Page 14 of Just Enough

I wiped my forehead and sighed. “Nothing, I guess. I’d just like to celebrate with you both.” I tried not to sound too hopeful about it.

She walked into the kitchen, and I followed her. “Do you want to watch a movie or something?” she asked, glancing at the food on the table.

“Sure, I guess.” I turned my head and yelled, “Dad, do you want to watch a movie?”

“Sure,” he replied.

“Okay, then we’ll watch a movie.”

______

“Merry Christmas,” Benjamin sang as he placed a box in my hand.

I smiled and handed his gift to him. “Merry Christmas,” I replied in a quiet tone since we were in his parent’s living room. Faith wasn’t in here with us. The fact that Benjamin made me come over here to sit around the tree while we opened our gifts probably killed his mother’s dark soul.

I waited for Benjamin to open his first, but he wouldn’t. “Go on,” he urged me, smiling.

I grinned. “You go first.”

“Emily.”

“Benjamin Helen.”

He visibly shuddered. “Please, don’t. It sucks enough that my last name sounds like a chick’s name.”

I laughed. “Fine. I’ll go first.”

I opened the neatly wrapped box and…frowned. It was a laptop. Why would he get me this? This was too much money.

“Don’t,” he warned me as I looked up at him. “Do you still daydream of monsters and horror?” he asked randomly.

“What?” I was smiling again.

“Remember when we were little, and you were always scaring the shit out of me with your stories. You used to say you’d write something unbelievably scary, and someone would be forced to turn it into a movie.” I saw where he was going and still smiled as he spoke. “You won that writing competition in the eighth grade, and I can remember how proud of yourself you were.”

“So?”

“So, type.” He pointed at the laptop in my lap. “I know it’s easier than writing by hand.”

I gaped. “First, you force me to go to college this semester, now you’re telling me to write?” I squinted my eyes at him. “Who do you think you are?”

“Your caregiver. Now listen to what I say and write.” He shrugged his shoulders like what he was saying wasn’t a big deal, but it was. No one ever encouraged me to do anything unless it was him. No one had faith in me unless it was him.

I was going to cry.

I didn’t even know if I wanted to write.

But, now I thought I might put my daydreaming into words.

All because of this laptop.

All because of him.

“English is the only thing you’re good at, better stick to it.” He tore me out of my thoughts. I blinked and met his eyes. “It’s okay, you can cry. I know I’m the best, ever.”

With the box and laptop still in my lap, I motioned to his present. “Open yours.”

As he opened his, worry gnawed at me. “It’s nothing expensive.”

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