My Brother's Bodyguard (Hometown Heros #1)

by G. L. Snodgrass

  Mom’s eyes grew big and Nana gasped as she looked over my shoulder. I turned slowly as my stomach dropped. Jimmy stood there, looking at me as if I was the evilest person on the planet.

  My heart fell, how much had he heard?

  The look of betrayal in his eyes confirmed my worst fear.

  “You asked Nate to protect me?” he said with disbelief. “He did it so that you’d go out with him. That was the reason. Basically, you sold yourself to protect me! Because you thought I was so weak, so stupid, so … so socially inept, that I couldn’t survive unless you sacrificed yourself.”

  He looked at me with hollow eyes. Like he couldn’t believe what he was seeing.

  “No…” I started. He’d completely misunderstood everything I said.

  “You’re worse than her,” he yelled, indicating our mother, as he turned and rushed from the kitchen again.

  “Jimmy,” I yelled after him as my heart broke. The look of pain on his face would haunt me to my old age. The hollow washed out look of someone whose world had just been ruined. I started to rush out after him but Mom grabbed my arm and pulled me around.

  “Where are you going?” she demanded. “We are not done.”

  “Mom …” I began.

  “Don’t you Mom me,” she said. “You will stop seeing Nate immediately. You are still only seventeen. And you live in my house. I will talk to the school tomorrow and find out what is really going on. In the meantime, you are grounded until you start growing up a little and start thinking about other people.”

  I stared at her. Unable to believe this was my mother. What was going on in that brain of hers? If she thought I was going to stop seeing Nate, she was sadly mistaken. There was a better chance the sun stopped crossing from east to west.

  We stared at each other for a long minute, then I stomped my foot and stormed out of there before I said something I would regret the rest of my life.

  .o0o.

  Nate

  I knew things were bad first thing Monday morning. I had just turned onto Elle’s street when I saw Ms. Watson pulling out of their driveway with Elle up front and Jimmy in the back. My stomach lurched. This was not good.

  Both Jimmy and his mom ignored me as we passed each other. Elle shot me an apologetic smile that sent a shiver down my back. She looked worried. Real worried, not teenager angst worried.

  I quickly turned around and followed them to school. But, by the time I parked, Elle’s mom was already storming into school, her two children on either side. Not good.

  My insides tightened up as I hurried to catch them.

  I was almost up with them just inside the front door when Elle looked over her shoulder and gave me a quick shake of her head. Silently telling me to back off.

  What was going on? Nothing made sense. But I did what she asked and slowed down. This looked like a family thing and I wasn’t invited.

  Instead, I headed to Mr. Anderson’s English Lit class. I’d pump Jimmy for information when he showed up.

  It must have been at least fifteen minutes into class before the door cracked open and Jimmy stepped inside. He looked furious as he handed Mr. Anderson a note. The black eye almost shocking in its technicolor. I had to hide a smile. It made the kid look tough. Probably for the first time in his life.

  Then he slipped into a desk in the front row. He glanced back at me and I swear the kid wanted to cut me into a thousand little pieces. My heart fell. What was going on? The kid and I always got along. I thought back over the day before. He’d left the gym giving me a high five and couldn’t stop talking about coming back.

  Then this morning, he shows up with his mom?

  Suddenly, things started to fall in place and it left an empty feeling in the pit of my stomach.

  It didn’t take Joe McCain long to catch on. He shot me a sick smile and mouthed the words, “Lovers quarrel?”

  I ignored him. Obviously, I had much bigger problems.

  When the bell rang I rushed to the door before he could escape.

  “Jimmy,” I said as I grabbed his arm. “What is going on?”

  I swear the kid looked like I’d killed his favorite puppy. A mix of anger and hurt and betrayal that made me freeze.

  He pulled his arm free and stomped out of the room without saying a word.

  All I could do was stand there as the other kids walked past. Most of them curious, some shooting me smirks.

