Mormon Girl

day 27 (p.3)

^that's how I envision Hayden, Kylee's younger brother^

I was nearly home when the tears came.

Dang it, Kylee, I thought. You've already had your crying fest. Get it together.

I took a deep, shaky breath and pulled into my driveway. Reaching over to get my backpack, my phone rang inside it. I put the backpack on my lap and dug it out.

Braxton Shaw

I swiftly declined the call and stuffed it back into the depths of my bag. I was walking up the sidewalk to the front door when it started to ring again.

I took it out, shutting the front door behind me. Lo and behold, it was he-who-shall-not-be-named. Again, I ignored the call and set my phone on silent.

Mom and the kids were at the zoo and wouldn't get home until later and so I had the house to myself. It was peaceful, that is until the home phone rang.

Ignoring it, I sat down on the couch and turned on the television.

"Hi, you've reached the Clarks! Please leave a message at the beep!

The beep sounded and there was a split second of silence before a frantic voice filled the room.

"Kylee, listen, I'm really sorry about what I said and that you got hurt! I didn't think that it would get this bad, I just thought that- well, I don't know what I was thinking. I was just thinking about myself and not what would happen to you or anything. I wasn't actually thinking about anyone but myself. But I'm really sorry and I hope that you can forgive me for not thinking. Please forgive me and don't be mad at me and come and tutor me again because you're really smart and nice and pr- I mean, really helpful and I need you, please Kylee! Besides, I'm really staring to-"

The machine mercifully cut him off.

I sighed heavily, turned off the T.V., walked to the phone machine deleted the message. The phone started to ring again so I yanked out the cord, silencing the the sound mid-ring.

***

Later that night, we had family dinner. Dad, Mom, me, Hayden, Rance and Irisa. Luckily, most of the attention was directed away from me; the exciting adventures of the zoo were being recounted by Rance with the inconvenient help of Irisa.

"Dad, there were these HUGE animals named ele- ele-"

"Elephant," Hayden said, cheek in hand, picking at his chicken.

"Yeah!" Rance exclaimed. "They were really big-"

"Big!" Irisa cheerfully interrupted.

"Yeah and gray and they're my favorite animal! You should've seen it, Dad. They're so-"

"Big!"

"-awesome! Irisa, stop it! I'm trying to talk!"

"That sounds amazing, Rance!" Dad said. "What about you, Hayden? What was your favorite part?"

Hayden shrugged his shoulders. " I guess the lions were okay," he muttered.

Dad scrunched his eyebrows. "Are you alright, Hayden?"