June 27th 2022
Chapter 178
Our Days of Leaps
Even to this day, they sometimes still couldn't believe how far she'd come. Haley Hunter, the one they'd looked to like she had the precious daintiness of a porcelain doll, had started off like any other small kid put in gymnastics classes. But then she'd kept learning, and she had gotten better and better, and then… then she'd had her curiosity piqued by new disciplines not entirely removed from her gymnastics training but also on a whole other level so far as skill, and risk… Her parents would joke how she wasn't satisfied with scaring them when she was leaping maybe a foot or two off the ground, so she had to go higher. It was anyone's interpretation whether these jokes were made with or without an underlying dread that she'd one day get seriously hurt. More than anything, they couldn't help but be proud of their youngest.
Only recently turned eleven years old, Haley Hanna Hunter was a little phenom among her acrobatic peers and beyond. Just a couple weeks back, right around the time of her birthday in fact, the local evening news had done a piece on the gym where she did her circus arts classes, and she had been featured. She had briefly gotten to speak to the reporter, and they'd shown her in the middle of doing one thing and another around the gym. It had been as thrilling as the night Katy's series had premiered. Then again, nothing could beat actually seeing her in action. She had grown so far from the days when she only wanted to show everyone that she'd learned to do a cartwheel.
All these memories of how far she'd come had a habit of popping up on days like these, when Haley's circus school would have one of its showcases. Haley would have a loaded cheering section. Her parents, her brother and three sisters, the eldest of which came with a husband and five, sometimes six daughters and a granddaughter if they were lucky, which they were today, and a couple of grandparents… Although, today, a good chunk of those supporters almost didn't make it in time.
"Where's Mom?" Ella spoke over the noise of the gathered audience, in the last minutes before the show would begin. There was her father, taking up the rear with Remy in his arms as Marianne guided Lucy and Kacey ahead of him toward their seats.
"Uh… diaper emergency," Lucas explained, with a look that suggested how bad it had been even before Remy made a face to show she definitely remembered at least the smell of it. "She said to go on ahead with the rest of them, so here we are."
Maya had more than earned her self-proclaimed title as 'queen of the diaper quick changes.' Even with the sneaky surprise that Mackenzie had left them as they were nearing the gym, she made it right in time with the baby to take her seat before the lights went down and the show began.
Haley really was something out there. Katy would say how her physical skills would be boosted with a dash of that air of drama and creativity she had seen in herself and all her children to one degree or another. More than one of the tricks she pulled today had been her own creation, worked out and practiced until she had them down with the assistance of her coach.
As hard as it could seem to even tear their eyes off Haley and the other kids out there, it would sometimes be just as hard not to look aside to where the rest of the family members sat and watched, to see how they'd react. Marianne and her little sisters and niece were all starry eyed in awe of what they were doing out there, like they clearly had to be superheroes or witches or something. Ella would look somewhere in the middle between awe and 'oh geez I hope Tori doesn't get any ideas.' Angela Clutterbucket would be in a permanent state of concern that her youngest granddaughter was going to get hurt, and her husband would just hold her hand. Tanner watched Haley out there, and as unrelenting as he had once been known to be, he would just watch the girl go now with an air of pride and encouragement. He believed she could do anything, and he might not have been far off.
When it came down to the Hunters, well, Katy and Shawn would be hard to ignore. Their whole demeanor was a mix of 'look at our girl go!' and 'alright, alright, that was close, but she's good,' which was more or less what would be expected, but then the way it would be presented on their faces… Yeah, it was too hilarious not to look at sometimes. And then the other Hunter kids, seeing their littlest one out there… Haley had no bigger fan than those three, especially MJ, who had gone and made himself a t-shirt, which he wore with zero shame, proclaiming that Haley is our star! He'd sacrificed one of his already star-strewn shirts in the effort, and he wore it at each one of these shows, big or small. The twins did not go as far as their brother, but they put those well-honed basketball stand cheering skills to use.
Or… they usually did. Maya blinked. With the whole diaper fiasco earlier, it wasn't until midway through the show, when she took a moment to spy on her family around her, that she got a look at them. Gracie was mostly okay, but there was definitely a hint of distraction in her eyes, while Nellie… Oh, she was here in body, and maybe partway in mind, but the rest of her could not have been even mildly aware of where she was or what was happening around her, and even if Maya hadn't been told of a growing situation already a while back, she could have guessed what was going on. She got the confirmation of it after the show was over.
