The Boy Who Knew Me When(46)

“Why are you so sure it will help me? What can seeing my father possibly do for me other than tear me in two?” I asked.

Dr. Schneider considered me for a moment before he replied.

“It is not my place to enlighten you any further than necessary, I promised your aunt, but I can tell you that your father loves you very much. And according to Tilly he has come to terms with a lot of what happened back then. He would like to make a mends and has much that he needs to tell you. I think perhaps visiting with him might bring you closer to the only parent you have left.”

I could not believe that I was actually considering paying a visit to my father but I did want to find closure. Agreeing not to see him had weighed heavy on my heart every time Aunt Tilly had insisted I try. I was so angry with him for stealing my mother and then abandoning me when I needed him most, when I needed both of them. I left the doctor’s office agreeing that I would think about it, I had two weeks to decide. The good news was that I had completely forgotten about my dilemma with Julian.





“Have you given any more thought to seeing your dad?”

It had been two days since my discussion with the great doctor and I was just as confused as ever about seeing him again. What could he possibly have to say that could change the way I felt about him? I did not want him to apologize; I wanted to hate him because it made more sense than hating Nicolai.

“I just don’t know Julian, what is he going to say to me huh? Gee sorry, princess, didn’t mean to put that bullet in moms head!”

Julian cringed. Sometimes I forgot that he loved my mother too.

“Sorry.”

“It’s OK, sweetheart. I understand where the hostility is coming from.”

But I knew it wasn’t, there was nothing OK about the things Julian and I had been put through. Nothing OK about him watching my brother and his parents gunned down by some lunatic in the middle of a crowded restaurant, nothing OK about me watching my father crumble and damning my mother to the same fate as her only son and there sure as hell was nothing OK about the fact that my father was spending his life in a mental institution. Suddenly sitting at the kitchen bar watching Julian make us dinner I wanted answers. I knew why Ignacio Hernandez had done what he did but I wanted to know what exactly was going through my dads head besides the fact that he missed his son.

“Would you come with me, if I decided to go I mean?”

Julian dropped the spatula on the floor and turned around to face me. I knew this would be just as hard for him as it would be for me but I could not imagine taking this step with anyone else.

“I had already assumed that I would. I would do anything for you sweetheart. How can you not know that by now?”

He reached down, picked up the spatula and turned back around to flip the chocolate chip pancakes he had cooking on the griddle.

A smile flashed across my face while the words ‘I do, I do know that’ went through my head.





Chapter Fourteen





Julian



I didn’t expect the question to hurt so much but when she asked me to go with her to see her dad my heart nearly jumped straight out of my chest. It had been so long since I had seen the man who had been like a second father to me growing up. I had no clue about what happened until Jemma had told me and I had to admit that I was fifty shades of angry with him for what he had done. Not only what he had done to her mother Elaine who I loved like she was my own mother but what he had done to my Jemma.

Hearing Jemma replay the events of that horrifying day in her head I would say that it was a miracle that she survived. I wanted to kill him for trying to take her from me before I ever even got a chance to love her in the way I had grown to. What once was a love akin to that more of a brother had turned into the very vessel responsible for supplying air to my lungs and blood to my heart. Every moment away from her I felt my life force dim and I was positive that I would have died an early death without ever being able to experience her fire again.



“I am too Nicolai, I am too gunna be a fairy princess when I grow up!” Jemma said with her hands on her hips.

“Fairy princesses aren’t even real baaaaby, you can’t be a fairy princess, you can’t be a fairy anything ‘cause you are nothing but a little girl.” Nicolai teased.

“Tell him Julian! Tell him they are too real. Julian wants to be a fairy too, don’t yah Julian?”

Um, did I say that? Oh right, I did. Please shut up Jemma!

“Yeah, I bet he wants to be a fairy. Is that right Julian, are you gunna be a flaming fairy when you grow up?”

I was so gonna sock Nick Hale right in the nose if he didn’t knock it off.

“No, he don’t wanna be a flaming one he wants to be a prince one you big jerk. He said so, he’s gunna be a prince and I’m gunna be a princess and we are gunna rule all of fairy land together. TELL HIM JULIAN!”