❀2022 Watty Shortlister❀
❀𝗔𝗵𝗼𝗿𝗮 𝘁𝗮𝗺𝗯𝗶𝗲́𝗻 𝗲𝗻 𝗘𝘀𝗽𝗮𝗻̃𝗼𝗹❀
Much against his will, River Allen can't drag his gaze away from the new student, seventeen-year-old Dawn Gray Brooks. It isn't that she lives in a ragged, teal dress, and ca...
When we were a party of five, even week days were an adventure. We'd get decorated toasts for breakfast and Dad's specialty: strawberry milkshake with a twist. I'd always asked him to teach me how to make them, but he said it was a rare recipe worthy of absolute secrecy. I knew it was his way of keeping the magic alive. He loved building layers upon layers of mystery around the most ordinary things, turning them unique. He made our lives special.
When Dad was gone, Mom's joy wilted away, buried underneath a heaviness of heart and hidden tears in the kitchen pantry. There were no more family breakfasts. She had to take on extra shifts at the hospital. No more milkshakes either—a mystery left unsolved, just like his sudden absence or the reason his heart stopped beating and gave up on us while coming back home from work.
As days turned into weeks, and those into months, we became used to our muggle life. Nothing magical about it anymore. I watched Mom coming home from the hospital, looking drained from hours of giving to others what she couldn't provide to her own kids.
One of those days, she stood by the door and the second her gaze met mine; she opened her eyes wide and gasped in shock.
I didn't understand it at first, but she'd explain later what she saw. A girl with unkempt greasy hair, hanging to the sides of a face that needed urgent washing. It wasn't that I hadn't realised I'd let go as well, but that reality had become too real to handle. A sudden, evil fate twist that had left me—a teenager—in charge of two younger siblings while her mom slaved away to put food on the table.
We lingered there—by the dimly lit hallway—measuring one another. Her purse glided down her sagged shoulders. Mine also heavy with a thousand chores and a broken life. Tears rolled down both our cheeks. Mine soiled, hers gaunt.
The next morning there were smiley decorated toasts and pancakes for breakfast.
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Dinners without Mom don't suck that badly. Whenever she's out working the night shift in the hospital, and I'm in charge of the food department, it's takeout and movie night.
Cuddled in the sofa, blankets wrapped around the three of us, we are ready to party. Clover refuses to be cast aside, so she's settled for the rug beside the couch underneath my feet. The crumbs from the crusts Tommy fed her covers her snout.
"Stop feeding her crap, Tommy." I snap at my brother after enduring one of Clover's farts.
"I wasn't giving her anything," he whimpers, while hiding his chubby guilty hands brimming with evidence.
"You so were. I saw you!" Bree jolts upwards, jumping on the couch while her blanket cascades over a nonplussed Clover who cranes her neck in our direction.
"You are so mean, Bree. I'm telling Mom when she comes home!" He is mortified and leans forward, wanting to chase my sister down the corridor as she squeals, delighted to have tossed some dirt over her brother.
