Page 183 of Finding Hope

“See?” He points at her. “You didn’t beatme! So really, you’ve proved nothing.”

“I’m not listening to this shit tonight, asshole.”

“Potty mouth!” Kit snaps. Her kids sit barely three feet from my head and watch me and their dad verbally spar.

“And now you’ve busted your arm, no doubt on purpose ‘cause you’re too scared to go toe to toe with me.”

“Are you done?”

“Guess I’m gonna have to be,” he bitches. “Guess we’ll never know.”

“We know!” I glare. “We definitely know. You’re lucky I can’t hit you right now, you’d feel it for weeks.”

“Mmhmm. Pussy.”

“Bobby!”

“Do you like my picture, Uncle Jack?” Sitting up fast, Evie unintentionally tweaks my arm and almost has me weeping.

Breathing through the pain and concentrating on my trashed cast, I stop on Evie’s drawing and bark out a laugh. “Evelyn! Where the hell did you learn that?”

“I found my old cast the other day,” she answers easily. “It was packed away in a box under my bed, but I found it. My arm used to be so tiny.”

Walking up to read over my shoulder, Tina huffs and slaps my shoulder. “I told you not to draw that on her cast, you idiot!”

“I didn’t write it till after it was off her!” I laugh. “I didn’t feel right making a three-year-old walk around with a ding-dong on her arm.”

“Well now you can walk around with one on yours, dummy.”

“You have that TV interview tomorrow,” Kit says cheerfully. “I hope they see it and make fun of you.”

I shrug.I honestly don’t care.

“Then we gotta go downtown for the radio interview,” Bobby adds.

“Then home. Finally.”

Thank God.

“There’s no place like home.”

40

BRITT

SO MUCH SASS

More than two weeks after Jack’s fight, I jump in my seat when the school bell rings.

Summer break is so close, they can taste it.

Looking up, I fortify myself for confrontation. It’s ridiculous that I have to prepare for a showdown with a pre-teen, but we can’t continue on like this.

“Evie.” I wait for her glaring eyes to meet mine. “I need you to stay back for a minute.”

Slamming a thick book down on her desk, she pops her hip with attitude. “No.” Pursing her lips fearlessly, she arches a dangerous brow. “I gotta go. We have stuff happening.Familyonly.”

Her classmates pause at her tone. They know she’s sassy – she’s always been sassy – but she’s never been a flat out jerk before. The rest of my students have no clue about me and Jack; as far as they’re concerned, she’s just being seriously naughty.

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