The question if Malcolm Hunt had damaged his son wasn’t a question. He had. It was the reason why Jesse moved in with my family from eighth grade until his junior year. He moved out after Ethan died and lived in their huge mansion. Malcolm was rarely around by then so it was him and his housekeeper. Zala was like a second mother in some ways to him. And I knew he considered my parents as his own.
Pain swelled in my chest.
They considered Jesse like one of their own. Blinking back more tears, I remembered when my mother tried to kill herself. Jesse had been with me so he went to the hospital as well. My father hadn’t said a word to me as he embraced Jesse like a long lost son.
I wondered if they took the love they had for Ethan and myself and channeled into the son they could be proud of—Jesse?
Flicking a tear away with a thumb, I refused to think about them anymore. Except that Jesse was lucky in some ways. He still had two parents who loved him, even though they weren’t his by blood. They were still his.
Hoarsely, I asked, “Have you said anything to your friends about her?”
A bitter laugh wrung from deep in his throat. “Are you kidding? Of course not.” The laugh faded and his lips pressed into a flat line. “They think Malcolm Hunt is awesome. Cord’s the only one who remembers a little bit, but he doesn’t remember much and you and Ethan never spread it around school. I was always grateful for that.”
My hand squeezed his.
“Anyway, can we not talk about this anymore?” He tried to give me a reassuring smile. It didn’t reach his eyes. “I think the party moved somewhere else. We could go back there and just hang out? I’ll show you my place. You haven’t seen it yet.”
My emotional wheel of misfortune was on a constant spin. As the arrow started to fall on ‘STAY AWAY’, it went past and landed on ‘RUN AWAY RUN AWAY’, but I found myself smiling back. “Sure. That’d be nice.”
As we left my dorm, my heart sunk. I should’ve gotten out of the car and went upstairs, but I couldn’t do it anymore. I knew this was the beginning of the end.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Jesse and I had a shaky truce going, if that’s what could it be called. I didn’t know, but I did know that I couldn’t tear myself away from him. Not anymore. And I wasn’t ready to take the plunge into an actual relationship so we did what we did. We spent the night together, not every night, and we hung out in secret. The only two people who might’ve guessed at our situation were Cord and Beth. She caught me on the curb again when Jesse drove to pick me up. Cord had been in the basement one time when we slipped through. Other than those two, I didn’t think anyone knew, except for Jamie. However, he didn’t know who the girl was.
We had to write a paper for our group project and he grumbled the entire time in the library about what chick Jesse was banging. Cord stared at me the whole time. I ignored both of them. Jamie kept complaining the whole time. The only time when he didn’t was when he had spotted a leggy blonde or a hot brunette. His words, not mine. Then he’d talk about them the whole time, rating them on his scale, and a few times he would leave the table to score a date or he’d just salivate from the distance.
I was listening to the same rant from him as we met for our last time to go over the paper. We had to plan a presentation, but my part was in the beginning. It was the easiest; I just introduced the group. Cord and Jamie wanted to do the rest. Jamie boasted that they had the most charisma. Cord told me Jamie wanted to be a news sports anchor after college. I asked him if Tiffany knew about those plans, but he only shrugged and went back to typing on the computer.
“All right. I’m done.” Jamie dumped his book on our table and stood to stretch. His massive arms touched some girls as they were walking by us, but he paid them no attention. When I caught a small grin on his face as he sat back down, I knew he’d done it on purpose. The two girls who’d been targeted giggled together as they took the table behind us. They recognized the two basketball players.
Apparently they didn’t hold much interest because Jamie’s next words were, “Let’s go to the cafeteria. I’m f**king starved.”
Cord frowned from the computer. “Dude, I’m still typing our bibliography.”
“I’m hungry.”
“I’m not.”
“Come on, man.” A five year old whine came from Jamie’s throat. He lifted his shoulders in a huff.
I waited, expecting his foot to stamp or for him to cross his arms over his chest as he pouted.
He did neither, but I wouldn’t have been surprised if they were still coming. Instead, he rolled his eyes in an exaggerated motion. “You hear my stomach? It’s like Hurricane Murphy in here. It needs to eat or you don’t know what damage will be done.”
Cord jerked his head towards the door. “Go eat. We’ll still be here.”
Jamie turned his surly gaze to me, but my head had gone back to my book. No way was I getting pulled into this tug of war.
“Fine.” Jamie shoved back his chair. “But this sucks, man. I don’t like to eat alone.”
Cord glanced at the two girls still giggling together. “I think you could get company if you wanted.”
“I have a girlfriend.”
“Not on Friday and Saturday nights according to you,” was shot back at him.
“Oh yeah.” A rueful grin escaped him. “And sometimes Thursdays and Tuesday nights too.”