his credit, he only swore three times before giving me a curt nod and stalking off.
This was going to be interesting.
Chapter Twenty-six
It wasn’t ten minutes later that Grandpa barged into my room. “Tell me it isn’t true. Tell me you didn’t invite that boy to—”
I held up my hand. Surprisingly, Grandpa stopped sputtering, and the red glare from his face faded to more of a pink.
“He will be dining with us. You will be civil. There will be no guns.”
“Why?”
“Because.” I swallowed. “I deserve answers from him as well. Don’t you think?”
I knew Grandpa couldn’t argue against that. He gave me a curt nod, then turned toward the door, but not before saying under his breath, “I promise not to shoot him.”
“Good.”
“Today,” he finished and slammed the door behind him.
Well, that was progress. One day where Nixon’s life didn’t hang in the balance. Good things were coming, that was for sure.
I walked over to the bed and sat down. I didn’t remember this house. It looked too big, too regal to be mine. The room they put me in looked like a girl’s room. Everything was pink and white.
Curious, I walked over to the desk and opened a drawer. A small diary was lying on top of a few crumpled up pieces of paper. I dug around and pulled out some of the pink papers and laughed. Pictures of horribly drawn unicorns and cats stared back at me.
I’d already cleaned up, so I had at least a few minutes to waste. Grabbing the diary I went and sat on the bed and opened it.
The front page said, To my little Tracey girl, love Father.
Was it weird that I didn’t remember getting the diary? I didn’t even remember writing in one.
I turned the page and nearly fell out of my chair.
Mrs. Abandonato. Tracy+Nixon=Love.
And, I was going to burn the diary. Like now.
The rest of the pages were basically the same thing. Horrible drawings of what appeared to be a cat and then a cow with no udders. Clearly, being an artist was not in my future. As I flipped the pages, one thing remained true, I was constantly misspelling my own name and Nixon’s as I tried to write our names together. I could only imagine my mom must have helped me. No way did I know how to do any of those things at almost six.
Either that or Nixon helped me.
I shuddered.
Forget burning the diary. I needed to shred it, then burn the pieces of evidence.
I flipped to the last page and a picture fell out.
It was me and Nixon. We were holding hands. He was looking at the camera grinning from ear to ear, and my head was tucked in his arm while I clenched his hand for dear life. The little boy staring back at me was the one I always remembered. When I fell and scraped my knee, he kissed it and made it better. When I cried because my mom wouldn’t let me have a pony, he laughed and told me ponies were stupid and that I should do something cool like learn how to be a spy. When his mom stayed over. I—
Crap. I remembered.
It was about a week before my sixth birthday, the last time I saw Nixon. He came over to my house with a bag. His mom followed us indoors and sobbed at the kitchen table to my mom while I took Nixon into the backroom.
He’d always been so tough, so strong, so it freaked me out that he was crying. And then I noticed he was bleeding.
“Nixon, what happened?” I reached out to touch the cut above his eye.
He shrugged. His shoulder slumped as he sat in the middle of my floor. His tears fell onto the carpet as he played with one of the toy cars he had brought.
“Why are you sad?” I asked, taking a seat across from him.
“I hate him.”
“Who, Nixon? Who do you hate? Isn’t hate bad?”
He shook his head. “You’re too young. You don’t understand.” He slammed the car against the floor, again and again until it broke.
I was scared, but not because I thought he was going to hurt me, because I knew he was hurting. So I did the only thing I knew how to do.
I hugged him.
I reached my skinny little arms around his neck and held him while he continued to cry.
“Don’t worry, I’ll save you, Nixon. I’ll save you.”
“Girls can’t save boys.”
“Can too!” I squeezed him harder. “I promise. I’ll take