“Is that why you were just sitting outside the library yesterday then? You were waiting for all the kids to come to you?” He asked her in a smarty pants kind of way.
Katie was surprised to find herself laughing at him being so sarcastic. Normally she would just shrug it off, but she honestly found it funny. “No, I was just sitting there thinking about how happy I am that it was summer. I was over school, and am glad that we are finally out.”
“I don’t know I didn’t find school so bad,” Jack replied as he pushed his plate away. He was full, so he knew that he would have to ask for a box to take the rest home for later.
“Yeah well, you were not here for very long, and from what I know, you were not really there as much as school was actually open either,” she replied with the same sarcastic tone he had used earlier.
“Why I am not sure what you are trying to say about me,” he said feigning disbelief, trying his hardest to not laugh.
Katie saw how hard he was trying not to laugh and took full advantage of it by saying, “yeah well did you forget that we had history class together, and you sat in front of me?”
Before she could say anything else, Jack hid his face as if he was ashamed of what she was saying, and started laughing so hard that he thought he was going to fall out of his chair. He liked that Katie was so easy to talk to.
When he was able to stop laughing, he gathered himself together, and said “Huh, I didn’t realize you paid that much attention to me in school.”
Katie could feel her face turning red as she tried to gather her thoughts. Honestly she had not realized that she had paid that close attention to him in school as well. “I didn’t pay that much attention to you,” she said trying hard not to look at him, “it was just hard to not notice such a “pretty boy” not sitting there like he should have been. Besides there were a few times you were supposed to be my partner in class but ended up having to do all the work myself.”
“That was a good comeback,” Jack said. He couldn’t even come up with anything to say against this. In Denver none of his friends would ever had said anything like that to him, and if they did they would not have liked the results that would follow.
“Yeah well, you are definitely an easy target.” Katie replied, hoping that he was not going to get mad because she was being so free with what she was saying. She found it odd that she was actually being so uninhibited when it came to what she said around him. It was totally out of the norm for Katie, but she found that she was extremely comfortable when it came to talking to Jack. There was only one other person she had found that it was this easy to talk to. That struck her as odd since that person was Jackson. She was always doing things, saying things, which would make Jackson crack up. It seemed to truly be the only thing to make him feel better on his bad days.
Jack touched her hand bringing her back to the here and now. It surprised her so much so that she jerked her hand back.
“I didn’t mean to scare you. I just wanted to say that this has been the most fun I have had in a long time,” he said.
“Oh no you just surprised me. I was actually just zoned out. It wasn’t you at all.” Katie replied, not being able to shake the feeling that there had been two hands on hers and not just his one. She couldn’t tell him that though, because she didn’t want to sound like she was losing her mind. Heck, she felt like she was losing her mind, she didn’t need anyone else confirming it.
“What were you thinking about then?” Jack asked.
Katie was not expecting him to ask that, and she honestly did not want to tell him about Jackson yet, so she had to think fast.
“I was just thinking about the fact that my parents would probably strangle me if they knew that I was having lunch with you.” Katie said.
“Yeah somehow or another, I managed to get that bad boy reputation in the few months that I have been here. I can’t understand why since I do everything I am supposed to do including going to school,” Jackson said in as honest a tone as he could muster without laughing.
Katie just shook her head since she was laughing so hard that it was almost starting to hurt. “You know if you were the kind of guy that went to church and helped little old women cross the street it would just make you boring, so I wouldn’t let anyone else’s opinion bother you.”
“Well thanks for that pep talk there Blondie. I will have to remember that as I walk down the street and everyone is shooting daggers at me for no real reason since they do not honestly know me.” Jack knew that they had a reason to dislike him, but he had never really been one to care what others thought of him. In Denver, no one dared to really say what they were thinking about him.
“What did you do to make them not like you?” Katie asked. She honestly never found anything really wrong with him. Yes he did not attend class like he should, but who could blame him since Mr. Morgan was so darn boring anyways. Most of the kids were trying their hardest to just stay awake.
“Honestly, I am not sure. It could be that I just don’t really fit in around here. Or it could be that I did get into some slight trouble with the cops when we first moved here,” he replied with a smirk on his face.
Shocked with what he just told her, Katie looked at him with her mouth hanging open. How did she not know that he had gotten into trouble? How is it that she had not been observant enough to remember something like this, after all, in the small town schools, all the gossip makes its rounds rather quickly?
Jack started to laugh out loud in a subtle way, as not to bring attention to the two of them. “It was a misunderstanding is all,” he said to Katie.
“A misunderstanding, it must have been a big one if you had to deal with the cops,” she replied as she picked up her drink to take a sip.
“I was out late one night and I saw a house that was empty. I just needed a place to think and so I went inside and just walked around. Apparently someone saw me and called the cops. They say it was breaking and entering, but it wasn’t like I was going in to destroy anything, I just wanted some place to get out of the rain, that wasn’t my house. I know this is probably hard to believe, but I am not some hoodlum that is trying to cause trouble,” Jack replied with a little bit of shyness.
