teases people he loves. He won’t admit it, but he’s appreciative of your help,” she whispered to me.
“I wish I could believe you,” I said and walked toward the front door.
“Finn,” Jesse said stopping me.
“Yeah,” I was facing him.
“Thanks for your help today,” he said and smiled.
“Sure,” I nodded and kept walking. He drove me crazy. All he had to do was smile at me and say something nice and all was forgiven. I was mad at myself for allowing him to affect me so much. What was Jesse to me? Nothing. He was just a really cute guy that I had to be around—a lot—which made it very difficult to ignore him.
Chapter 9
My mother sent me another text message. I was receiving one from her every day. They were always the same: “Finn, please come home. We need to talk about this. You can’t shut me out of your life forever. Love, Mom.” The idea of talking to her about it all made me sick. I wanted to avoid it and wished that it would disappear forever but I knew that it wouldn’t. Eventually, I would have to talk with her and I dreaded that. Who knew when that would be? All I knew was that I felt that she had betrayed me. I deleted the message and placed the phone in my pocket.
I grabbed the picture of my dad and me and sat on the bed, studying it, trying to discover who he was. Since he died when I was two, I don’t have any memories of him. I wish that I did. Year after year, I would ask my mom about him but she didn’t disclose much. She always had vague comments that didn’t really tell me who he was. Her comments were more like, “He loved you. He loved having a daughter.” I wanted to know more, so much more.
“You have his red hair. Which he inherited from your grandfather,” Nana said entering my room.
“What was he like, Nana?” I asked still staring at the picture. She sat down next to me, not answering me for a minute. She looked down in deep thought.
“Happy and full of life. He could be the life of the party, always wanting to have a good time, no matter the cost,” she said reflectively.
“What did he want to be?” I asked looking at her.
She smiled at me and touched my chin. “He had so many dreams. There were so many things he wanted,” she said standing up.
“What were they?” I asked.
“He loved you very much,” she squeezed me gently and took the picture frame out of my hands. She placed it back on the dresser. “Come on and help me make a cherry pie,” she said.
I followed her downstairs, glancing at the picture of us before I left the room. I still had so much to learn about my father and hopefully in time, she would tell me.
***
“I need a butcher’s revenge and whistle berries!” I yelled to my grandfather in the kitchen.
“You’ve gotten really good at that, Finn,” Hannah said.
“I didn’t think I’d grasp it. I guess working here for almost two weeks has helped,” I smiled. She took a slice of apple pie out of the pie case and carefully placed it on a plate.
“What are you doing tonight?” she asked.
“Nothing,” I said.
“Meg and I are going out. Do you want to come with us?”
“Sure,” I said too eagerly. Being invited somewhere by people my age was exactly what I wanted. I wanted to break away from the old Finn and agreeing to hang out with my peers was one way of doing this. I had never had a “girls’ night out.”
“Great. We’ll leave after work,” she said enthusiastically.
“Hannah, wait. I don’t have anything to wear but this uniform,” I said staring down at my pink lollipop of an outfit.
“That’s not a problem. You can borrow something of ours. I’m sure Meg has something cute for you to wear.”
***
Time flew by quickly and before I knew it, it was closing time for the diner. I was anxious to go out with Meg and Hannah. I wanted to get to know them better, to make actual friends. They were always in a good mood and joked around a lot. They always seemed to be having fun. I wondered what we would end up doing, where we would end up going.
“Let’s get out of here,” Meg said to me. She had her bright yellow purse in her hand and stood