by Matt Zachary
“I had a hint,” Jessica Leigh confessed. “And, I was very angry,” she confessed. “But, I’m over it.”
Billy hoped she was telling the truth. She hadn’t been a bad girlfriend and he had never wanted to cause her any pain. As he looked into her eyes, he could tell she meant it. “What changed?” he asked.
“Well, seeing you and him…Stuart, yesterday, so in love…well, I just came around,” she answered.
Just as she did, though, Brett, one of the other students on the trip, came up behind Jessica Leigh and kissed her shoulder. “You’re not trying to steal my girlfriend back, are ya?” he asked Billy with a serious smile.
“No, no,” Billy held his hands up to show he was keeping them all to himself. He smiled at Jessica Leigh, knowing that Brett must have been a good part of why she was no longer upset with him. “You guys have fun,” he added before heading back to Stuart.
The rest of the night was spent meeting with the chaperones and going over the debarkation procedures, as well as packing their suitcases so they could leave them outside their cabins.
“I’m gonna miss this,” Stuart said.
“Well, it ain’t over yet, Sunshine,” Billy replied as he yanked Stuart onto the bed and attacked him with kisses.
Chapter 17
Everything the next day happened so fast. Before they knew it, Billy and Stuart were waking up and exiting their room and heading to their debarkation location. The had a little bit of time to spend with each other at the airport and on the plane, but in no time they were back in Billy’s jeep.
Billy purposely drove a little slower than usual as he took Stuart home. “I really had a good time this week,” he told Stuart as he moved his right hand onto Stuart’s knee.
“We can just run away together to some Caribbean island,” Stuart joked to keep from crying. He wasn’t very successful, though. As hard as he tried to keep it in, the first tear escaped his eye and rolled down his cheek.
“Hey, don’t cry,” Billy replied, almost about to cry, himself. “We’re still going to see each other this weekend, right?” he reminded Stuart. He wanted to see him sooner, but Stuart made a deal that he would stay home for the rest of the week and study for his last two finals if his step dad let him go on the cruise.
Without even realizing it, Billy found himself pulling into a parking spot at Stuart’s apartment complex. He wanted to give Stuart a kiss goodbye, but realized there were a lot of people out and about that could see and tell Stuart’s step-dad. “It’s okay,” Stuart offered, giving him permission.
Billy leaned forward and kissed Stuart, but it was more of a peck than what he really wanted to do. Still, he gave Stuart’s hand a squeeze and whispered, “I love you, Sunshine.”
“I love you too,” Stuart whispered back and winked before hesitantly turning around and dragging his suitcase towards his apartment.
Billy waited until Stuart got inside before driving off. He felt such an emptiness in his heart as he drove away. He had never experienced anything like that with Jessica Leigh or any other girl. He didn’t know love could even feel like that.
Within a few minutes, though, he was home and had a whole new set of problems. Before him was a large moving truck, several police cruisers, two black SUVs, and lots of yellow tape roping off the property.
“What’s going on here?” he yelled to the men at the doors of his house as he watched two other men carry out the library sofa.
“This area is off limits,” he was told by a stoic looking man wearing a pair of dark sunglasses and a dark suit.
“I fucking live here!” Billy yelled.
“William Marstock?” a woman called from inside the house. “Come with me, please.”
“What are you guys doing in my house?” Billy yelled, not understanding what was going on. “Where’s my dad?”
Billy sat on the stairs as the lady, who turned out to be an FBI agent, explained to him that his dad was in jail, arrested for taking bribes. “The house and all of the belongings inside of it are being confiscated,” she told him.
“What is going on here?” Billy whispered to himself. He couldn’t understand it. It had to be a dream. His dad, his home, everything was suddenly taken away from him. He wasn’t even allowed to get any of his clothes. Because he paid for his car himself, he was able to keep possession of it and the suitcase of clothes inside of it…but that’s all.
By the end of that night, Billy had undergone interviews with his dad’s lawyer at the FBI headquarters and was informed that he would be going to live with relatives nearly a thousand miles away!
To Be Continued….
Read the c ontinuation of Billy’s story in:
The Sins of The Father by Matt Zachary
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The New Discoveries Series: Complete Collection!
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As the Snow Falls
Volumes 1
M.D. James
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Chapter 1
“Naw. She’s okay.” I half managed to get out as my friends were teasing me about having a crush on April Powders.
“Yeah, you do! Ohhhh, yeah, you do! Jimmy likes April. Jimmy likes April,” Mikey sang out loud while dancing around our lunch table. I’m not sure how, exactly, I became friends with Mikey. I suppose it was because we had homeroom together since I could remember. He was very tall for a thirteen year old and built like a lumber-jack. And, like you’d assume from looking at his unkempt hair and dirt-stained face, he had absolutely no manners. He didn’t even care if there were girls around when he needed to pass gas, or shoot a booger out of his nose. And, he certainly didn’t mind embarrassing me in front of April Powders.
I was quickly turning beet red, and wanted to die.