  Joe McCain laughed as he slithered by like the snake he was. “That’s what you get for hanging out with ungrateful munchkins.”

  I continued to ignore him as I tried to wrap my mind around Jimmy and his anger.

  Elle, she’d tell me, I thought as I hurried from the room.

  Of course, as soon as I saw her walking toward me I could tell my problems had just grown a lot worse. Her face looked all blotchy, like she’d been crying. My insides grew hard as a rock as my hands clenched into fists. If something had hurt her, I would destroy it.

  “What is going on?” I said as I took her hand, desperately wanting to pull her into a hug and make her problems go away.

  She looked up at me with red-rimmed eyes and slowly shook her head. “I’m sorry, so sorry.”

  “What?” I demanded, probably louder than I should have. But I needed someone to tell me what was going on or I was going to lose it.

  Elle took a deep breath, all the while, the kids in the hall pushed past us, parting and going around. I didn’t care, they were smart enough not to bump into us. Not when I was in this mood.

  “I told my mom about us,” she said as her head sank to her chest. “Jimmy heard.”

  My brow narrowed in confusion. What was there to tell? We hadn’t done anything terrible. In fact, I had been a saint compared to most guys. We’d both been saints.

  Elle saw the confused look in my eyes and explained. “About the pretend dating. Jimmy heard.”

  “Oh crap,” I mumbled to myself.

  “Mom lost it, I was trying to make her understand. She was saying terrible things about you.” Her eyes begged me to understand. To forgive her.

  “What kind of things?” I asked with a hesitant breath, desperately needing to know the truth but also afraid of the answer. I held my breath while Elle struggled to tell me.

  “She said I can’t see you anymore,” she finally was able to blurt out. “But she’s wrong. She can’t tell me what to do. Not like this. I tried explaining to her about how I felt. About how we both felt. She believed me. But it didn’t matter. We had a big fight.”

  It was like someone had shot me in the heart with a steel arrow. A clean hit, nothing but the heart ruined.

  Maybe her mother was right, I thought. I mean, come on. This was never going to last. I wasn’t the guy for Elle. Anyone could see it. Only her mom had the courage to say it out loud.

  A cold hollow feeling passed through me as I realized what I must do. Her brother hated me. Her mom despised me. And in the long run, Elle was going to leave me. Everybody always did. Better to end it now. A clean break.

  I closed my eyes for a moment to gather myself. I’d done a lot of hard things in my life, been through bad times. But this had to be the worse. No doubt about it.

  Leaning down, I looked into her eyes.

  “Maybe your mom is right,” I said.

  The look of pain that flashed into her eyes buried me under a ton of guilt. But I had to do this. For both of us.

  She looked back up at me like I’d stuck her in the back with a kitchen knife.

  I swallowed hard, and forced myself to say the words that needed to be said.

  “Come on Elle, you had to know this would never work. Not long term. Your mom is right. I’m not the guy for you. You deserve first class. You deserve someone who is going to be somebody.”

  “But …” she started to say.

  No, I said to myself. Don’t let her talk you out of this. Gently taking her shoulders in my hands I slowly shook my head. “You’re still a minor,” I added. “And there is no w
ay I am sneaking around behind your mom’s back.”

  A large tear started to roll down her cheek, tearing me in two. God how I loved this girl. I would always love her. But I couldn’t ruin her life. I loved her too much to do that to her.

  Giving her shoulders a slight squeeze I smiled sadly then turned and walked away. With every step away from her, I felt my world come crumbling down.

  Somehow I made it out of school and all the way to my truck without losing it. I pulled myself behind the wheel and sat there trying to figure out what had happened. It felt like I’d just been pummeled for fifteen rounds by an expert.

  Everything ached, everything hurt. And I didn’t know if I’d ever feel good again.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Elle

  My life was over. This must be what it was like to be told that you were about to die. An empty silence descended over me. Nothing existed but those wide shoulders walking away and out of my life.

