“Accounting,” Krissy said truthfully as she lowered herself into the seat beside Jamie.
“Like your father?!” Rhonda stated, her eyes cutting into her son, whose face was like stone as he just stared at the wall in front of him as he chewed his bite.
“Yes, like my father,” Jamie repeated in a cold tone. While it was true a terrorist killed his father, nonetheless, his father wouldn’t have had to flee to England if it wasn’t for the lies they had spread about him to the world where it was nigh impossible for his father to find work when he was let go from his job in New York. It didn’t matter if his father was innocent; it didn’t matter; his father never once laid a hand on him out of anger or some twisted perversion. No. They all took it as gospel, and he lost his father because they all believed the lies of his mother. When the truth came out, it was too late; their apologies meant shit to him; he had told them as such when they tried to appease their consciences.
“What about you, Krissy?” Rhonda inquired, unwilling to push Jamie when he was in that kind of mood. She didn’t want to ruin their morning.
“Thinking about teaching,” Krissy said honestly.
“Oh?! Do you know which grade you were thinking of teaching?” Rhonda asked, taking a vested interest in her stepdaughter’s life. She noted David’s interest as his eyes were on his daughter.
“Maybe seventh or eighth grade,” Krissy said as she took a sip of her orange juice. Flashing Jamie a smile when he passed the plate of bacon to her. Reaching below the table, lightly rubbing his left thigh, silently telling him she was thankful that he was keeping his tongue in his mouth for her.
“Come on, Squirt, cartoons,” Jamie said, unbuckling Suzie from her highchair, who hopped in it at the mention of cartoons. That was after he had cleaned her hands with a wet washcloth. Resting her left cheek on her brother’s left shoulder, seeing her mouther smiling warmly at her as Suzie wore a smile as Jamie carried her into the living room.
As Saturday passed into the next, when Krissy’s grandparents came over for lunch, Jamie just smirked cruelly at the short leash David’s mother had Ken on when they walked up the driveway. Soon his own grandparents arrived, seeing their happy faces as they climbed out of their car. Suzie’s voice filled the air as she ran around the front yard as Jamie played with her. Greeting his grandparents for the first time in years, seeing the spark in their eyes when he did, telling them his mother was in the kitchen if they wondered. That was before Suzie jumped in front of him with a huge smile and tagged him before giggling as her little legs carried her away. Jamie scooped her up in his arms when she got dangerously close to the road. Only to turn back towards the house, seeing his mother and David just watching him. It wasn’t hard for him to note his mother’s love-filled eyes nor David’s approving look at the fact that he took Suzie’s safety seriously.
“Come in, honey, lunch should be ready soon; why don’t you take Suzie and wash up,” Rhonda said, feeling David pressing her into his right side as his hand rubbed her right shoulder.
“I don’t know; you ready to go in?” Jamie asked, looking down at Suzie, who had a thoughtful look on her face that only a three-year-old could achieve before nodding. Hearing Krissy talking with her grandparents and his own as he walked into the house. Helping Suzie wash her hands as she stood on the step stool his mother had placed in there for her, chatting away with Suzie as they made soap bubbles with her little hands. Her laughter was infectious as she stared up at her older brother.
“I love you,” Suzie sighed as she hugged his legs, hoping he was going to stay forever and ever. Never leaving her all alone again.
“Love you too, Squirt,” Jamie responded, rubbing her back before leaving the bathroom.
“Jamie, would you put Suzie in her high chair for me while we get the food to the table?” Rhonda asked, carrying the bowl of green beans to the table. “Thank you, honey,” she said, flashing Jamie a smile as he picked Suzie up and offered no resistance when he placed her in her chair. Peering back at the two of them, a warmth seeped into her heart at the sight of the two of them as David’s voice could be heard from their kitchen. While she might never have a close relationship with her eldest child, she was just glad that Suzie and Ben would have what she had carelessly harmed. Wrapping her arms around David’s waist, pressing her right cheek against his back, who stopped craving up the roast she made as she held him.
“So, how are you doing, Jamie?” Reina, David’s mother, asked as their Sunday lunch got underway.
“Fine, how’s living with that?” Jamie replied, pointing at Ken, who glared at him when he smirked. “Has he stepped out again?”
“No, he has not; thank you for asking; he knows he will have nothing if he does,” Reina said politely since they were at the dinner table. “He’s chaffing being under my lash, but it’s either that or he’ll be poor until the day he dies,” she stated, noting how her son wanted to say something yet was wise enough to keep his mouth shut.
