The Boy Who Knew Me When(18)

“Over and over “It’s time to come out princess, come to daddy baby” he would say. I was terrified so I opened the window and stepped out onto the roof. I forgot to close the window behind me and after listening to dad break through the door he followed me out.

“It’s OK princess, everything is going to be OK.”

“I still don’t remember much after I escaped the bathroom, I must have stepped on a tree branch or something but I fell. The last thing I knew I was in the hospital with two broken arms, scratches from head to toe and a concussion. The doctors said I was lucky to be alive, that I was saved by a holly bush.”

We sat in silence for a very long time before Ford got up the courage to ask where my dad was. I filled him in that my dad had been declared mentally incompetent to stand trial and was sent to serve a long sentence in the Texas state hospital.

“But my aunt pulled some strings and was able to get him into a private facility on the coast.”

It was already starting to get dark outside when Ford scooped me into his arms and lifted me off of the couch.

“Which room is yours?” he asked.

I pointed him in the right direction and he carried me inside gently laying me on the bed. I was an emotional wreck and in need of his closeness, it surprised me when, as if reading my thoughts, he laid down next to me pulling my head onto his chest wrapping his arms around me. He stroked my hair until he fell asleep, something I barely noticed as I drifted off into dreamland as well. I woke up at midnight to find him no longer lying next to me. Instead was a note that read:

“I have an early plane to catch at 5 am so I had to cut out. I’m heading home for the weekend to take care of some family issues. Don’t hate me for not waking you but I decided it best to let beauty sleep. Call me, don‘t text, I need to hear your voice. Number is in your phone.”

Truly Yours,

Julian “Ford”

I was hurt that he left without saying goodbye, not angry at him but hurt because I awakened desperate to feel his arms around me. But the sight of the name I used to know, written in his handwriting, warmed my heart and took me back to a time when life was joyful and full of hope.





Chapter Five





Julian and Nicolai, or Nick as Julian had called him, met in kindergarten. Their friendship was hardly at first sight. Nicolai tried to “borrow” Julian’s Transformers eraser and in the end Nicolai ended up with his first shiner, Julian walking away with a bloody nose. I was just a baby at the time so this story is purely secondhand but from what I remember the fight was the beginning of a beautiful friendship. It’s funny how boys find that sort of thing a bonding experience.

Both of our parents ended up bonding as well, becoming great friends. We spent summers together, holidays, had many backyard BBQ’s, our dads went on fishing trips and I was basically on the road to growing up before their eyes. I don’t remember a time as a child where Mr. and Mrs. Ackles and their son Julian were not a part of our lives. Even when we were not all together as a family Julian was over to play or my mom and Mrs. Ackles were getting smashed on Pinot Grigio sharing mommy war stories and recipes in the kitchen.

Julian and Nicolai had many more moments of not getting along, they were more like brothers than they were friends, just as brothers and sister fought, so did they. Once they hit Jr. High however the arguments and fights slowed because they became more interested in girls and football.

I loved Julian even then; he was a lot nicer to me than Nicolai who seemed to get a kick out of tearing the heads off of my Barbie dolls. He would talk to me like I was a normal person and not just some annoying little kid. When Nicolai would get called away by mom to set the table or take out the trash he would sit down and play with me. Most of the time we would color but on occasion we had tea parties and played with my Barbie dolls. You would think he would want to be Ken but that wasn’t the case, nope, Julian preferred Skipper.

“I want to be the awesome one, how could anyone not be awesome with a name like Skipper? Skipper just bleeds happy.” But then Nicolai would come in, make fun of Julian for playing with babies and dolls, pull Skipper’s head off and tell me to scram. It did not even matter if I was in my own room, I scrammed.

Don’t get me wrong, besides his annoying faults Nicolai was an awesome brother, he just suffered from what I like to call “big boy syndrome”. Meaning when a friend was over he insisted on becoming alpha male and asserting dominance over the weaker party. It didn’t matter if that weaker party was his baby sister as long as he got to show off in front of his friends.

But if any of his friends made fun of me or followed suit in ripping the heads off of my dolls they ended up never coming back: Nicolai would ball his fist up tight and punch them dead in the jaw every time. He would still hang out with these boys at the play ground, parties and school but they were never asked to come over again. When my mom would ask about these so-called friends Nicolai would inform her that he did not want them in his house because only he got to pick on his baby sister “It’ll make her strong mom! One day she’ll need to be strong because boys are dumb. It’s my job as her big brother to show her how dumb...” he would argue. His words about how dumb boys could be stuck with me to this very day.