ASTA
1319 Words
It happened on a Thursday morning.
Willa had been making all these new sounds all week, like babies just casually level up their babbling game out of nowhere. Rosa had called it some kind of developmental leap, and I’d nodded along like I totally got it. Mostly I just noticed Willa was louder and bolder than the week before, which I didn’t think was even possible.
That Thursday started slow for once. Dax had a late practice... first period free, so he didn’t have to bounce until eight-thirty. Rosa was already out the door for her shift. I’d gotten Willa up, changed her diaper, brought her downstairs, and we were in the middle of the usual morning bottle routine. Dax was at the coffee maker doing his thing, moving like coffee wasn’t just a drink but straight-up fuel he couldn’t function without.
It felt almost normal, that was the weird part. The three of us in the kitchen that early... Willa in her high chair, Dax pouring his coffee, me leaning against the counter. Kinda like a regular Thursday in a regular house.
Almost.
Dax was going on about practice, the new formation stuff and pocket protection he’d mentioned before. How Coach had drilled them on it six times yesterday and it still felt off. I was half-listening, half-watching Willa go to war with a piece of banana like it was brain surgery.
“The problem is Tyler’s timing,” Dax was saying. “He jumps too early, which means I’m...”
“Asta.”
We both froze.
It came from the high chair. A small, super sure little voice aimed right at me. Not some random baby noise ... this had purpose. Willa was staring straight at me, banana piece forgotten in her chubby fist, and she said it again, even clearer:
“Asta.”
The closest her little mouth could get to Astrid. One syllable off, consonants all mixed up, but no doubt who she meant. She was looking dead at me.
I stared at her.
She stared right back, then held out that banana piece like she was giving me a gift.
I glanced up.
Dax had stopped mid-sentence. The look on his face was something I’d never seen before. Not the soft one he got when he watched her from the nursery door, not that blank guarded thing from school. This was different... like he’d been hit with a feeling he wasn’t ready for. He was staring at his daughter like she’d just dropped some fluent foreign language on him.
Then his eyes shifted to me.
I looked back at him.
Willa, not giving a single damn about the weird vibe between the two adults, shook the banana piece at me harder. “Asta. Asta.”
“That’s...” I cleared my throat, trying to play it cool. “That’s not really my name.”
“It’s close enough,” Dax said.
His voice came out a little rough, quieter than usual, not in a bad way. Just… different.
I took the banana from Willa. She looked satisfied as hell, like mission accomplished, and went right back to destroying the rest of her breakfast. Babies are efficient like that.
Dax turned back to his coffee.
I stood there staring at the squished banana in my hand, neither of us said another word about it.
The moment just hung there between us like an extra person in the room. Not awkward exactly, but something that needed a second to breathe before we could figure out what the hell to do with it. Willa kept babbling away at her food, the coffee maker beeped done, Dax poured his cup, and the kitchen just held onto whatever that was.
He left for school at eight twenty-five without mentioning it again.
I stood by the window and watched his car pull out, telling myself, don’t overthink it.
School was school, I kept my head down, moved through the day on autopilot. Dodged the hallway where Brynn and her crew liked to hold court between classes. Ate lunch in the library again, which had become my spot. Mr. Osei, the librarian, didn’t even look up anymore when I came in. Felt like progress.
But “Asta” kept popping into my head all day. Not like I was obsessed or anything, but it kept sneaking back. The way she’d said it so sure, like she’d been practicing. That look on Dax’s face. How neither of us knew what to do with a one-year-old basically naming me like she’d decided I belonged.
I walked home after.
Willa was napping when I got back, Rosa already gone for her shift, house quiet as hell. I spread my homework out on the kitchen table, ate a bowl of cereal standing up at the counter, and watched the afternoon light slide across the floor. My mind wandered to nothing and everything at once.
Dax got home from afternoon practice around six-thirty.
We ate dinner together ...leftovers Rosa had labeled with her neat little masking tape notes, “chicken, Thurs” in her handwriting. Practical as always.
We didn’t talk about the morning.
Neither of us brought it up, so it just sat there at the table with us like that third silent guest.
Willa went down easy at seven-fifteen. No fuss, no negotiation. I sat with her until she was fully out, then gently moved her to the crib and stood at the rail for a minute doing that automatic breathing check I’d picked up as a habit.
Then I went to my room.
Finished the rest of the calculus, read two chapters of history. Shot off an email to a teacher about a deadline. Just normal stuff, one after another, until the house got real quiet and the light under Dax’s door clicked off around eleven-thirty.
I turned off my own light.
Lay there in the dark.
Asta.
I turned over, punched the pillow a little.
Closed my eyes.
Somewhere around midnight, I heard it... the soft scrape of paper sliding under my door on the carpet. I sat up fast. Squinted across the dark room. There it was, a folded piece of paper, pale against the floor.
I got up, padded over, and picked it up.
Unfolded it.
His handwriting, that same neat, careful script from the feeding schedule and all the bottle notes.
Don’t read into it, she does that with the mailman too.
I stared at it.
Then I laughed. Out loud, in the middle of the dark room, by myself. A real laugh that started deep in my chest and just burst out before I could stop it. I slapped my hand over my mouth right after because it was midnight and the walls were paper-thin, but the laugh had already happened... full, genuine, the first one in days that didn’t feel forced.
She does that with the mailman.
I read it again, grinning like an i***t.
He’d written it on a ripped piece of notebook paper, edges all jagged. Folded it in thirds, the middle crease a little off. Gotten up in the middle of the night, walked down the hall, and slid it under my door just to say this dumb, unnecessary thing. Then probably walked straight back to his room.
At midnight.
Because his baby girl had called me Asta at breakfast.
Don’t read into it.
I folded the note back up, the crease was messed up now since I’d opened it, so I just folded it in half and slipped it into the pocket of my hoodie hanging on the chair. I didn’t think too hard about why I put it there instead of just tossing it on the desk.
I climbed back into bed.
Closed my eyes.
She does that with the mailman.
The smile was still stuck on my face when I finally drifted off, and I chose not to examine that either.
- Writer
