Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, Happy New Year!

It was with Walter's encouragement I found myself telling my parents in the quiet of their bedroom. They took it much better than I imagined, but I supposed they had been through this before. It was Mom who looked at it, clucking her tongue when it wasn't even bandaged since it hadn't even had time to scab over yet.

"Do I have to comb through the house?" Dad asks me sitting down on their bed. Watching me with a concerned look on his face. "Do we have to revert to Nair for body hair removal?"

"No!" I exclaim. Seriously, was I twelve? It's not like I used my razor anyway.

"Look the last time we dealt with something like this we let our guard down. I don't ever want to walk into one of my children's rooms again in such a way. I don't want more grey hair at the thought of possibly having to bury a child if we're too late." Dad says rather frankly. "I don't want to have to explain to my grandchild why her mother isn't around."

"It's not like that," I try to explain.

"Maybe not, but one day it won't be enough and it will only get worse and worse until it consumes you," Dad said shaking his head, getting up and kissing my forehead. "I'll see if I can get you a session with Beth before the new year. Thank you for telling us."

I look to Mom who looks just as concerned.

"Joy's news?" She asks thinking about it.

"I knew, but this isn't from that," I told her with a shrug of my shoulder. "I also get it, she's not sixteen, in high school. Does it hurt, sure? But what can I expect?"

Mom merely nods her head "We do love Owen, and you of course."

"I know," I say automatically. I don't want to get into the fine print or technicalities of it all. How I felt judged for loving her in those early weeks, but eventually just gave up trying to hold it in. "Some days I just feel so numb to everything, Owen was with Ken so I couldn't focus on her. It was like the pain was the only way to feel something. It's not like I think I'm depressed, I just feel so much and then nothing at all because of all of this.

Mom and dad merely look at each other before pulling me into a big hug.

"You'll be all right at the Fords?" Mom asks me knowing I was driving up with Ken tomorrow.

"I'll be fine," I nod my head.

"We're putting something on that for you," Mom changes the subject again. "Last thing you need is to get an infection out at the Fords."

"I'll pour some peroxide on it," I tell her.

"And some liquid bandage," she tells me and I only nod my head and follow her to the bathroom.

I spent the next few days with the Fords though, allowing them time with their granddaughter. Ken driving us in his car, as the radio plays some children's songs that save us from actually talking to each other more than we have to. It was just a few days, yet I still felt nervous for some reason, despite things being better between us.

"Hey, can you take Her?" I say holding Owen as I was walking into one of the many rooms of the Ford vacation house after letting her nurse after her nap. "Oh sorry," I say realizing he was on FaceTime with Mona.

"It's fine," Ken shakes his head. "She can chill out when me," he says motioning for me to bring her over to him.

"I don't want to impose," I say quietly.

"Your not," Ken tells me. "You'll be late if you don't hurry," he tells me. Meaning my impromptu counselling meeting that my parents had set up for me.

I try to stay out of camera view as I pass him Owen who settles on his lap as she screeches and reaches out for me.

"I'll be back in an hour," I tell him as he struggles to keep her on his lap and hold his phone at the same time.

"I gotta go, I'll call you later, all right? She's all over the place and doesn't like to sit still these days." He tells her as I leave the room.

I walk to the room I was staying in and shut the door and pull out my iPad to do my appointment with Beth. Something my parents set up when I told them what I had done. It's a little different online, but it goes well enough.

It's hard to tell if she's disappointed in me or not. Maybe that's a good thing? We talked for the hour, most of it circling the reason why and how I felt about it and everything else going on in my life.

"Is there anything that you like doing that will keep your mind off things?" She asks me.

"Dance?" I say automatically. "Lessons again, but I'm sure that will be nixed."

"Why do you say that?"

"Because in their mind dance will only impact my eating habits in negative ways. Which I don't blame them for thinking that? It didn't help in the long rung, but I miss dance, I miss lessons and learning new things?" I say sighing.

"What if I recommended it to them for you? An hour a dance once or twice a week can be achievable and might be vital to your own mental health?" Beth asks me. "You know what you tell me is confidential unless I believe you are in danger to yourself, but I can still suggest things to them, without completely betraying our mutual trust?"

I can only nod my head.

