The Boy Who Knew Me When(29)

Chapter Seven





Julian



She was gone. One minute she was standing right in front of me looking sexy as hell and the next minute she had left me standing alone unable to explain myself. I told Heather coming here would be a bad idea but she insisted on it, promising that she would be completely hands off. I should have known she was full of shit. She usually was.

We broke up two months ago after I went home for a few weeks and found out she was slutting around with Benicio the guy who mowed her dad’s lawn once a week. I don’t put up with that kind of shit. Once a girl decides to be with me I expect them to be with me and only me.

My gran had practically begged me to fly with Heather back to Austin where she’d decided to transfer after years of studying at home. I knew she was only moving here to be near me but she was a grown woman and there was nothing I could do about it. The only reason I agreed was because gran feared for her safety.

“A pretty girl should never fly alone Ford, there are all kinds of deviants out there just waiting to get their hands on someone like her.” she argued.

I never told her what happened between me and Heather, I knew that it would break her heart, she truly loved the girl.

When Heather decided she wanted to leave San Juan early, I was not going to argue with her. I had filled out all of the required paperwork at home health and they had someone coming out to help gran starting Monday morning so I was free to head back. The plan was to drop Heather off at her sisters and head straight over to Jemma’s apartment. She had been all I could think about for the last 24 hours and all I wanted was to crawl back to her and figure out what this thing was between us. But after hearing about the Omega Pledge BBQ, Heather asked that I drop her off there, which later turned into “Walk me in.” The only reason I caved was because as President I figured it might be best if I at least made an appearance. Boy was I wrong.

I never thought it was possible that Jemma and I would ever cross paths again. Over the years I had wanted to visit her family more times than I could count. I’d even been back once or twice while gran and I sold off the old house but guilt plagued me and I never gathered the courage to visit the Hales.

There were days that I wished I would have just let Nick have the fucking eraser he tried to steal from me in Kindergarten. Perhaps we would have never become friends and at the very least Mr. And Mrs. Hale would not have lost a son. I could only imagine how horribly they had suffered the loss. I can only imagine that losing a child is one of the worse things that could ever happen to a person. Kids were destined to eventually lose a parent but a parent should never have to mourn their child. How could they not blame me for the pain inflicted on them? I was the boy who lived and I hated myself for it.



I remember the events of that horrific day as if they happened yesterday. We were sitting in a middle booth, laughing and carrying on about the fact that Nick was too scared to take a photo with Bugs Bunny during our trip to Six Flags. He downright refused to go anywhere near the seven foot rabbit. “Rabbits should never grow that big! He will probably try to eat me for killing his cousins.” he joked, however I knew that he was completely serious. As buff and tough as Nick pretended to be I knew he was still just a kid.

His dad had taught him how to shoot the day he turned five and several times a year they would both go hunting for some kind of animal or bird. I had always wanted to trail along but my dad had a “No guns around kids” rule that he stuck by at all costs. Even so, he never turned down the side of deer meat Mr. Hale gave up because between the hogs, quail, deer and rabbit they never had room for more than half of their kill in the deep freeze. Since my dad was Mr. Hale’s closest friend we also got the freezer overflow which usually included a little bit of everything else.

I loved Mr. Hale, where my dad was smart and level headed, Mr. Hale was resourceful and wise. I turned to him all things related to sports and outdoors because he always had the best answers. My dad would usually just shrug his shoulders and say “Ask your mom, kid.” As if my mother would know anything about jock straps.

No more than two minutes after we all calmed down from poking fun at Nick, who laughed right along with us, a man bolted through the front door screaming “Where is that bitch! Janet fucking Cardenas. Where is she?” He wasn’t shouting to anyone in particular, I guess he was just shouting to be shouting. I remember thinking about how funny the man looked. His legs were spread apart in an odd gape, he was bald and he was abnormally short. The long black trench coat he was wearing no doubt made him look shorter than he actually was. He reminded me a little bit of The Penguin from Batman.