I could tell my questioning made him uncomfortable. His smile faded and he looked away from me, I feared he was running away to hide again.
“Look, Jemma, last night, I have never felt that type of connection with anyone before. I don’t know what it was but I know I am not ready for it.”
I suddenly felt all of the color drain from my face; he seemed to sense the life draining out of me so he grabbed my hand and tightly took hold.
“Don’t get upset OK, I’m not saying I don’t want to see you again. I just need to figure out what is going on in my head. You are so close to everything that I have spent half my life running from, I don’t know what to do with that.”
What exactly was he saying, was he blowing me off, letting me down easy? I was not just some stranger that he met on the street. He knew me, it had been a long time since we have seen each other but there was a time that we were as good as family. I did not expect him to want to spend his life with me after one night but I also did not expect to be let down easily.
“So you’re blowing me off? You spend the night fucking your best friends little sister and then you fuck off, is that it? Do you want me to tell you to fuck off Ford?”
His face reddens, his teeth begin to grind against one another and I watch his hands started frantically moving through his hair like he was trying to rub every inch of it off of his head.
“No, no, don’t say that! And don’t talk about him or yourself like that, I can’t bear to talk about him at all, haven’t been for a very long time. But it’s not that. I enjoyed every second of last night, all I could think about all night long was how much I wanted to drown myself in you but the next day it just feels like too much too fast. You of all people should understand.”
And with that he had me. I did understand. I understood everything. I understood that when something horrible happens to you all you want to do is push everything good in your life away for fear that you will have to watch it deteriorate before your eyes. I have a feeling that is how Ford has been living his life, pushing and hiding. He did not expect me to come along and remind him of a time when he was full of life. A time when he danced around with his own pair of wings just like I did.
“I do understand Ford, I understand all of it, every last word.” Then I began to cry.
It seemed like all I have been doing lately was wiping tears out of my eyes. Just when they stopped and I began to feel whole again, Ford came along. Only for the first time in my life I did not fight the tears from falling. I allowed them to fall willingly, for Ford, the boy who had nearly died with my brother. He had to watch his own parents and best friend get brutally taken from this world and I could only imagine how helpless and broken that made him. Probably more broken and helpless than I ever was. I didn’t know if I could help him fight his demons but after the connection we found ourselves with I was desperate to try. For the first time I truly understood where Brandon was coming from loving me, how all he had wanted to do was make me better. I just prayed Ford and I did not share the same fate.
“I want to get to know you Ford. Can we start there? No strings, just two people who used to know each other coming together again. Can we do that?”
Ford nodded his acceptance to the idea of friendship.
“That sounds perfect, Jemma,” was all he managed before the waitress placed our breakfast down in front of us. I smiled at the whipped cream smiley face on both of our pancakes.
“We usually only do that for the kiddos but y’all looked like y’all were in need of some smiles this mornin’,” the gray haired waitress gave Ford a wink and walked off letting us know to “Just holler if you need anything”.
Putting the serious conversation aside we gobbled down our pancakes sharing stories from our very different high school experiences and Ford filled me in about his frat brothers. I learned that at one point he had wanted to join the Army but in the end decided to go to college. His mom and dad had met on Austin’s University of Texas campus and it was always a dream of his dad that he would follow in the footsteps of old white and orange. He said that he felt it was a way to keep their memory alive.
“I try so hard to forget that day and focus on the good stuff, you know? So I figured, I would come here, get my degree and eventually I might join the police department or something. I haven’t completely made that decision yet. I’m not quite sure I could handle ever walking into a scene like the one in Dallas.”
I watched him in awe as he played with a stray chocolate chip. He seemed so strong but I could see the broken boy that was hiding behind that strength.
“So,” he said, putting his fork down and meeting my eyes. “How are your parents holding up?”
Choking I dropped my fork and knocked my half full cup of coffee all over my lap.
“Oh shit, I’m so sorry!” I panicked feeling the vomit rising into my mouth and I was overcome with the need to run.
I had not spoken about my parents to anyone but Brea and Brandon since I had decided to quit therapy. Brea was there when it all happened and it took me two years with Brandon to open up about the incident surrounding my parents’ upheaval from my life. A part of me wanted so badly to share everything with this boy who knew me when but I couldn’t bear to bring that world into this one.
Shakily I jumped up from the table, “I have to go, I have an appointment that completely slipped my mind. I’m so sorry Ford.”
Ford tried to run after me but the chair from the person sitting next to us was blocking his side of the booth so I was able to make a quick exit. Once outside I ran and didn’t stop until I slammed the door of my apartment behind me.
“Jesus, are you fucking OK?” Brea shouted as she came running out of the bathroom wearing nothing but a towel and a mouth covered in toothpaste.
Not being able to say a single word, I bobbed my head up and down before bending over in an effort to catch my breath. I was seriously out of shape; my next stop definitely had to be the apartment gym.
“Oh girl, hold on a sec.” Brea ran back into the bathroom and came back wrapped in her hot pink robe with a freshly clean mouth.
“Do I need to kick someone’s ass?” She put her hand on my back and walked me over to the couch grabbing a bottle of water from the kitchen counter as we walked by.
We both sat, she popped the lid and told me to drink. “Was it that guy from last night? What did he do to you Jem?” I took a big gulp from the water bottle and shook my head back and forth at her still trying to catch my breath.
