Flying Too Close to the Sun

Cam

Pippa asked me to go out and get some bread after dinner later in the week.  We'd already run out for our school lunches.  I tucked the $10 bill she'd given me in my pocket and walked down the sidewalk to the corner grocery store.  I made a beeline to aisle four, picked out the healthy whole grain bread she usually bought and headed for the checkout lane.  I grabbed myself a soda as well.

I paid the cashier and took the items without a bag.  As I was walking out I ran into someone.  I stumbled back and looked up to see America, her face red like she'd just been crying.  Several things she'd been carrying fell to the ground.  Though I hated her, my good manners took over.  I knelt down and helped her pick up her things.  I saw a flyer for Graham Windham, which, from my dad's research into Hamilton, I knew was Eliza Hamilton's orphanage.

"Thanks," she muttered, her voice defeated.  As we stood up, I looked at her again.  She was a mess.

"America...are you...are you okay?" I asked her gently.

"Why would you care?" she snapped, wiping at her face.

"Sorry," I apologized.  "I know we haven't exactly been friends but you look really upset."

"Yeah, well I haven't had the greatest week," she told me.  I nodded.

"The police were looking for your mom," I told her.

"Yeah, it's not the first time," she continued to wipe under her eyes and sniffle.  "I'm stuck at Graham Windham until she gets all her shit figured out."

"I'm sorry," I told her.

"Really?  I thought you'd love to see me suffering?"

I thought I would have, but this was terrible.  She was just a kid, after all, like me.  "Do you need anything?"

"No," she told me.  "I can take care of myself."

"Are you coming back to Hunter?"

"I don't know," she said.  "And frankly I don't care.  Everyone there hates me."

We were silent for a few moments.  I bit my lip and sighed and got out my little notebook I kept in my purse.  I quickly scribbled down my phone number.  "Hey, if you need anything, let me know.  Seriously."

She stared at the paper in my outstretched hand for a moment, considering whether to take it or not.  Finally, she slowly reached out and took it.  She stuffed it in her jeans pocket.

"Thanks," she said.  I nodded, then stepped around her.  I quickly walked home and locked the door behind me.  Dad was cleaning up the kitchen.  He glanced up at me, went back to what he was doing, then looked at me again longer.

"You look like you've seen a ghost," he told me.  I tossed the bag of bread on the counter, then unscrewed the cap on my soda bottle.

"I just saw America at the store," I told him, sitting on one of the bar stools.

"Yeah?" he asked.  "She didn't say anything to you, did she?"

I shook my head.  "No.  She'd been crying."

Dad scrubbed at a tomato sauce stain on the counter, watching me.  "She said she's at Graham Windham now."

Dad raised his eyebrows and tossed the sponge into the sink.  "That sucks.  Might be a better environment for her than with her mom though."

"Yeah, maybe," I said.  I don't know why I felt so sad.  It just really sucked that America had to live in an orphanage.  No kid deserved that.

"You okay?" he asked as he got a cookie from the pantry.