Page 43 of Levi Bailey has Butterflies

“It’s my day off, Mer. I sleep in today.” And only today. It’s my veg day.

“You can sleep in on your next day off.” She wraps her hand around my free one, forcing my fingers to bump into the spoon settled in this bowl.

“I don’t have another day off, not a scheduled one, not for a while.” I don’t count Sundays. The shop is closed one day a week, and that is normally my only day off. I’ve taken time here and there for Mom’s appointments. But April twenty-second is for me.

“Come on, Levi. I’ll never learn to ride a bike without yoga.”

“Not true.”

“I’m convinced.”

I groan—I can’t help it. She is so determined. She’s even in pants—which means, she’s serious about this. My eyes gaze over her legs with the thought. I’m used to seeing them. I secretly like Meredith’s obsession with dresses and her bare legs. She reminds me a little of Alice—the dresses part, not the admiring her legs part.

I blow out a tired huff. “Let me change,” I grumble and shove the bowl of oatmeal back into her hands. I pause next to her plastic container. The one with the red lid. She has gotten cookies down. I pop off the lid and steal one of the peanut butter cookies before heading off to my room.

“Yes!” She calls after me. “You won’t regret it! I’ll be riding by midnight!”

Midnight? The girl doesn’t need yoga. Sure, she needs a little more practice in the balance department, but mostly, she just needs to know it’ll come. She’ll get it. And when she does, she’ll have it. It won’t go away.

I change my clothes and attempt to wakeup a little more. I stayed up too late, knowing I’d sleep half the day away. Or at least that was the plan.

Once my teeth are brushed and I’ve laced up my sneakers, I charge back out to the kitchen.

“Are we walking?” I ask, running a hand through my hair.

“It’s a ten-minute walk,” she tells me as she holds up her phone. “Or we drive.”

“Are you driving?” I ask, my head still groggy.

“I don’t drive.”

“That’s what I thought. Let’s walk, then.” I’m not awake enough yet to get behind the wheel. I start for the front door and Meredith scurries after me.

She’s taking two steps to my one long stride. But she doesn’t seem to mind. At this rate, we may be on time to her class.

“So,” she says, “your sister has two moms? What’s up with that?”

I scoff. “You saw Mom this morning?”

“I did. She mentioned Coco’sothermother.”

“Yeah. Coco was adopted as a baby. Heidi is her adopted mom. My mother is her birth mom.” I’m not ashamed of Mom’s past. I wish I could have been there for my sister while we were growing up. But we’re together now. And out of all of us, Mom suffered the most. She longed for Coco without any of us even realizing the pain she was going through.

“Oh,” she says matter-of-factly like what I’ve told her is crystal clear and not what it is—a muddy glass of water. “That makes sense.”

“Does it?” I laugh. “I’m still trying to wrap my head around it at times, and I’ve known about Coco for over a year.”

Meredith just grins, giving me a small shoulder shrug. “Why did you take today off?”

No questions about Coco, but this she asks? I slide my gaze from her face to the road ahead of us.

“You said you never take days off. So why today?”

I clench my jaw. “I do not have daddy issues.”

Her brow furrows—confused.

“Just putting that out there right away,” I say. “My relationship with my dad is distant.” I swallow. I’ve never even shared this with Mom. She’s always just assumed that I needed a day when this time rolls around.

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