Total pages in book: 69
Estimated words: 66997 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 335(@200wpm)___ 268(@250wpm)___ 223(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 66997 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 335(@200wpm)___ 268(@250wpm)___ 223(@300wpm)
I can’t show weakness. I need to believe it just as much as I need others to believe it. I’m better. Everything’s great now. Except what good did it do now that Jude is here? My carefully constructed reality is going to come crashing down if I let him into my life again. Look what happened last time. His family is too powerful and clearly shady as hell if they’re going to cover up something like this. Granted, what happened back then was big enough without adding in a fake death and prison. No matter how I look at it, it doesn’t make sense unless something else happened. What about his mom?
I still had her number. She liked me. I liked her. I felt like I could trust her. I almost text her but hold back, what do I even say, hi your son and I used to be best friends, you made really great cookies, thought he died but surprise he’s here, what the hell?
Does it even matter anymore now? He’s known I’m here for years and never came, he never sought me out. It’s like the minute I testified and did his family a favor he cut me off. It was self-defense! His dad said since he was a minor it was more important that he protect the family and that if I didn’t take their side. My entire body goes numb thinking about that night. My dad just had to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, desperate for money. The perfect scapegoat, if only he’d told me he’d been working for their family while being an adjunct professor. He barely made enough to put food on the table and was constantly applying to universities but it was never enough so when Jude’s dad offered him random jobs, he took them. If only people didn’t keep secrets. But there were so many coincidences and yet you’d think it was a perfectly formed just in plan that his dad had enacted. Like he’d already thought of every potential way things could go wrong and had a way to fix it just in case they did. I wonder if Jude even knows how evil his own father was.
So why now? What does he want from me? Revenge? Does he really not know that I thought he was dead? See what’s what I need to talk to him about, maybe if he knew, if he knew we could be friends again, then again he has to, for all I know he was part of the plan to begin with!
I don’t have to ask myself if he’s that diabolical, the answer is yes, after all, he has reasons to snap, more reasons than most at least.
Seeing him again, seeing his face, smelling him—it’s something I’ve dreamed about, but every dream switches to a nightmare when I see his crestfallen face in court.
“And you say Mr. Jude Hale acted in self-defense to protect you?” the lawyer asked.
“Yes.” I lied. “He protected me from both intruders, had he not been there, I wouldn’t be here.” It was Washington State, it was his property, he wouldn’t go to prison for self defense, his dad promised. If they found any fault with Jude, it would be that he had the possession of a firearm while underage. It wouldn’t be a big deal. My dad, having an actual record, however, would and since it wasn’t his house, it was no longer self defense. Mr. Hale couldn’t take the fall for shooting intruders because then according to him, they’d dig into everything else he was doing. The only way was if I lied about what I saw that night when I ran down the stairs before Jude. No matter what, Mr. Hale would walk away clean even though it wasn’t self-defense. Not the way I saw it. Both men weren’t even armed. But that was just another secret I’d take to my grave. Because how would it help Jude now? How would it have helped anyone then?
My mind flashes to Jude’s bedroom that night“….you’re the only one I trust.” He laid on my bed and stared up at the ceiling. “I can’t believe you’re the only one I trust and I’m staring at a Justin Bieber poster.”
I laughed and curled against him. “Yeah, well, I’m too short to take it down and I feel like it’s the end of an era if I do.”
“Then Bieber stays.” Jude whispered. “Thank you by the way, for letting me tell you this, life has been shitty enough lately with my parents constantly fighting. I swear they’d just be happier if they got a divorce.”
“Have you told them that?”
“Multiple times. But mom says it’s not that easy for people like them, what the hell does that even mean? People like them?”