Page 25 of Pieces Of You

She shrugs as if it’s no big deal. “Books.”

“You read books aboutflowers?”

Another shrug before getting lost in her art again. “It was all Gina had.”

I don’t even bother asking who Gina is. “And you memorized facts about hydrangeas?”

“Notjusthydrangeas,” she says.

“Let me get this straight,” I ask, watching as she perfects the shape of the leaves. “You memorized facts about a bunch of flowers that you learned from books because it was all Gina had?”

“Yep,” she says, then taps the end of her marker to her temple. “It helps to calm the storm in here.”

My breath halts, and I realize now… I have no fucking clue who the girl sitting in front of me is. And worse? I highly doubt Dean did either.

She’s like… a riddle.

A paradox.

An incomplete picture.

It’s as if she only gives people fragments of herself.

Pieces.

I can’t help but smile.

Jameson Taylor is like a puzzle.

And I’ve always liked puzzles.

Searching for the right piece to fit perfectly in just the right place… it’s time-consuming and challenging, but it brings a kind of order to the chaos, and if you put in the effort, the end result is always rewarding. And that’s why I do it: for the reward.

And now… sitting opposite Jamie, watching her, I feel like I need to somehow piece her together.

I crack a smile at the thought of my newfound hobby.

Jamie does not.

Instead, she looks up, glares across the table at me. “What’s with your face?”

“Nothing.”

She hands me the napkin as she stands, pulling the strap of her bag across her torso. “Can you give this to your mom—to say thank you for the clothes?”

“Sure.”

I don’t meetup with the other girl. I don’t give my mom the picture either. I put it in the drawer, along with the other two. Now I have the first three pieces of the puzzle. I just need one more to have all four corners. And then everything else will fall into place.

12

Jamie

The dayafter the social worker visit, I no longer questioned why I had no friends, why no one sat beside me on the bus, why no other kids even talked to me. It was just as that realization struck—as I was standing a few feet away from the other kids waiting for the bus, looking down at my worn sneakers with my toes poking through the tops—that a gentle hand landed on my shoulder. I looked up at the older woman beside me, from her brown leather shoes to her gray stockings and the plaid skirt past her knees. She wore a blouse, crisp and blindingly white, not a single stain.

She was the complete opposite of everything I was.

Everything I knew.

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