"Okay, okay…" My intensity made her shy. She patted me where I'd buried myself against her. "You know your precious Nathaniel Swanson is going to be at the exhibition today, right? If we don't hurry, you'll miss him!"
Nathaniel Swanson.
That name still stung somewhere deep in my chest.
The humiliation of having nowhere to go—I never wanted to feel that again.
I had been reborn. I was not going to end up old and homeless a second time.
"Stell, I don't want to go. I'm not feeling well…"
"All right, what a waste of those tickets I worked so hard to get." Stella offered to walk me home first and then go enjoy the exhibition on her own. I nodded and let her.
When I got back, my parents were at work. My younger siblings hadn't come home from school yet. Only my eldest sister Layla was there, sweeping the floor.
She looked surprised to see me—then her face soured, and she asked why I wasn't at the exhibition seeing Nathaniel in the flesh.
"Come on, Layla, Teresa's not feeling well!"
"Hmph. One look at that Swanson man and she won't be sick anymore." She raised the broom like she meant to sweep me right out the door, but when she actually reached me, the swings barely grazed the air.