"I want you to make a promise to yourself though, that this will be a way to work through things. I want you to turn to try and turn those negative thoughts, into positive thoughts and actions. You don't want to look in a mirror and critique your body. I want you to look in a mirror and I tell yourself what you love about your body." Beth instructs me. "Learn to love yourself in the moments you want to hate yourself?"

I look at her through the screen and only nod my head once more.

I click off my Ipad and lay down in bed for a moment. Thinking about these pesky college applications that needed to be in like yesterday for the February deadline and I make up my mind for help.

"I have to make an audition tape," I say dropping into the chair of Owen Ford's study when he beckoned me in at my knock. "As part of my application for Holland College."

"So you are going for it?" Owen says the corners of his mouth upturning.

"It's something I think I might like," I say with a simple shrug. "I would rather dance, but even my best efforts to stay in shape and keep up is futile at best."

"Your parents may surprise you," Owen says softly. "But auditions I can help with, you'll make a full one in school of course. They are most likely wanting to see how you perform to gauge if you are the right fit for any of the media. So it should be overly produced, you're only in high school after all." Owen goes straight into it.

"Here try reading this," he says riffling around on his computer before I hear a printer out.

I take the paper that shoots out and looks it over. It's a script for one of his shows a year ago.

"So you don't write your own things?" I ask him seeing different names at the top.

"I do and don't, it's more a combinative effort these days," he says with a small shrug and smile.

He coaches me until am I comfortable reading memorized short paragraphs, often paraphrasing or summarizing longer passages for myself.

"What do your parents think of this?" He asks near the end.

"It's neither here nor there, they would prefer university but I think to understand that not probably going to happen," I tell him honestly. "We fought about it, or mom and I fought about it. It's sort of just acceptance at this point? I mean I rather not go at all and just work for a year?"

"How is school going for you?

"Alright I suppose, I'm waiting on some marks to be put in the system. I had to write this thing? Story? She gave us all a month and told us to encapsulate what that month means to us."

"And what month did you get?" Owen asks curiously.

"She gave me August of all months," I tell him with a sigh, and I look up at him looking pensive. He gets it I think. It was a month of all months, the month that had changed my world and life in a matter of hours.

"Well, I hope you get the marks you were hoping for," Owen tells me.

"I hope so," I say with a sigh. I never know with Ms. Brooke, she was a tough marker and having a baby didn't change that, though she did seem to understand another side to my writing thankfully.

It was after a quiet dinner I retire to my room to nurse Owen before bedtime for her. Laying down in bed on my side yawning, staring at my iPad as Owen as nursed snug against me. I didn't even hear the door open, only suddenly felt something jump on the bed.

"Jack," I murmur, reaching over to scratch his ears as he curled up next to me. I guess I am in the middle of the sandwich?

He nudges me with his cold nose and licks my hand with hesitance. "Have been people been hogging Owen from you?" I ask him. "Holding her too much so she can't play on the floor you as much?

I feel like I could feel him grumble his response, as he lefts his head and puts it up on my hip as if he's watching Owen and me.

"She's eating, don't disturb her," I warm him playfully as Owen falls asleep mid-nurse as I gently manoeuvre her she was lying on my chest, too lazy to get up to put her down the night.

I was lost in my thoughts, possibly in dozing slightly when I heard a chuckle.

"You betrayed me didn't you?" I hear a hushed voice. I crack open my eyes to see Ken peering down at me amused.

"I wasn't sleeping," I say automatically adjusting my grip on Owen who stirred.

"I know, you tend to snore lightly when you sleep," Ken tells me. "I was just wondering where my dog was only to find him camped out with you."

"I think he was more here for Owen," I tell him motioning to take Owen for me which he does.

"What were you watching?" He asks settling on the other side of the bed cuddling her.

"Just Frozen?" I say blushing. "You know gotta start her early?" I joke. "I can restart it if you want to watch it with me? If that's allowed anyway?" I say quietly.

"I'm pretty sure we can watch a movie with our daughter," Ken tells me with a slight smile.

We're barely through the opening scene when he looks at me.

"You're all right?" He asks me point-blank. "You just seem so, withdrawn lately."

"I'm okay," I say simply. I still don't trust him enough to even want to tell him anything more than that right now. "I'm here so that says a lot."

"Rilla," Ken says his brow furrowing at me.

"Don't, please just don't ask. Just let it be, if I felt comfortable talking about it to you, I would share, but I don't because despite being friendlier to each other. I still don't completely trust you to throw me under the bus to help yourself feel less guilty." I tell him after hitting pause on the iPad.

