Total pages in book: 69
Estimated words: 63842 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 319(@200wpm)___ 255(@250wpm)___ 213(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 63842 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 319(@200wpm)___ 255(@250wpm)___ 213(@300wpm)
And how stupid it made me to believe any man could be as protective and careful of my feelings as Rip tried to be. And if he did happen to be the real thing, what in God’s name made me think he could ever be interested in a broken, beaten woman like me.
Chapter Four
Rip
The classroom we’d started renovating and furnishing with all the necessities used to be a loading space. You could still tell if you looked past the cheap bulletin board and the whiteboard on wheels and all the kid drawings taped to brightly painted concrete block. Haven did a good job making ugly shit useful. Knuckles had Knight purchase a bunch of shit going into the big room but right now, Mia made do with what she had. And the woman had talent in stretching funds and improvising materials. I liked all of it. It just felt honest.
I stood just outside the open double doors with a tablet in one hand and a cup of coffee going cold in the other. Afternoon light came in high through the warehouse windows, dusty and thin as it hit the tops of mismatched tables with metal chairs. A stack of workbooks, crayons, pencils, and paper lay neatly at one end of the table. The place smelled like dry erase marker, pencil shavings, and whatever Ada had baked that morning for snacks.
Mia had three kids around one side of the room, working on a homeschool lesson at the whiteboard. She had neat handwriting and the kind of voice that made kids pay attention even when they didn’t want to. Not soft exactly. Just clear. No bullshit in it. Every now and then, the littlest one tried to sidetrack her, but Mia patiently answered her question, somehow managing to keep everyone on task with little effort.
Mia had a gift -- to make her students want to work. I had to admit she impressed me. I also recognized the first step in Jade getting some kind of closure or healing or whatever she needed to not feel so helpless and cut off from the world would involve Mia’s… maybe not necessarily forgiveness, but an understanding of Jade’s state of mind and the reasons for her past actions.
Across from Mia, Jade sat with two women at a scarred table covered in GED workbooks. She leaned over a page, tapping something with the eraser end of a pencil, patient as hell, the same as Mia. I’d seen her with the kids enough now to know she had a knack for it. She didn’t condescend or baby people. Just explained shit until it clicked. There was a steadiness to her when she focused on somebody else’s problem. Like helping gave her somewhere to put all the fear.
She and Mia still didn’t look at each other if they could help it. They spoke when necessary, but Mia kept a polite distance. Jade just looked miserable.
One of the women at Jade’s table was Tanya. Tanya had a six-year-old boy named Billy with too much energy for his own body and not enough places to put it. Right now, he was slouched sideways in his chair, kicking one sneaker against the table leg in a steady, irritating thump.
Jade leaned in slightly, pointing something out to Tanya as she smiled gently at the other woman. Tanya nodded and rubbed at her forehead before admonishing her child softly to sit still and color. I had no idea why he wasn’t with Mia’s group, but I suspected Billy had some separation issues if he didn’t keep busy.
The kid lasted maybe twenty seconds.
“Mom.”
Tanya kept reading.
“Mom.”
A little louder and with more drag to it. “Moooom!”
She exhaled through her nose. “What, Billy?”
“I’m bored.”
“You’ve got your coloring book and your workbook. Or you can go sit with Mia’s group.” Tanya sounded like she’d had this same conversation more than once.
“I did. I finished.”
“Then read.”
“I don’t want to.”
When Tanya didn’t continue to engage him and instead concentrated on her lesson, Billy got up from his chair and went to Tanya’s side. Tugged her sleeve. She eased him off without looking at him and bent over the page again.
He tugged harder.
“Sit down, baby.”
“I hate this.” He pouted, crossing his skinny arms over an equally skinny chest.
“You’re not doing anything.”
Billy rolled his eyes. “That’s why I hate it.”
The other woman at the table hid a smile. Jade almost smiled too but didn’t quite manage it. She slid a sheet of paper toward him. “You can make a list of all the animals you know and draw a picture of each one beside it.”
He scrunched up his nose. “That’s dumb.”
“Probably,” she said. “But it’s better than sitting there being bored, right?”
For half a second, he seemed impressed she’d answered him straight. Then boredom won again, and he reached for Tanya’s pencil. Tanya snatched it back. He whined. She muttered something under her breath and kept working.