Etching Our Way (Broken Tracks 1)

“Thanks, Daddy!” She grins. I turn around, my skin prickling and my senses screaming at me as I catch sight of a woman walking toward the back of the room. “You have to go now.” I startle at Izzie’s voice and look back down at her, seeing the stern look across her features.

“I’m going, I’m going.” I chuckle, lifting my hands in the air in surrender and backing away. She throws her hands on her hips and shakes her head at me.

“Bye, pumpkin,” I say before turning around.

I catch sight of Clay, sitting on his own and clutching the jar to his chest, staring into it like it holds all of the answers he’s looking for.

I failed; I should have had an answer for him, I should have been able to explain it. But when it comes to talking about that kind of thing with him, I can never find the right words to say.

“Wow, that’s a lot of jars,” I quip, looking down at Izzie.

She nods enthusiastically. “My daddy got them for me.”

I smile at her; she’s always talking about her dad and I can tell that she’s a typical “daddy’s girl.”

I do a double take as I stand up, spotting a tall, well-dressed man with sandy-blond hair walking out of the doors. My chest tenses at the familiarity that swarms through me like bees in a hive, making me feel off balance, but I right myself because I’m definitely seeing things. There’s no way.

I turn as I shake the familiar feeling off and clap my hands in my usual gesture to get all of the kids’ attention. “Can you all bring your jars and put them in front of you at a place on the tables?”

They all find their way to a seat noisily while Mom and I put out the paint and paintbrushes in front of them.

“We’re going to make firefly jars!” I exclaim excitedly.

They all look between themselves and then back at me with confused looks on their faces.

“Can anybody tell me what fireflies are famous for?” Mom asks them.

Rachel throws up her hand and gets out of her seat, flapping her arms at her side. “They buzz around like this and have glowing butts.”

Everyone giggles, including me. “Alright, alright. Rachel is right, they do glow.” I pause for a beat before pointing at the supplies I’ve laid out on the tables. “What you have in front of you is glow in the dark paint. You can dot it around the inside of the jar or make patterns, that’s totally up to you, but it dries quickly so make sure you know where you want to put it before you do.” My gaze settles on Clayton before I say my next sentence. “When they’re dry, you can take them home and put them in your bedrooms so it’ll look like little fireflies are in there.”

He doesn’t lift his head but there’s no hiding his small smile that makes me want to do a happy dance where I’m standing. The slight show of emotion may not feel like anything to anybody else, but to me, it’s everything.

They all get started on the project and I watch everyone as they draw patterns on their jars with the glow in the dark paint. Once they’ve finished, Mom and I place them on the window ledge to dry so they can take them home before I call them all over to the beanbags.

I flop down into one and tuck my legs underneath me. “Did everyone enjoy today’s session?” They all nod and smile. “Great! I did too, it was awesome to see you all working together. Speaking of working together, we need to decide on the joint gallery piece. I know you all have your own pieces to show the guests you’re bringing, but I wanted to do one main piece.”

There’s a show of hands and I point to Ben, one of the older students.

“We should draw space aliens invading Earth!” he cries out.

Heads swivel in his direction before whipping to the other side as Jessica, another one of the older students, counters, “No, we should do a magic land.”

“I’m not drawing unicorns or pink fluffy things!” Ben scoffs back.

“I like unicorns,” Izzie interjects.

And that’s the start of all the arguing. I stand up and watch them for a few seconds before lifting my fingers to my mouth and whistling to get their attention. “You can all get your points across, there’s no need to argue.”

“I don’t want to draw unicorns,” Ben says, crossing his arms over his chest in a huff.

“And I don’t want to draw stupid slimy aliens,” Jessica says, sticking her tongue out at him.

As I’m about to try and calm the situation, someone clears their throat and I raise my brow as I look over at who it was.

“We… We could paint the people that are coming,” Clayton says nervously.

I tilt my head to the side. “That’s an incredible idea, Clayton,” I praise him, making him blush. I see Mom beaming out of the corner of my eye. “Is everyone okay with that?”