H2O | ✔

Chapter Twenty-Nine : Great

"You know you can't give me what I need. 
And even though you mean so much to me, 
I can't wait through everything, 
Is this really happening?" 

Xander

14 weeks after Mesi woke up...

"Xander, this is important."

I rolled my eyes, sitting back in my seat. "No kidding."

The lady in front of me sighed in frustration. She pushed her big, round tortoise-shell glasses up on her small nose, and tucked wisps of her long blonde hair that had fallen from the tight ponytail at the back of her head behind her ear. Her panty-hose clad legs were crossed, the left over the right, and her arms were folded in front of her chest. Everything about her told me she was trying very hard to keep from getting annoyed at me. Too late.

"C'mon, Xander. Give me something. Don't you want to find her?" I looked into her eyes for the first time, noticing that they were a nice deep blue, and instantly regretted it. Those deep blue eyes were not filled with annoyance, but full of concern. I hated concern.

I shook my head, pinching a small piece of the skin on my palm together with my fingers so I would keep it together. "You wanna know the truth, Jess?" She'd told me to call her by her first name, like every other adult who wanted something out of a child. "Truth is, I'm not sure. I mean, if she were to come back here, you'd just lock her up, wouldn't you? I don't want that. She'd just be taken from me again, but this time in a harsher way, and this time it would be my fault. Maybe if I leave her be, someday I'll see her again, you know, not behind bars."

Jess's eyes narrowed at me. "So you do know where she is?"

I groaned, becoming the exasperated one. "I didn't say that. And no, I don't know where she is. She never tells me where she goes when she leaves."

"Did she leave you a lot? For long periods of time?"

"Why do you care?"

Her chin was resting on her hand now, as if she was studying me, a rare and interesting creature outside of his natural environment. "I'm just trying to understand why you defend her. She did horrible things to you, hurt you, and yet you still worry about her."

"Yeah, well, keep trying to figure that one out, why don't ya?"

Jess leaned back in her chair. "You know, there's one more thing that's been bothering me." Then there was a pause before,"You're a strong young man. You're the captain of the soccer team. Why didn't you ever fight back?"

"Gee, I don't know, Jess. You say it's common sense that she shouldn't lay a hand on me, and yet you also say it's common sense that I should've laid a hand on her."

I stood up, done with the interrogation, and exited the room. Walking past the desks of people working tirelessly, I finally found the cool air of the outside world. It bit at my skin, turning my cheeks pink almost instantaneously, and numbed my fingers.

The walk wasn't far. The family I was staying with, the Hendersons, had a house just a couple blocks from the police station, and the center of town.

They were nice, the family I'd been brought to. They were pretty perfect, like the kinds you see on TV, with the mom and dad and three children that all cause their own mayhem, but in the end everyone hugs each other and says,"I love you." I had no idea those people existed until I was sleeping in their guest room.

I opened the front door, wiping off my shoes on the welcome mat my mother never would've bothered to buy, and placed them on the shoe rack just inside the house.