The Man Who Has No Love - Victoria Quinn Page 0,44
watched him, giving him some time to talk to me on his own. But he wasn’t interested in a conversation. “There’s nothing to be scared of.”
“You and Mom won’t be there…”
“No. But we’ll be there to pick you up afterward. We’ll always be there.”
“You’ll be there too?” he asked hopefully.
“Of course.” For his first day, I wanted to be there for everything.
“Could you come with me?” He raised his chin and looked at me.
“Well, I already finished kindergarten.”
“Yeah, but you can do it with me,” he said. “We hang out all the time.”
“True. But if I don’t go to work, people will suffer.”
His eyes fell.
“You want me to make people feel better, right?”
He nodded.
“So, I can’t come with you. And more importantly, if you don’t go to school, you can never help people either. You need to get an education. That’s how I got here.”
“I don’t know what I want to be when I grow up…”
“Well, you’ve got a lot of time to figure it out.”
“Sometimes I think it would be cool to be an astronaut…or do something with space.”
“That’s quite ambitious. And you would be doing that on behalf of the human race. But a job like that requires a lot of education, a lot of intelligence. You’ll never get there if you stay home and go to the cabin with me on the weekends. Isn’t losing that opportunity scarier than going to class?”
He shrugged. “What if no one likes me? What if I don’t have any friends?”
“People will like you, Derek. And it’s okay not to have a lot of friends. I don’t.” I didn’t want to give him false hope that he would be the most popular kid in the class. Those with higher intelligence tended to have weaker social skills. “And you always have me and your mother. We’ll always be your friends.”
“Yeah…”
“Being scared doesn’t change the fact that you have to do it. So, you may as well be brave.” I didn’t want to give him tough love like this. I wanted to hold him and never let go. But it was my job to make him strong, to make him pursue a place in the world without fear. Little did he know, this day was much harder for me than it ever would be for him.
He nodded. “Alright, I want to be brave like you.”
My hand went to his shoulder. “Why do you think I’m brave?”
“Because you help people…even though you know they might still die.”
I released a quiet sigh as I looked at him, always amazed how much Derek understood, how intuitive he was, how strong his social intelligence was. And mostly, just how big that heart was. “Yeah…it is scary.”
I sat against the window while Valerie sat against the other. Derek was in between us with his backpack on his lap.
The driver pulled up to the curb and opened my door for me.
Derek looked at the floor and took a deep breath.
I watched him and placed a hand on his shoulder.
He kept looking at the ground, like he was afraid to look at his school.
“Hey.” I squeezed his shoulder.
He looked up at me.
“I won’t leave you until you’re ready. How about that?”
He nodded, a little less afraid.
We got out of the car and walked onto the school grounds. There were older kids going to class with their friends, and the rest of the kindergarten students were accompanied by their parents. Valerie and I walked him to his building and entered the large classroom, which was colorful, bright, and full of desks, toys, and painting stations. Other kids were there, standing with their parents like they were scared too.
I didn’t realize how hard this would be until I was there.
Derek stood beside me, his backpack still on. He looked around at the other kids like he didn’t know what to do, where to start.
My hand was on his shoulder, reminding him I was there.
Valerie kept looking down at him, her eyes already watering.
The teacher came over to us. “You must be Derek.” She kneeled and shook his hand. “I’m Mrs. Kite. Let’s put your backpack down in the cubby area.”
Derek was quiet.
She smiled, being patient. “You know, a lot of the other students are nervous too. Perfectly normal.” She smiled before she straightened and looked at us. “Take your time.” Then she walked away.
I didn’t nudge him or pressure him. I just let him stand there and look around.
Then a boy walked up to him, holding a toy rocket. “Cool backpack.”
Derek still wasn’t