“Nothing, he was great…” I huffed. “It was all me Brea, you are not going to believe what happened. I don’t know what to make of it myself. But last night, was hands down the greatest night of my life.”
Brea excused herself insisting that we would talk once her bare crotch wasn’t rubbing into the terry cloth of her robe. I have to give it to her, Brea was definitely the poster child for too much information.
Fifteen minutes later, after I composed myself and she was dressed I filled her in on everything that happened the night before. Omitting only the raunchy stuff like how his dick turned purple for a split second while the wetness pumped out of him and how his tongue felt rubbing along my walls and over my sensitive heat. Some things were better left to the imagination. Of course it didn’t mean that my mind didn’t silently fill in those details.
“When he asked about my parents I broke Brea, I couldn’t bear it. What am I going to do? I have to see him again. I have to!” She rubbed her hand up and down my arms like I was freezing and she was trying to warm me up.
“It’s OK, Jem, just show up at the house and tell him what happened. It’s been so long since you told anyone about it. If anyone could understand it would be him.”
I truly wanted to tell him but how do you tell someone your dad put a bullet in your moms head and was rotting away in the nut house? My mother and father were two people that he loved as well and I was scared the revelation would be like losing his own parents all over again.
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br /> Suddenly there was an urgent knock on the door and Brea jumped up to answer it. Looking out the peep hole she turned my way and without peeling her eyes from my face she opened the door. Standing on the other side was Ford who caught sight of me the moment the door opened. He stepped inside walking over to where I was now standing, barely paying mind to the fact Brea was glaring at him.
“Why did you run off like that and don’t give me that appointment bullshit, I knew you were lying the moment you opened your mouth,” he reached for my hand but I pulled away.
At my rejection I watched a wave of sadness wash over him, instantly feeling guilty I moved in closer until we were toe to toe.
“My dad...” I paused letting a breath escape, “...murdered my mother.”
I didn’t really mean for it to come out like it did, I was still deciding how I was going to tell him, still deciding if I ever was going to tell him. But I could not stand to see the heartbroken image that I had caused play on his face. I had so much to learn about him and was terrified of losing the chance to learn about the man that I so desperately wanted to know again.
I could tell that the announcement caught him off guard. His mouth opened but he couldn’t manage to get any words out. I watched as Brea slipped out the front door holding her fingers up to her ear gesturing for me to call her and grabbing her purse from the dining table on the way out.
“I’m sorry; I didn’t mean it to just come out like that. I...”
He grabbed my hand again only this time I did not pull away. Instead he pulled me to him, kissing my forehead before resting his chin atop my head.
“I’m so sorry.” he whispered. “Tell me what happened?” He gently pulled me down onto the couch and into his lap, keeping his chin to my head.
“I honestly do not know if I can Julian”
His hands reached down and urged my chin up to meet his face. Gripping me tighter he moved his lips to my cheeks one at a time planting tiny kisses on each one. Then his lips moved to mine, kissing them softly before whispering into my mouth
“You can tell me anything. I loved them too, please, I have to know.”
I let out the breath I was not aware I was holding straight into his mouth. As the air between us collided I felt his tongue slip into my mouth. It guided along my teeth, moved out to my lips and back into my mouth where our tongues met up and danced with each other. After a few moments he gently guided my head back to his chest and moved his cheek back to the top of it.
Once again I let a long breath escape my mouth, pulled it back in and closed my eyes.
“I was asleep when it happened. I had just turned eleven; my dad had spent almost a year in and out of the hospital trying to get better. He literally went crazy after Nicolai...after...after he died.”
I paused for a brief moment to catch myself from breaking down and Ford softly kissed my forehead again reassuring me he was listening.
“He started hearing and seeing things. For a long time all he ever saw was Nicolai covered in blood telling him that he missed him and needed to be with his family. And then he started seeing him, the guy from the restaurant.”
“Ignacio Hernandez,” Ford interrupted. I cringed that the sound of his name. I tried for so long to forget it, making it a point to never allow it to fall from my lips.
I looked up, “How can you bear to say his name?”
“People like him, they deserve to be remembered for being the monsters that they are. I make it a point to remember his name, it serves as a healthy reminder that everything that happened on the day my family died was out of anyone’s control. A single person cannot fight that kind of evil. It is an evil that won’t ever die; there is no point in trying to bury him.” He looked into my eyes as if he were trying to heal the invisible wound that had just appeared on my heart. “Continue, sweetheart.”
Reclaiming the blind position on his chest I continued. “Dad didn’t tell us about him at first but his doctors urged him to be honest with his family. His doctor thought that because some of his behaviors were frightening to us it might help us to understand what was going on with him. Nobody ever actually told me personally, I was just a child, but they never noticed that I was always there in the background listening.”
“We had thought he was getting better, we never imagined that he was hiding the truth from us, we didn’t even know something like that could even be hid. But one day the truth came crashing down around him.”
“I was asleep when I heard her scream. She was begging him to stop, pleading with him to put the gun away. But he wasn’t himself anymore, he kept rambling that Nicolai needed us ‘That son of a bitch is going to take him from us again! He is all alone, we have to help him!’ and the next thing I knew I was listening to the sound of gunfire. Immediately I pulled my hand to my mouth to stifle the screams trying to escape from it and ran into the upstairs bathroom. I heard his footsteps in the hall and he began calling my name telling me that everything was going to be OK.”
“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 fa
mily 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.
The Boy Who Knew Me When (From Boys to men Trilogy) Page 5