April was a girl who I sat next to each day in my English literature and biology classes. She had curly, brown hair that always smelled like roses. She was our class president, and my lab partner in biology. The truth was, I did have a bit of a crush on her, but I’d never tell Mikey that. No need to give him more ammunition to use on me later. It was always so hard to concentrate on the biology lesson when I was sitting next to April. I was magically transported into the wishful thinking of my mind by the lovely, clean scent of April’s hair. I would get so nervous, though, that I had to constantly wipe the palms of my hands on my pants in class. They would sweat so much when I was around her. I mean, they would sweat a lot…so much so, that I felt like a sweat factory in biology! I probably left class everyday with pit stains under my arms too. I’m sure she thought I was a complete and utter idiot.
Being thirteen and in high school was hard to figure out. As a teen and high-schooler, I was supposed to hit on girls every chance I got and try to get dates or more from them…but, just last year I was made fun of if I even had a crush on a girl, or a girl had a crush on me. I never really knew what to do, and Mikey seemed to know that and pounced on me every chance he got. Unfortunately, for me, he got a lot of chances. I mean A LOT!
“Aww…leave him alone, Mike,” my best friend, Connor, interjected. “Can’t ya see he’s embarrassed?”
Connor was everything I wished I was. He was taller than me…standing at five foot nine inches. He was athletic and toned. He had brown hair and hazel eyes like me, but also kind-of a crooked smile that seemed to make girls swoon. He was the kind of guy who was smart, funny, witty, goofy, and outgoing. I felt very lucky to hav
e him as my best friend. I could tell Connor anything and know my secrets were safe with him. He was completely trust-worthy, and we had been friends since I was nine years old. That’s when he stopped a bully from beating my face to a bloody stump. I know he was just trying to protect me this time too, but Mikey was hard to reel in when he knew he was getting under a person’s skin.
Just as Mikey was about to start in again, and likely embarrass me to even greater depths than before, the school bell loudly rang.
RRIIIINNNNNGGGGGG….
Saved by the bell, lunch was over.
I exhaled a huge sigh of relief, as I picked up my trash and partially eaten sandwich and tossed them in the fly ridden trash can. I missed while trying to shoot the balled up wrapper into the can, as if it was a basketball. I quickly looked around to make sure Mikey didn’t see my failure, and it seemed that I was in the clear for once. Now, I just had to make it through the rest of the day.
Connor and I told Mikey we would see him later since he had Algebra class on the other end of campus. As we walked away, Mikey yelled at the top of his lungs, “Jimmy! See ya later, Loverboy!” and cracked up laughing to himself as he blew a kiss in my direction. About thirty kids stopped and started looking at me and laughed…some hysterically.
“Don’t mind him, dude,” Connor offered, and playfully tussled my hair as he broke away to his locker. He always knew how to make me feel better.
The next few classes went well. I didn’t have any classes the second half of the day with either Mikey or April, so I could just focus on my schoolwork. I was always a teacher’s pet type of guy. I naturally got good grades, and was always polite and attentive to my teachers. I didn’t brown-nose or anything, but I still got singled out as the example to follow in quite a few of my classes.
Finally, the last bell of the day rang and I couldn’t wait to get home. Mom said that if I got my homework done early enough, we could go look at Christmas lights around town. I’ve always loved Christmas. Living in Washington State, I was fortunate enough to get a white Christmas every year. It just seemed to make everything so much more magical. The lights seemed to twinkle more, as they reflected off the snow and ice…and the people became just a tiny bit happier, in spite of having to drive in a foot of snow. The cold temperatures made me wanna get a fire going in the fireplace, and drink hot cocoa while watching my favorite Christmas television special. I had to imagine the fire since we never had a fireplace in our house.
Connor and I lived right next door to each other, so we always walked home together and talked about our day. It was actually the part of my day I normally looked forward to most.
“Wanna have a snowball fight throw-down?” Connor challenged as we passed the park near our houses. A snowball fight throw-down is like the ultimate snowball fight….winner takes all. The last three years Connor has held the championship, but I was determined to beat him one day. It would have to wait until some other day though.
“Can’t today, bud. We’re going to go look at Christmas lights tonight, so I gotta get my homework for Mrs. Schiltz’s class done ASAP!” I answered. “Maybe tomorrow.”
“Deal.” Connor said with one of his patented winks as we each crossed our front yards.
As soon as I opened the worn and squeaky door, I threw off my snow covered shoes and ran straight to the fridge. I was fortunate enough to have a very good metabolism. Though, sometimes, I wondered if I was too thin. I weighed just under one hundred and thirty pounds. I felt like that was a good weight for my age and height. I grabbed some whole wheat bread, three or four ham slices, colby-jack cheese, and some Cheez-Its and headed to my room. I put a sandwich together quickly, and got my books out of my hand-me-down book bag.
“Is that you, Honey?” I heard Mom yell from down the hall. My Mom was a very pretty lady, who had to raise two kids all alone. She worked hard as a deli manager in our local super-market, and always seemed to have a smile on her face. Sometimes, I worried that she worked too hard. She was older than most of my friends’ moms, and shouldn’t have been doing as much manual labor as she did. My friends used to tease me when I was little about my Mom being the same age as their grandmas, but I still thought she was the best Mom around. When I would see laundry detergent commercials on television, I remembered my childhood being just like what was portrayed in them. The rays of sun would be coming in the windows, with a gentle spring breeze. Mom would always have everything smelling so great, and welcome me home from school with a perfect smile on her loving face.
