I'll Never Let You Go Again

“Hannah, I need you downstairs to help set the table for breakfast!” my mother screamed from the bottom of the stairs. You’d think I lived in china the way she sounded.
I shoved my gray hoody over my head, pulled on my toed socks and hopped into the hallway. Max emerged from his room the same instant I did. He watched me a minute, weighing if it was the right moment to point and say.
“Your zipper is open.”
Socks securely pulled over my feet, I grabbed the zipper on my jeans and yanked them up. “Thanks, squirt.” I say, patting him on the head before jogging down the stairs.
My mom was flipping something…purple, into the air and humming softly to herself. One thing I knew from growing up with this family, never ask my mom what exactly she’s cooking. Although she has a green thumb in the garden, in the kitchen…it’s a smoky, keep-the-fire-department-on-standby black. Plus, she gets highly offended and an earful is what you’ll get.
Max and I toss each other uncertain glances, before slipping deeper into the funny smelling kitchen and stationing ourselves for quick recovery, meaning I got as close to the fire extinguisher as I could, while Max waited patiently by the phone.
“Are you guys ready for pancakes?” my mother asks twirling with a full plateful of purple disks.
Max and I exchange wary glances, and both nod. “Sure thing, mom.” I murmur, forcing a smile that didn’t look like a grimace.
“They’re blueberries,” my mom explained happily, setting the plate down on the table and dusting off the flour on her hands.
We made the appropriate humming sounds, while silently counting up our change to grab something to eat on our way to school. I hurriedly set the table, made a show of taking a seat across from Max and filling our plates with full servings.
“While you kids eat up, I’m going to go get dressed for work.” My mom declared, giving us the perfect opportunity to sweep the ‘pancakes’ into the trash and conceal them beneath an old flyer.
We hurriedly cleaned up and got ready for school. Max’s school bus arrived five minutes before I had to leave, giving me enough time to jog back upstairs to grab my IPod.
“Hannah, there are papers all over the backyard! Can you go pick them up?”
I froze on the second step and groaned. Didn’t she realize I had to hurry and get to school? It wasn’t fair until I realized I was the one who had left the papers out there.
Mentally kicking myself, I stomped through the hallway and out the back door. Pages of white paper flapped in the restless wind, rolling and tumbling across the dewy grass. But it was only a dozen or so, the rest remained beneath the rock on the fountain.
Muttering under my breath about jerks and their inability to be humans, I gathered the stray pages and the stack beneath the rock. I had just crumpled the entire thing against my chest when something caught my attention on each of the pages.
“I care.” They all said in thick, black letters.
I stared at the pages as though the words were in Latin. I knew it wasn’t mine. The handwriting didn’t match, and I knew it hadn’t been there before last night when I had brought the pages out. Could my stranger have finally written back to me?
Hugging the pages tightly to my chest, I darted back into the house and crammed the lot into my backpack. I’d investigate later when I wasn’t running late.
IPod forgotten, I bolted from the house, calling a farewell to my mother on the way.