While everyone was leaving their seats and moving outside to where they'd wait for Haley, Maya pulled her little sister aside. She never had to say a word, only looked at her, and then the tears started to pool around her eyes. Nellie and Anton had broken up. Maya wasn't about to ask her if she was okay, clearly, she wasn't. She did want to know more about the situation, though only because she wanted to be able to help her sister through everything she'd have to be feeling right about now. She didn't ask her about that in that moment, with everyone around. The only thing that truly mattered now was to help her feel better. She held her in her arms and let her cry as much or as little as she wanted to.
"Can I come over to your house? Just me?" she quietly asked.
"Of course, you can," Maya assured her.
Though she was sure Nellie hadn't talked to them about it, their parents had clearly caught on to the nature of their daughter's current emotional state, so when it was announced that Nellie – and only Nellie – would be heading to the Friar house that afternoon, no one argued, and the two families split off. The rest of the Hunters and the Clutterbuckets went one way, while Nellie and the Friars went the other. At the house, Lucas and Ella teamed up to take the girls outside and play, the better for the two sisters to have this space to talk on their own.
Maya and Nellie took to the couch, and the cuddliest of the Friar dogs, namely Jax and Artie, came along like they'd picked up on the mood and decided to crowd in around the afflicted teen girl. Nellie welcomed their presence.
"I knew it was coming… we both did, but I just… I don't know…" Nellie shook her head when she finally spoke. Her eyes remained fixed on Jax, his chin on her knee, big eyes staring up at her as she brushed at his ears.
"Didn't make it any less painful," Maya quietly filled in, and Nellie tried to put a stopper on any new tears looking to emerge. "When did it happen, yesterday?" she asked, and Nellie nodded. "Mutual, or…"
"Kind of," Nellie replied, taking a deep breath as her mind went back to the previous evening. "But I'm the one who finally said it," she looked over to her big sister, and now the tears came again, so Maya guided her head to tip at her shoulder, and she held her through it.
It had been a long time coming, no matter how hard they'd fought for it not to be so. But the more they'd advanced into summer, with more time to spend together, which should have been as much of a fix as they could ask for… All they'd found was further proof that they no longer worked, and by the end of it, they had started to fight, and not see or talk to one another for a day, or two, or more. Neither seemed willing to admit what needed to happen, but finally Nellie had done it, because no matter how things had become lately, she didn't want to lose Anton altogether. If they could still be friends, she wanted that, and she knew he did, too. Someone just needed to make the break, so she'd done it.
"Are you going to talk about it with Mom and Dad?" Maya asked. "You know they know, right?"
"I know," Nellie nodded. "Can I just tell them like… 'We broke up, end of story?' I don't want it to become a whole thing with them," she sighed.
"You can certainly try," Maya sympathetically told her, and she was glad to find a sliver of a smile come from her sister. She knew as well as her that, well intentioned as they might have been, their parents would be as they were, always, especially when it came to their daughters and boys… and their son and boys…
"They already think that me and Anton have been together, so if they ask me about what happened…" Nellie shook her head. Maya gave her a look. They think? Nellie momentarily broke out of her present headspace, realizing this was something her big sister had not been privy to. "Gracie told me about that talk you had with her a while ago, and after that, we sort of went into a store to look at things, just… we wanted to see how it worked, with protection and all that. Mom found us there, and she had that twitchy look in her eye, so I just panicked and tried to take the heat for it instead of Gracie, let her think whatever… Now if I try to tell her that we haven't done anything, I'm not sure she'll believe me."
"She will," Maya promised. "And if she doesn't, then I'll talk to her, okay?"
"Thanks," Nellie told her, quiet again now. Maya sighed, closing her arms nearer around her little sister and kissing her forehead several times. Nellie responded to this as she had always done, reciprocating the tight hold. "I guess it's better that it happened now, right? Not after school started, not when he goes to college after this year… right?" she asked, voice grown small in the end.
"Right," Maya supportively agreed. They sat quietly for a while now, staying together in this space of silence and security. Beyond this space, they could just hear the muffled sounds of the children playing outside with Lucas and Ella and the other dogs. After a couple of minutes, Nellie sighed.
"This sucks…" she declared, burrowing her head deeper at her sister's shoulder. Maya may never have experienced the pains of a teenaged breakup personally, but she had seen it happen time and time again, and she agreed completely. It really did.
TO BE CONTINUED
See you tomorrow! - mooners
