Pieces of You

by Marie, Lisa

  “You’re my best friend too,” she says. “Well, you’re my only friend,” she admits.

  “Then no more bad talk about my best friend, okay?”

  Smiling, she nods her head. “Do you know what you’re friendship means to me?”

  “Will you tell me?” I ask without directly answering the question.

  What she does next shocks me so much that I lose my breath. She moves over and cups my face in her hands. All I can do is stare at her. Honestly, I’m afraid to breathe. Afraid that if I do, she’ll move away and I get a warming feeling from her touch that calms the anger that has been boiling since she started talking bad about herself.

  “You’re good and there are so many bad people out there. When you spend time with me, I don’t see them or hear them. It’s just me and you. You are my savior and best friend,” she smiles big, presses a kiss to my cheek and moves away from me quickly to her safe distance.

  “You… You touched me,” is all I can stammer out as I stare at her.

  “Was that wrong?” Her eyes immediately going wide.

  “No,” I answer quickly. “But you never get that close to other people outside your parents.”

  She shrugs her shoulders, as if it wasn’t a huge step for her. “It felt right for that moment. Please don’t get too close without…”

  “You don’t have to finish that. I’d never do anything to scare you.”

  Ten years old…

  “I know this stuff already Mama,” shoving angrily at the books that lay before me.

  “Show me you know then,” Mom challenges me.

  “What do you mean?”

  “If you take this test and pass it, you don’t have to do this course and I’ll move you up… again… and try something more challenging to you. Do we have a deal?”

  Looking down at the Math that lay out before me that is so easy for me it makes me feel stupid for having to do it. Maybe I am stupid and this really wasn’t easy and all my answers were all wrong, not right. Looking back up at the long test that she still holds in her hand, I knew I could do it. That’s what Hunter would tell me.

  At first, I tried to make Hunter happy by calling him Drew. Sighing, I just don’t like the name. It doesn’t seem to fit him. Hunter is strong, protective, and that is the way I see him. Drew seems weak sounding. So, I quit calling him that. Of course, he asked me why I did. I just told him it was because it didn’t fit him. He’d smiled and said Hunter it is then.

  Shaking my head, I turn my focus back to the matter at hand. Once again my thoughts went to Hunter. He’d tell me to excel at what I know and work hard at what I don’t. With determination, I smile at my mom.

  “Okay fine. Deal.”

  The front cover of the test says that it may take several hours to complete. My first thought is that Mom tricked me, but as I open the test and Mom removes all the school books and papers, I’m done before she even has lunch prepared.

  “Can I take a break now? Maybe play for a little bit,” I groan.

  Mom nods her head with what looks to be shock in her eyes. “Y-yes, you can have an hour break then we have more homework to do okay?”

  “Yes Ma’am,” I answer as I head upstairs to my room.

  Looking around my room, I try to figure out what I want to do. My room wasn’t big, but it wasn’t small either. My bed is right in front of the door with a nightstand on both sides. Often times, I’d just run in my room and jump on my bed. If I’m lucky, I don’t get caught.

  My walls had pinstripes of pink on white. Pink flowered curtains hang around my window. In one corner, I have a bookshelf and the other there was a closet door and not far from it a bathroom door. Right in front of the door and alongside my bed is a rug with all my favorite flowers on it.

  Directly to the left of the door, I have a dresser with pictures of my favorite people on there. There’s even a picture of Hunter on there. Smiling, I grab the picture. He was smiling at the camera for my mom. His eyes, they just shine with happiness. Frowning, I put the picture frame back and sit on my bed.

  Pulling my knees up to my chest, I hug them tightly. Happiness is not something I’m ever meant to have. Yet, when I’m with Hunter, I am happy.

  But for how long, retard?

  The familiar snarl from the bad voice filters through my window. A chill runs down my spine.

  Grabbing my pillow, I scream loudly into it. Looking back up at the picture of Hunter, he’s my only happiness. What if that, too, is only temporary? What if time with him is getting closer and closer to goodbye?

  Out of the corner of my eye, I catch the time on the clock. Jumping off the bed, I run down the stairs.

  “Mom, when Hunter comes looking for me can you tell him you think I went to my flowers,” I grin mischievously.

  “Going to hide from him again,” Mom questions with a small smile on her face.

  “Yup, and I’ll do it this time,” I hurry out the door. Running as fast as I can to the flowers and quickly positioning myself so he can’t see me, all the while I’m reminding myself not to make a noise.

  Not long later he was arriving. Just like every time before, I answer him. But this time as we talk afterward, he changes. Something in him changes. Something in me changes. It is almost like a physical and audible click between the two of us. It is that alone that pushes me further than I ever thought I’d go and I hold his face gently in my hands, telling him – no urging him – to understand that hurting him… well, it hurt me too.

  The shock on his face the whole time I touched him told me that he never expected me to do that. It only cements more to me on how much I can trust him. There just can’t be a time limit on this kind of friendship… Could there?

  Get Hunter and Jessa’s story on Amazon

  http://www.amazon.com/Finding-Angel-P-J-Belden-ebook/dp/B016C4G2XQ