“Yeah. I’m starting on my homework now. Are we still going to look at lights tonight?” I asked her.
“As long as you and your sister get your homework done in time,” she hollered back from down the hall.
My sister’s name was Sarah. Don’t let the angelic sounding name fool you. She was pretty…she definitely got Mom’s looks. She had the same long, wavy, blonde hair that shimmered, and eyes that changed between blue and green depending upon which type of a mood she was in. Her skin was very pale, almost porcelain-like. But, my sister could be mean….to me, at least. I guess that was to be expected from an older sister. She just turned sixteen, and thought she was too cool to hang around her dorky, younger brother. Even as kids, she seemed to find ways to torment me while we played together. When I was barely eight, she would only play with me if I would pet and talk to her feet. She would pretend they were turtles, and if I didn’t pet them, and snuggle with them, their feelings would get hurt. On several occasions, she made me eat the dead skin from her feet…telling me it tasted like bacon, and that the turtles made it for me. And, of course, she always got her way. Anytime we had to pick a game to play or decide on what to watch on TV, it was always what she wanted. I always figured my mom loved her more, but it could’ve just been that she was mom’s first-born, or because they were both girls. Maybe it was just because my sister threw the biggest fit if she didn’t get her way. One time, we were having an argument at Wendy’s about something and she took her packet of black pepper and blew the pepper right into my eyes. Boy, did it burn! Of course, she claimed it was an accident, but, I knew better. I told myself that I hoped she wasn’t planning on coming home late and messing up our trip to go see the Christmas lights.
BANG, BANG, BANG!
I sprung up from my history homework, as my sister barged into my room and collapsed onto my bed, scattering my homework all over the place.
“What’s wrong with you?” I asked a bit too rudely when I heard my sister’s sobbing.
“I don’t want to talk about it!” she replied. I moved my homework out of the way, because I thought her nose was running and I definitely didn’t need snot all over my report when I turned it in. “You wouldn’t even understand,” she continued in between sobs.
“How do you know what I’d understand?” I asked, defensively.
“Men!” she exclaimed. Before I could figure out what she meant, she rambled on like I wasn’t even there. “They will tell you they love you, and that you mean the world to them…but, don’t you believe them. Oh no! Don’t you believe them!”
I don’t really expect to ever be in that position with a man, but okay…..
“They’re all the same and only after one thing. Why can’t Andrew understand that I want to take it slower than that? He tried to get me to hook-up last night, you know?” she asked rhetorically to no one in particular, as if I weren’t really even there. “And, then, when I said I just wanted to kiss…he said he was fine with it. But, today he gives me the silent treatment all day, and at lunch I see him flirting with Angela ‘the slut’ Morgan!”
“Should I be hearing this?” I asked, but she continued as if not even hearing me.
“If he wants Angela ‘the slut’ Morgan, well, he can have her! I’ve got lots of guys wanting to date me. That’s what I’ll do! I’ll go out with another guy tonight. See how he likes it!” Before she could ramble more, I stopped her and reminded her that we were all going to look at Christmas lights. “Grow
up, Jimmy! How can you think of Christmas lights at a time like this???” And, with that, she stormed out of my room, likely to go repeat the entire thing to Mom.
Even if she decided she didn’t want to go look at the lights with me and Mom, I was still excited. I spent the next two hours doing my report until I smelled dinner. As I was packing my books back into my book bag, Mom yelled out, “Dinner time!”
I raced to the dining room, and saw we were having a “taco night.” Not very Christmassy, but I loved Mexican food. Laid out on the table were hard, corn tortillas as well as soft, flour tortillas. There was ground, seasoned beef, refried beans, two kinds of shredded cheese, black olive slices, lettuce, onions, diced tomatoes, salsa and sour cream. My sister was already seated at the table and seemed to be in better spirits. As always, I started loading up my plate first.
“Hungry much?” my sister asked in a sarcastic tone.
“You bet…” I replied with my mouth full as I continued shoving the first bite in my mouth. The taco broke and all its fillings dropped out onto my plate. Mom and Sarah laughed contagiously.
After dinner, Sarah and I cleaned the table and dishes. She made me wash because she said her hands were too delicate for dish-water. Oh, brother! I didn’t mind though because I never liked drying dishes anyways. I always thought I was going to drop and break them because they were so slippery. Once the left-overs were put up and the kitchen was sparkling clean again, Mom told us to get our coats and shoes on so we could get on the road for some good ole Christmas light lookin’.
“You don’t have to tell me twice….” I hollered as I raced to find my shoes.
“Jimmy! I’ve told you not to get snow all over the place when you come in from school,” Mom complained when she saw the mess the snow from my shoes made. “Go get a towel and mop up the puddles, please.” I hurried and cleaned up the mess, and we all hopped in the car.