A Friend
by Brittany Rodriguez
“Shit,” I mumble to myself. My stomach drops and I can’t help
but feel like I’m going to violently vomit a hell of a lot of nothing onto
Pea’s Little Mermaid rug.
“Derek, Momma said that’s not a good word. Remember when
I said it? Remember what she said?” Her face has lost all innocence,
eyebrows drawn in a threatening V and arms pretzeled harshly in front of
her. All edges.
Thank goodness she has the attention span of a goldfish. At least
I’m safe for now. But, sadly, that doesn’t erase the fact that she had asked
in the first place.
“Derek?” she asks, avoiding my gaze and stirring her non-existent
tea with her plastic fork.
“Yeah Pea?” She puts my cup to my lip, and I take a sip of my
own tea, making a face at the lack of invisible sugar.
“Today in class something happened with my friend Emily,” Still
no view of her baby blues.
“And what was that?” She adds not one, but two lumps of
sugar. Just the way I like it. Once she stirs she brings the fork full of the
steaming unseen liquid to my lips.
“Well, we were drawing Christmas pictures, and she was using
the red crayon so hard that it broke in half. Emily got mad, you know
how she is, and she said the JC word. I told her that that’s a bad word
and that “she shouldn’t use the Lord’s name in vain”, just like I learned in
church with Aunt Sherry,” Pea paused and tugged at her lower lip with
her two newly-grown front teeth, eyes examining the ground. “Then she
told me that I was stupid and that God and Jesus don’t even exist. That if
I couldn’t see and touch them, they aren’t real,”
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