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Nix
“What ya crying for?”I asked the dark-haired girl with the big green eyes. I’d been heading to my friend Zane’s trailer when I saw her, sitting on her porch steps, crying into her hands.
She went to my school, but I hadn’t talked to her before now. She was always on her own, doing a whole lot of nothing as she hung outside her double-wide, quiet and uncertain.
Like right now. She rubbed her eyes, blinking up at me. “I-I… nothing.” Her throat bobbed as she swallowed a sob.
“Is it your dad? My dad makes me cry sometimes.” He was a mean sonofabitch, always grumbling about something.
I knew he blamed me for my mom leaving. Not that it made any sense to me. It wasn’t like I wanted her to leave. If anything, we should have been a team, hating on her together. After all, she’d left us both. But no, he preferred to blame me. As if I chased her away.
I would never understand it, or him. But it was what it was. Joe Wilder was as stubborn as they came.
“I don’t got a dad,” the girl said through her tears. “It’s just me and my mom but she’s… it doesn’t matter.” She wiped her face with the back of hand.
“I’m Phoenix but my friends call me Nix.”
“I’m Harleigh Wren Maguire. But you can call me Harleigh.”
“Wren like the bird?”
She shrugged. “I guess.”
“Cool. Did you eat dinner yet? I’m going over to my friend’s house and his grandma makes the best hot wings in the whole of The Row.”
“Oh, I’m not supposed to leave the porch alone.”
The corner of my mouth tipped into a smirk. “Good thing you won’t be alone, Wren like the bird. I’ll protect you.” I puffed out my chest. “What do you say? Wanna come eat hot wings with me and Zane?”
She chewed on the end of her thumb, big eyes darting up and down the dirt road outside her trailer. “I don’t know, she might wake up.”
“Wake up?”
Her eyes widened with fear. “I-I mean… forget I said anything.”
“Why don’t we go ask her, your mom, I mean.” I stepped closer to her. “I’ll tell her I’ll look out for you and we can—”
“N-no.” She leaped up. “That’s okay. She’s sick, we probably shouldn’t disturb her. I’ll come with you. But only if you’re sure.”
“Wouldn’t have asked if I wasn’t. Come on Wren like the bird, I’m starving.”
Harleigh Wren was quiet as we walked the short distance to Zane’s place. I watched her out of the corner of my eye. She was small for seven. A fragile little thing. Seemed right that she was called Wren, she reminded me of a bird. Tiny and helpless. Me, Zane, and our other friend Kye camped out once in Kye’s backyard and spent all night listening to the birds. I liked listening to them, watching them too.
Kye was lucky, his family had one of the modular prefabs. It was on a bigger plot on the other side of The Row. They had a driveway and a small yard. It was one of nicest homes in the whole of the trailer park.
“You okay over there?” I asked her.
She glanced up at me and nodded.
“You don’t talk much, do you?”
“Not unless I have something important to say.”
“I’ll have to remember that.” I chuckled, relieved that we’d reached Zane’s trailer. “So don’t worry about Zane, he… uh—”
“Who’s your new friend?” He appeared, eyes narrowed right at Harleigh Wren.
“This is Birdie.” The words tumbled out, but it sounded right. Harleigh Wren like the bird. “She lives in the trailer across from mine.”