“Well that was something I didn’t know about. Which really surprises me since our school is small and I am sure it got around. But I must say, it is a petty thing to get into trouble for. Yes you should not have gone into a home that was not yours, but it wasn’t like you were destroying the inside or anything. Sometimes people just like to be nosey it seems like,” Katie replied.
“Yes but I shouldn’t have been there. I really didn’t get much except for a fine and some community service, but I will not be doing that again,” he said.
Katie noticed that the café had seemed to have cleared out. She looked at the clock on the wall, and noticed it was already two thirty. They had been sitting here for two hours and the conversation had never stopped. She was just amazed at how easy she found it to be to talk to him.
“I should be getting home soon. I didn’t leave a note for my mom and she is probably trying to figure out where I am. She does that a lot lately,” Katie said dropping her head. She felt sad again thinking about Jackson, but again she didn’t feel like she was alone. She couldn’t figure out why she kept feeling like this. It was really starting to get annoying frankly.
“Yeah I should be getting home and cleaning my room anyways. We should do this again sometime,” Jack said.
“Yes we should. It was fun,” Katie said.
Katie took out some money to pay her half of the bill, and Jack stopped her saying “No, I have the bill.”
“It’s ok I have money, I can pay for my own. It isn’t a big deal,” Katie replied.
“No really, I asked you to come with me, I’ve got it. Next time I will let you pay,” he said jokingly.
Katie didn’t know what to think. She had never gone out with a boy so she didn’t know that they paid for anything. “Ok that sounds like a dea
l to me.”
Chapter 8
Katie was looking around the street while her and Jack walked back home after they had lunch. They continued the conversation as if they had always been friends. They talked about things they like to do for fun, and what they did as kids that they remembered most. They talked about vacations they took and what their favorite memory was as a kid.
They talked all the way to Katie’s house and was surprised when they almost walked by it. “Well I guess this is it. Thanks for lunch, it was fun,” Katie said to Jack.
“Yes and it was great to talk to someone my age, and the food was better than you gave it credit. It is definitely going to be my new favorite place to eat,” Jack said.
“Well I should get inside. Thanks again for lunch,” Katie said with a smile.
“Anytime, I really enjoyed it myself. We will have to do it again soon,” Jack replied as he turned to leave. “I’ll see you later.”
“Later,” Katie said as she walked up the walk to the front door.
Katie walked in and closed the door behind her. Her head was spinning as she was replaying the lunch in her head. It had been so unbelievably easy to talk to him. She just couldn’t get over the fact that he reminded her of Jackson. So much so that it brings a smile to her face anytime she thinks about him.
She walked in the kitchen feeling like she was walking on clouds. She went to the fridge to get a bottle of water. As she closed the door she turned around, she saw her mom coming in the kitchen.
“Hey mom, I didn’t hear you come in the door,” Katie said with a smile as she walked over and kissed her mom on the cheek.
“I have been home since one o’clock. Where have you been?” she replied as she walked to the stool at the counter to sit down.
“Oh I was just out. I went to the library to see if I could find a book to read. I haven’t been reading as much as I should be, so I felt the need to. I also went to see if I am going to be reading to any of the kids this week. You got off work early?”
“Yes I didn’t really feel like I needed to stay at work, with really nothing for me to do. Things are slow right now. They usually do slow down when the summer comes. It is like no one wants to take any time to do any decorating. It always seems like people want to redo their homes in the spring time, just in time for making a new restart after the winter,” her mom replied. She worked for an interior decorating firm, and she loved her job. It was the best possible job when Jackson was sick. They were all so wonderful, and it allowed her to stay home with him, be with him every day he was in the hospital, and take as much time off after Jackson died that she needed. They even continued to pay her even when she wasn’t there. Without this job she would never have been able to spend Jackson’s last days with him at home. Just knowing that she spent as much time as possible with him, made dealing with losing her precious baby, easier. Well as easy as it could be anyways.’
“Yeah that makes sense that people would want to redecorate then.” Katie replied. She grabbed a banana and took a bite. She looked around the room. She had always loved this house. It was the house that her parents had bought after they had found out they were having their first baby. It always felt warm and homey, and there was no other place that she would have ever wanted to really live anywhere else that did not include this house.
“I am going to go upstairs and clean my room and the bathroom,” Katie said to her mom, more so because she didn’t really want to talk anymore to her mom.
“That shouldn’t take you to long. You have always been a very clean person. Even as a baby, you didn’t like to be dirty. You would cry until I wiped your face off. If you got anything on your shirt you would change it every single time.”
Katie had heard this story a thousand times and really didn’t want to hear it again, but if it stopped her mother from asking anymore about her day then she would happily listen.
“Your dad always thought it was so odd of you to be so clean. You would stack your blocks perfect. I loved it because it meant that I didn’t have to spend my nights cleaning the house after you had gone to bed,” her mom continued.
