my absence."

I stood up and hugged her. "Well, you've been a great role model." I wanted to say so much more, but knew I'd start crying, and neither one of us needed that or it'd turn into one big sob-fest, so I simply said, "Thanks, Mom."

Our little two-person family was so different than Bri's. Don't get me wrong, I loved Bri's family, but we had something they didn't have, probably because we had to depend on each other so much more than they did. Having two lawyers in their family, making up Jones & Jones Attorneys at Law, they could afford things we couldn't, which made them depend more on their wealth rather than each other. Money comes and goes, but Mom and I would always have each other.