  I stood there in the hall. Long, slow tears, rolling down my cheek. Unable to move. Unable to come to grips with what had just happened. Nate had broken up with me. He’d walked away like I didn’t matter. Like we didn’t matter. How could he do this to me? To us.

  Sniffling, I wiped at my cheeks and tried to think but nothing happened. A numbness held my body in place.

  “Elle,” someone said. “Elle, what’s wrong?”

  I had to shake my head a dozen times to clear it enough to see Jeanna standing there, her brow narrowed in concern.

  “Nate,” I managed to say. “Nate …”

  “What?” she demanded

  “Nate … broke … up … with … me,” I said, each word punctuated by a sob.

  “The bastard,” she said as she pulled me out of the rush of people and towards the girl's bathroom.

  “No,” I said as it started to sink it. “No, it was my mom. It’s all her fault.”

  “Your mom?” she asked as she wet some paper towels and handed them to me to wipe my face.

  Taking a deep breath, I looked at myself in the mirror and didn’t even have enough emotions in me to care that I looked like a drowned raccoon. Taking the wet towels, I tried to wipe my eyes.

  Jeanna watched me, her obvious concern the one thing I could hang on to.

  “What happened?” she asked.

  I ignored the dozen other girls in the bathroom and tried to tell her everything. Jimmy getting hurt. Me spilling the secret right in front of him. How he hated me now and my mom refused to let me see Nate anymore.

  “And you’re going to listen to what she says?” Jeanna asked with disbelief.

  “No,” I answered. “But when I told Nate, he agreed with my mother. He said we couldn’t be together anymore.” I had no sooner said the words aloud as the pain came rushing in to replace the numbness.

  “Like I said, that bastard,” Jeanna said with a shake of her head. She’d never really liked Nate. Never understood him like I did. Never really accepted that a guy like him could like a girl like me. But then the sudden realization hit me. She was right. Obviously, Nate couldn’t like a girl like me. At the heart of the matter that was what it came down to. He hadn’t even let me explain.

  He’d jumped at the opportunity to dump me by the side of the road. The first sign of any issue and he ran. One thing I knew for sure. Nate wasn’t a coward. So that meant the only reason to run was because he didn’t care enough to deal with the issue.

  Gripping the side of the sink, I began to cry. That deep ugly cry. My heart was broken and would never again be whole.

  Jeanna gently rubbed my back while she calmly waited for me to get it out of my system.

  Finally, the tears slowed enough for me to say, “You need to get to class.”

  She laughed, “It’s history. I was praying for an excuse to miss it. Once again, you’ve come through for me.”

  I smiled weakly at her attempt to lessen my pain. “You’ll end up failing.”

  She laughed and shook her head. “No way, I’ll just ask Jimmy to help me.”

  Jimmy! Oh, how he hated me. And just like that, the tears returned full force.

  “He’ll never forgive me,” I mumbled through ragged tears.

  Jeanna shook her head. “The twerp will see the truth eventually. He’s not a complete idiot. But he is a boy. So it will take him longer to admit he was wrong.”

  Unfortunately, it looked like Jeanna was wrong. Jimmy avoided me for the rest of the day. When he saw me in the hall, he turned and walked the other way. On the bus, he sat as far from me as it was humanly possible to be without sitting on the front bumper.

  I was in major agony over Nate, and my brother was making it worse. Oh, how I wished he’d give me a hug and tell me everything would be alright. He’d figure out a way to make it right. Instead, he looked at me like I was a traitor.

  Would my life ever be normal again? What if he hated me all year then went off to college next year and we never made up? What if this ruined our relationship? Two estranged siblings who barely talked. Passing into old age without ever reconnecting.

  And one thing I knew for sure, I would be alone. Under no circumstances was I ever going through this again. Was this why my mom had never had a relationship? Was this the reason? For the first time in my life, I thought maybe my mom might be smarter than I thought.

  My brain kept jumping between the loss of Nate and the loss of Jimmy. The two most important people in my life and I lost them at the same time. It wasn’t fair.

