Page 76 of A Whirlwind of Color (The Light to My Darkness 2)

Ice cream! Ice cream always fixed everything. At least, it did for me. And if she was my daughter, she was probably obsessed with it too. She clearly liked snacks. Sweets could my ticket to her liking me. I opened up my map again. This would definitely make up for the non-animal fruit snacks I had brought. She was going to freaking love me.

“We had a bit of an incident,” Melissa said.

I looked up. Scarlett was in her arms. Pants-less. There was just a bunch of paper towels wrapped around her waist in a make-shift skirt. She looked like a mini barbarian.

“What happened to her pants?” I asked as I stood up, abandoning my map and any thought of ice cream fixing anything.

I heard Scarlett sniffle. I looked at her tear stained face just in time, because she immediately turned away from me.

Oh, sweetie. All I wanted to do was hug her.

“Her pants couldn’t be saved,” Melissa said. “We didn’t quite make it to the bathroom.”

“So you threw out her pants? Where? I’ll go clean them real quick. I’m sure a little tinkle from such a tiny little girl…”

Melissa cleared her throat. “It was more of a number 2 issue.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah, oh,” Melissa mouthed silently. She pressed her hand against Scarlett’s ear that wasn’t snug against her chest, so that Scarlett wouldn’t hear. “Is she on some kind of juice cleanse I’m not aware of?”

“No…”

“Then what the actual hell? I’ve never even had a poop explosion like that. Do you think she’s sick? Should we take her to the doctor? Did she somehow get into something that would make her crap everywhere? Like some kind of medicine?”

“Oh shit.” I immediately placed my hand over my mouth. I knew cursing was bad around kids, but luckily Melissa’s hand was still covering Scarlett’s ear. I cleared my throat. “I may have given her the wrong fruit snacks.”

“A little snack wouldn’t cause something like this. I think she’s sick. We should definitely take her to a doctor.”

“Would a super fibrous snack cause something like that to happen?”

“What do you mean?”

I pulled one of the wrappers out of my purse.

“You gave her a pack of fiber gummies? Kids can’t handle that much fiber all at once. There’s enough fiber in those to regulate adults. Not infants. What were you thinking?”

“I…I don’t know. I wasn’t thinking. She wanted fruit snacks so I gave her fruit snacks. Several packs actually.”

“More than one? Seriously?” Melissa shook her head like I was the most incompetent person she had ever met. “We need to get her home. It’s probably going to happen again and she’s out of pants.” She lifted her hand off of Scarlett’s ear. “How are you feeling, Scar? Do you want to head home?”

“I don’t feel good. My tummy hurts.”

“Yeah, I know.” Melissa tucked a loose strand of hair behind Scarlett’s ear. “You’re going to be okay. We just need to get you home.”

Scarlett nodded.

God, James was going to kill me. I'd told him I could handle this. And I had basically caused a poop explosion. I was bringing back his daughter without pants. “Do you think there’s time to stop somewhere and get her another pair of pants real quick?” I asked.

“My tummy hurts,” Scarlett said again. “I want Daddy.”

Fuck me.

Chapter 29

Monday

My hand was practically shaking as I unlocked the door. I felt like I had soiled my one chance. Literally.

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