“Good, seems fitting for a man who cheats,” Jamie praised, noting his mother’s and David’s eyes on him.
“It does, so any thoughts on school?” Reina asked before taking a bite of her roast.
“Going to UNC Wilmington in the fall,” Jamie supplied.
“Oh? I hope you excel in your studies, Krissy; any thoughts of where you might want to go?” Reina spoke, looking over at her granddaughter, not paying attention to Rhonda’s parents when they had a knowing look at what that school meant. She didn’t know why the name of that school would conjure that look, nor was she going to find out.
“Going to the same school as Jamie,” Krissy said, placing her hand lightly on Jamie’s forearm. “Got something to say, grandfather?” she asked, trying not to sneer at the man when Ken grumbled beneath his breath. “Thought so,” Krissy stated when Ken remained silent, withering beneath her gaze. “I’m going to study to be a teacher,” she spoke, returning her gaze back to her grandmother.
“That’s a hard job to take on, Ellie here,” resting his age-spotted hand over his wife’s, “was a teacher until she retired,” Xander, Rhonda’s father, said, smiling at Krissy.
“If you need help dealing with the teacher’s union, you just call me anytime,” Ellie said, yet her eyes were on her grandson. It was good to see Jamie had let go of his attitude unless it was warranted.
Throughout the rest of the visit from the grandparents, Ken was rather subdued with two awfully painful elbows in his ribs from Krissy; Jamie kept his witty, sarcastic retorts to himself. Although he knew they were zingers, at least he thought they were, given how Ken’s high and mighty attitude had all but vanished like a fart in the wind. That didn’t stop Jamie from smiling cruelly at Ken with how Reina was treating the man in front of everyone like he had treated everyone before his cheating ways came to light. Jamie even walked his grandparents out to their car. While he wasn’t ready to welcome them fully back into his confidence, given how they sided with his cheating mother, nonetheless, he could tell how happy they were at that small gesture; even his mother was ecstatic by it.
“Yeah, I might be a punk, but at least I’m not a cheating, lying, two-bit old douche,” Jamie retorted when Ken called him a punk beneath his breath as he and Reina passed him as they walked to their own car. “At least I know how to keep my junk where it belongs; the same can’t be said about you.”
“Make sure you remember that young man,” Reina said after having a hearty laugh at her husband’s expense.
“Have you seen your granddaughter? She’ll kill me,” Jamie joked.
“You better believe it,” Krissy said from the porch, crossing her arms below her breasts, smirking at Jamie when he turned to look at her.
The rest of the week was mostly uneventful for Jamie and Krissy, other than seeing Missy off with her mother’s car packed full of her belongings, ready to depart for their trip out to California. Where Missy’s mother would be staying once she had got their apartment packed up and shipped home with her brother’s help. Missy’s mother already had a job lined up for her; she just didn’t want to be so far away from her daughter, so Missy would be staying in the apartment she had already rented so she wouldn’t miss any of her college classes while her mother and uncle drove the U-Haul across the country. Missy and Krissy had spent a lot of time talking about her time with Steven; even after he had returned to Washington, he just wouldn’t leave her mind. Missy had told Krissy she had given him her phone number and hoped he would call, which he had done several times since his return home. Krissy could tell how much her being away from the man Missy cared more for the man than Missy was letting on or that she might not even realize at the moment. It was the same way she felt about Jamie whenever they were apart for more than a day. While Krissy could point it out to her friend, she knew Missy had to come to terms with it on her own. She couldn’t see the fascination with a man twenty years older than her, but if it worked out for her friend, she would be happy for Missy. Then it was time for Dafne to leave for her own adventure into her adult life. It was a sad day for Krissy, with all her friends gone from the hometown they all grew up in. Everywhere she looked, her memories would flare of the places the four of them went, the laughs they shared, the conversations they had, falling into Jamie’s arms when they were back home. How she loved how he held her as she moped at how life was changing everything they knew. She just hoped that throughout the years, she and her friends would still be friends and that the distance between them didn’t make them drift apart.
With a very tearful goodbye on Rhonda’s, Suzie’s, and Krissy’s part on the day, they had to leave to return to North Carolina so they, too, could get on with their own lives. Suzie just wouldn’t let Jamie go as she smeared her snot and tears on his pants legs. Telling him not to go, not to leave her anymore, that she was going to be so sad being all alone. Asking him if he loved her and why he had to leave her.
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