"I am sorry for that," Ken says quietly. "I've been trying to work on that part of me because it wasn't fair of me to do that to you." I look at him with wide eyes. Well, I wasn't expecting that! "What? You think you're the only one to see a shrink these days?"

"I don't know?" I say frowning.

"I'm pretty sure everyone in our surrounding family sees someone lately," Ken points out to me. "Hell, I'd be afraid if they ever all met up with each other they would compare notes."

"I don't think that is allowed," I tell him.

"Not intentionally anyway, I'm sure if you go to any psychology medical conference that they are all talking about some sort of patient they have. One will be like, oh I have a couple who are parents to a teenage mother, and then another will be like. Oh, I have that, but it's some family of a young father who impregnated a teenager by accident, and so on," he says with a small sighing laugh.

I giggle lightly because I could see it.

"Is it helping you?" I ask him hesitantly.

"Does your help you?" Ken redirects my own question.

"She's nice?" I say after a careful moment of thought before hitting play again, effectively ending the conversation. Friendly doesn't entirely mean trusting. Friendly just means being willing to put differences aside for the greater good.

In the end, though we don't make it through the entire movie as I yawn too much to even keep count.

"I'll take her for tonight?" Ken asks, wanting to give me a small break from night duty, though she often sleeps straight through to six am these days, only occasionally waking up around 2:30 for a feed.

I only nod my head and he gathers her sleep sack and pack-and-play that she was sleeping in and brings it across the hall before coming back for her.

Jack stays by my feet yawning and refusing to move when Ken calls him quietly.

"Oh I see where your loyalty lies, you like her better," Ken says under his breath. It took me a moment to realize that he's isn't comparing me to him, but possibly another person.

I look at Jack who tilts his head at me before closing his eyes once more. When I woke up in the early mornings of hearing Owen cry across the hall, Jack was gone from my bed. It doesn't take long before I hear Ken come across the hallway.

"I think she's hungry," he says quietly from the door.

"She is," I tell him as I open the door and take her from him. "I'll take it from here," I tell him and he nods his head turning back to go to his room. It's become a rather normal thing to leave me be to nurse.

By eight in the morning, Ken took Owen for a short walk with his father before nap time and I booted up my laptop at the cleaned-off breakfast table. I check my email, which told me I had a new mark waiting for me to look at.

I log on quickly to my school student portal, ignoring them could be better history mark, as I scrolled to Ms. Brook's class and opened it.

85%!

"Yes!" I shriek jumping in my chair.

Leslie looks at me from wiping the counter from breakfast. "Everything all right dear?"

"Yes, yes, sorry, my teacher finally graded my one story, it was better than I hoped for," I tell her.

"Did she leave a comment?" Leslie asks smiling.

"Very well done, a few grammar issues but that is why even the best writers have editors." I read out loud. "I don't think she's ever compliments anything I wrote before," I said beaming. "Maybe I use this one as part of my media portfolio. It had to take a word and write about it, this assignment she assigned everyone a month. I got August," I say.

"August?" Leslie says quietly. "That must have been interesting for you."

I merely shrug. "It's not like I dug through my diaries or anything," I tell her. "I'm mostly glad she liked it."

"Well, I am sure it is lovely,"

"You can read it if you want?" I tell her. "Even if it's just to make sure that it's an all right for my portfolio?"

"That is up to you my dear, I will look it over if you wish but as I told Persis and Ken over the years. Their work is their work, I will never read over their work unless they wish me to, at least when it came to creative writing, and essays." Leslie explains to me, taking a drink of her coffee.

"Email it to me if you wish, but I believe we should probably see what those men are up to with that baby? I feel like they have been gone a while?" She hums, though her lips are up-turned.

"Ken wanted to show her some tree or something?" I tell her.

"Ahh yes, the old tree," Leslie nods her head. "I still can't believe she's crawling already?

"Me either, I turn around for a moment and I swear she can disappear into thin air," I laugh getting up from the table.

"The art of crawling," Leslie smiles knowingly. "I am glad to see you again," she said almost melancholy like as she knows this time next year. Owen will be old enough to be with Ken on her own. I won't be needed, I may be invited but it wouldn't be my place next year.

I quietly smile at her.

