Chapter 6

“Do you want me to come in with you?” Arry regards me with scrutiny, standing in the street outside the old-fashioned brick building, and I blink up at him with a serious frown. Stomach in knots.

“You’re kidding, right? What, like you’re my dad, and this is kindergarten?” I resist the urge to fan my face for the third time, push down nausea and nerves and refrain from shoving Arry’s fussing hands off me. He’s fixing my jacket for the second time in five minutes, and even though it’s endearing, it’s making me feel antsy and agitated as he brushes a hair out of my face softly. I’m terrified, anxiety on overdrive, and he is being infuriatingly cool about all of this, if not a little anally handsy. He can sometimes be so much like his mother, a clucking hen fussing around me when he knows I’m uptight.

“It’s your first day. You’re in a new country, new school… You’re nervous. I just want to be there for you.” He smiles at me, that all-American, swoon-worthy smile that softens