Chapter Text
“Mom, is that boy crying?”
“I think there’s only one way to find out, sweetie.”
Jameson felt fingers tinier than his prodding at his shoulders. A girl stood in front of him, holding one of her tiny hands over the blue ribbon belt-thingy of her skirt.
“Yes?” he asked her.
“Why are you crying?” she asked.
Jameson flicked his tongue out to catch a salty tear. “I’m not,” he lied.
The girl crouched down so that their heads were almost even. “I just saw you and… you looked sad.” The girl shrugged.
“No. I was just… a little bit upset,” Jameson said like the two were oh so different.
“Oh, my mother asks if you want a sandwich.” She gestured to a lady sitting on the grass, a few feet away from them. She was putting what looked like peanut butter over bread. The lady looked up waved at them with a smile.
Jameson knew that it wasn’t right to take food from strangers. Nash had told him all about it. Bad guys and dirty rooms and broken lives. But he hadn’t eaten anything since before he was going to the tree house and was intercepted by the old man. His stomach grumbled more loudly than would be considered normal. He felt embarrassment creeping up his cheeks. “Yes.”
After all, a sandwich wouldn’t hurt. He’d once drunk a glass of that horribly bitter clear golden liquid he found on his mother’s- ‘Skye’s’ as she was so fond of reminding him- dressing table. It felt like he was weightless. Like he was slipping away from himself. Until everything went dark.
Surely this couldn’t be that bad.
“There you go, sweetheart,” Sandwich lady said, her words really soft.
Jameson would never admit it, but he liked the softness of her words, like melting cotton candy over his tongue, he liked the way she called him sweetheart. All his mother called him was ‘a pain in the ass’. And her sandwiched weren’t half bad.
The woman nudged the girl’s back, nodding towards Jameson.
“I’m Avery,” the girl murmured shyly.
“Jameson,” he managed through a mouthful of sandwich.
Something seemed to light up Avery’s face. “I can spell my full name. It’s very long.” Her eyes widened. “Can you do that?”
“I also have a long name,” Jameson said, wiping his still swollen knuckles over his mouth. He seemed to realize something then. The other kids at school were never friendly to him like this.
He tried to narrow his eyes in an imitation of Grayson. “My grandfather has loads of money. So don’t even think about kidnapping me.”
Jameson had meant it in the way that his grandfather had lots of money and would set free very dangerous lawyers (which was all Alisa talked about becoming) after her.
Little did he realise the incentive in his words.
Sandwich lady chuckled. Not in the evil, cruel stepmothers in cartoon way, but more open and sincere. “Wouldn’t even think about it,” she assured him.
Good. Jameson found himself smiling.
An unexpected shove to his shoulder caused him to stumble back a few steps.
It came from Avery.
“My mother is not a kidnapper,” she said angrily, right into his face. Her mother pulled her back with a hand on her arm. “You shouldn’t say mean things like that,” she gritted out, struggling against her mother’s hold.
Jameson felt bad. The Sandwich Lady pasted a wry, I’m-sorry smile, but he could see that she was hurt underneath. “I'm sorry,” he said, looking at her shoes. The words felt weird in his mouth. You didn’t tell anyone you were sorry. It was admitting something gone wrong. A weakness.
The smile on the woman’s face made them feel less weird. She loosened her hold on Avery.
“See,” she told the girl. “It’s your turn now.”
Avery turned to him with a frustrated puff, her eyes still pinched. “Sorry,” she said smarmily. Jameson could see the two little fingers crossed at her back.
He let it slip, his attention falling to the clean line of shadow that divided the actual pale pink colour of her skirt from where the sunlight falling made it look almost white.
“Your dress is very pretty,” he said truthfully. Making an observation.
Her pale skin did nothing to hide the faint flush on her cheeks. It looked like she didn’t go out in the sun a lot. “Oh,” she breath out, “thanks. You are-” a pause “-beautiful too.”
Jameson didn’t like being called beautiful. It didn’t sound nearly motherly coming out of her mouth. He would have much preferred something more boy-ly. But the way Sandwich Lady beamed at her told him this was a gesture her daughter didn’t often make.
“Can I touch your ribbon,” he asked, gesturing to the bow on her hip.
“No.”
“Okay.”