I know that they know about the court case, I know that mom and dad warned them but it feels different from their approach of watching over me.

"When do you see Persis again?" Thinking it had been last Christmas she had visited Canada.

"We going over in spring, hopefully, the cherry blossoms are blooming, but they are already technically married, it's a simple thing in Japan they say. We do wish to have photos and whatnot together. Of course, Yosuke-sans parents want to officially meet and welcome us into the family."

"You haven't met yet?" I ask rather surprised.

"We have years ago, long before they decided to date," Leslie explains to me. "Then they will come in late summer I believe and we will get some more family photos I think to commemorate the occasion?" Leslie says.

I only nod my head. Summer.

Summer was only months away and so was my eighteenth birthday.

"I hear you went for your driving test?" Leslie asks out of the blue.

"I did, and I passed first try," I tell her, which had been a major relief. "The instructor asked if I had driven with her in the back before to get used to driving around precious cargo. I assured him my father made sure of that."

"It must be rather freeing?" Leslie grins as if she remembers that feeling of freedom.

"I'm still technically grounded, so any freedom is still being discussed. Though I think mom is getting a new car and they will 'let' me drive the old one too and from work when needed." I explain.

"Sounds very much like your parents in a nutshell," Leslie chuckles. "You'll enjoy it though, I have no fear about that."

"I hope so," I say unsure of what I actually felt this time.

August-By Rilla Blythe

The sun was bright, hot, and constant in those August days. The brightness was needed in a way, it blinded your conscience in a way you might only expect. The heat made the sweat roll down your back, your clothes stuck to your skin, much like the saltwater of the ocean. It was August and August was your time.

There was you and there was him in the old rusted truck of his, blankets and pillows on the warm sandy beaches, and later in the rented cabin that he managed to get. He was your everything, he was your one. His kisses were intoxicating and you were barely an adult for more than a few weeks at this point. But you feel it in your bones, your soul as you catch his hand in yours. Fingers entwining like black magic because it never felt this way before for you.

Still, he whispers those sweet words, the apprehension that came with that one night.

Were you sure?

You were sure and never been more about something in your life.

He was yours, and you were his in some awkward movements that made you feel things that you never felt.

Your family doesn't quite get it, but they can't say much these days as you race out the door in bathing suit tops and tied sarongs. Large rimmed sunglasses that you found in your mother's closet from her childhood in the '70s. Your polaroid camera is stashed away in your bag, while your sandals are in your hand.

Your overnight bag tells them that would be back on in a few days.

No one tries to stop you, but the looks are disapproving.

Time passes too quickly for your liking and it's the little things that bring you back to the present. Pieces of mail from college admissions, that week of orientation you are supposed to go to.

Instead, you're twisted in bedsheets, learning his body again for what feels like the tenth time or was the twelfth? Twentieth time? The bottle of wine empties once more, only reminding you that things weren't permanent when he left again.

You talk about dreams and what you wanted in life. Memorizing his grin when he looked down at you. He's been there and done all that, all these freshman activities that will encapsulate your life in a few short weeks. He's in his third year now at another school, but the school are all the same when you live on campus

You don't know if it was you, or him. Maybe it was the magic of summer that dwindles as the sun sets earlier and earlier and earlier each evening. Then one day you're forced to say your final goodbye, which is laced with bound to be broken promises and false hope. You're so enthralled that you don't see the shadows lurked in the corners that make or break this new world of yours.

You find yourself waiting, and skipping out of parties, watching the telephone. Checking the answering machine for any sort of message. They don't come.

Slowly you wake up, slowly you rise and begin to find yourself. A different self, as change is always for the better these days. Soon you're blushing in the hallways, looking at boys holding beer cans and deciding just want you want for yourself.

One day you'll wake up and think about that August and realize he was never yours, not in the way you wanted him to be. Feelings washed away like a ship lost at sea, memories and mementos are packed away because they no longer matter.

You see each other by random luck years later. Everything comes flying back to you, but you only nod your head in passing as you pass each other by. Wondering for a brief moment if he remembers? Remember those days by the ocean, nights under the stairs in the back of his old rusted truck. How those moments defined those last days of carefree youth, allowing you to bloom into something much greater.

In the briefest moments, you can still smell the salt in the air when you close your eyes. Though this wasn't August anymore.

August had long past and you smile back on it like a fond memory.