  When we got off the bus I let Jimmy go ahead. Don’t push him, I told myself. Let him have his anger. Even if it wasn’t justified. Let him go through this and then perhaps we could come together on the other end.

  The slamming of the front door in my face let me know that it was going to be a long time until we got to the other side.

  Rushing upstairs I threw myself onto my bed and stared up at the ceiling while I tried to figure out how I could ever go on.

  I was still in the same exact position a few hours later when Nana knocked on my door and let herself in.

  “How are you doing?” she asked as she put a plate of food on my nightstand. Grilled cheese and tomato soup. The ultimate comfort food. All I could do was stare at the food then immediately start crying again. It seemed even toasted cheesy goodness could set me off.

  Nana didn’t say anything as she sat down on the bed and pulled me into a tight hug.

  “Oh Nana,” I sobbed into her shoulder.

  She just hugged me until I was all cried out. Once the sobbing had receded, she got up and gave me a quick smile. “Eat something. It won’t make you feel any better, not really. Only time will do that. But make an old woman rest easier and try a little. Okay?”

  I nodded. I’d try, for her. But the thought of ever eating again seemed so strange. How could I eat something when there were so much bigger issues in my life?

  Nana gave me a last sad smile and left me alone.

  Sighing, I returned to staring up at the ceiling and didn’t move. The room grew dark but still, I didn’t move. The numbness had returned.

  .o0o.

  Nate

  I’d been in this place before. The memories of the pain and loss were so familiar. Like old enemies that seemed like they belonged in my life. That oh so familiar hollowness that filled me with an emptiness. A feeling like the world didn’t matter. Nothing mattered, nothing would ever matter again.

  Just like the last time, I holed up and pulled away from the world. It was better this way. No one would suffer because of my anger. No one would be hurt but me. And I would welcome the pain. Take it on and squeeze it down into the bottom of my soul. It was the only way.

  Not for the first time, I missed my mom. She would have known what to say. Sweet words that could ease the pain.

  Staring up at my ceiling, I folded my hands behind my head and tried to come to grips with this familiar feeling. Elle was gone. And it was my fault. But it was the only way. If not now, then eventually. It was the way
of my world.

  One thing I did know for sure. I refused to come between her and her mother. I knew how important a mother was. Under no circumstance would I ruin that for Elle.

  But that didn’t stop me from rewinding all the good times.

  The way she smiled when she thought she’d bested me in something. The way she couldn’t stop grinning when she was just plain happy. That twinkle in her eye that let me know she was thinking about me. The way she smelled of jasmine, like a cool summer wind that filled my soul with a sense of rightness.

  The curve of her hip, the flutter of her eyes when we were about to kiss. Every memory tore at me. Every giggle, glance, and tender touch. All of it buried me under a mountain of pain.

  But there was nothing I could do. I wasn’t enough for her. I would never be enough. She deserved so much more.

  Turning over, I folded my hands under my cheek and continued to stare into nothingness. She deserved the best. Her mother was right.

  My chest hurt and my ears continued to ring but I couldn’t move. All I could do was lay there and suffer alone.

  I lay there through the night and all of the next day. Avoiding the world.

  Uncle Jake came in a couple of times, shook his head and pulled the door shut. He was as lost as I was. There was no solution. Nothing could be done to make the pain go away.

  On the second morning, he walked in and pulled the drapes open.

  “Okay, that’s enough,” he said, turning to glare at me. “It’s time to get up off the mat and start again.”

  I looked at him with pity. The man didn’t understand.

  “I mean it, Nate. I realize life sucks. But you don’t get to wallow forever. I know you. You’ll bounce back. You always do.”

  “When does it stop?” I asked him. “When do I get to be happy?”

  His eyes softened as he stared at me.

  “When you decide to be happy. I realize you’re not ready yet. But the sooner you get up and become part of the world again. The sooner you’ll get there.”