Katie wasn’t really listening. She was thinking about her date with Jack. Was it really a date or was it a lunch? She wasn’t sure what she wanted it to be either. It just amazed her at how easy it was to talk to him. It was like they had always been friends.
Katie hadn’t realized that her mother has stopped talking. She was still in a daze. However, her mom had noticed that Katie was physically there in the kitchen, but mentally she was elsewhere. She was sure that it had something to do with that boy she saw her talking to, as she walked by the living room window. She knew that boy was bad news. The whole town knew it. There was something off about that boy. She would talk to Katie about it over dinner tonight. Katie had always been such a responsible kid; she couldn’t imagine her having any kind of dealings with a boy like that.
The phone ringing startled Katie’s mom out of her deep thought. She walked over to the phone on the wall and picked it up.
“Hello,” Katie’s mom said to the person on the other end, as Katie listened. “I’m good. How are you?” she continued.
Katie didn’t know who was on the other end but she was sure that it was just another nosey neighbor “checking in on them” as they call it. Katie called it just pure nosiness. That was her problem with this neighbor hood. Everyone just wanted to know everyone else’s business.
“Oh yes, I will make sure to ask her if she would be interested in helping at the library this summer reading to the kids,” Katie heard her mom say to the person she has now deducted to be Mrs. Smith the librarian. Katie slowly got up out of her chair, trying her hardest to escape before her mom got off the phone. Just as she turned around, Katie’s mom snapped her fingers and gave Katie a look when she turned around, that Katie knew meant business. Katie slumped back into the chair.
“Yes, thank you for calling and I will talk to you later.” Katie’s mom hung up the phone and turned to look at Katie. Her mom walked over to the island and leaned down across from her. “As you have already figured out that was Mrs. Smith the librarian. My question is why she would be calling to ask if you would be interested in reading to the kids if you had already gone to the library and talked to her?”
Katie didn’t know what to think. She never thought about the possibility of Mrs. Smith calling the house to see if she wanted come back. She said the first thing that came to mind. “Mom you know Mrs. Smith is getting older and she must have forgotten that we had already talked about this when I went in last.”
Her mom knowing Katie way to well knew that Katie was lying. She could never look her in the eye when she was not telling the truth. “Well then let’s go down there right now together. You can get a schedule and I will get a book or two. I have been meaning to do that for the last couple of weeks,” mom said as she started gathering up her things, waiting for Katie to come up with a good reason not to go.. She could see it in her face that she was trying to come up with a good one.
“Actually I was thinking maybe you can grab one for me. I have a headache and I think I should go lay down for a while to see if it will go away,” Katie replied hoping that she would just go without her.
“Here,” her mom said as she looked through her purse looking for her bottle of Tylenol she took everywhere with her. “Take this and if you still feel bad when we get home then you can go lay down.”
Katie didn’t have any other excuses. She would have to go to the library and she would actually have to go inside this time. The thought of this scared her and she knew that ready or not she would have to enter the library, or have to discuss what she was feeling. That was definitely something she was not willing to do.
Feeling defeated over it all Katie grabbed her things and headed for the car. She knew that the entire way there mom would want to talk, and she would be trying to brace herself for the flood of emotions that she was already starting to feel. It was taking everything s
he had in her to keep the tears from flowing.
Chapter 9
As they drove to the library, Katie knew that her mom was pondering what question to ask first. She could just hear her asking, “Why did you lie to us?”, or “Why are you acting so strange?” These were all questions she didn’t want to answer.
Trying to keep the conversation light she turned to her mom and asked her, “What are you thinking for dinner tonight mom?”
“Actually I had not really thought much about dinner yet. Why?” she replied without taking her eyes off the road.
“What if I make you and dad a nice dinner just for the two you?” she asked trying to make the thought of, “boy are you sucking up,” she had in her head go away
“That sounds really great. What are you going to make?” mom asked.
“What did you want? I’ll make anything as long as you give me the benefit of the doubt that the first time may not be great,” she said.
“How about baked chicken on a nice bed of lettuce with garlic bread?” she said as she put her turn signal on to turn left.
“Sure mom, it will be easy for me to make. What time do you think dad will be home?” she asked as she peered out the window at the passing houses.
“He should be home by six, but I’ll call him and make sure,” she replied.
“Okay, that sounds good.” Katie said in almost a whisper.
“You will be eating with us as well, right?” she asked her in a tone that Katie knew meant it was not really a question, but more of a “you better say yes” type of thing.
Knowing she couldn’t say no Katie said, “yes of course, but I just thought it would be nice for you and dad to have a nice romantic dinner just the two of you.”
“Dad and I are just fine,” she replied to Katie as she pulled into the parking lot, “I think we need some family time.”
At this very moment Katie wished she was still talking to all of her friends. She would have had a place to have a sleepover so that she wouldn’t have to worry about the conversation she knew was bound to take place tonight. Hoping to mask the discontentment in her voice she put a smile on her face, and said in the most upbeat voice she could come up with, “Sure mom, that sounds great,” as she unbuckled her seat belt, and hopped out of the car before anything else could be said.
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