Brown Eyed Boy

Conflicted (Carlos POV)

Jessie trembled so hard against me as she told me everything that I was worried. It was like she was reliving the entire nightmare and no matter how much I told her she could stop, she just pushed on until it was all out. And then, she just cried. I hated when I saw Cassie cry but at least with her I knew how to make it stop; I knew how to make whatever pain she was feeling go away and she would bounce back to the happy- go- lucky little sister that I loved. But I hated seeing Jessie cry even more than when Cassie did. Because this pain that she was feeling, this memory that haunted her for the past five years of her life...there was just no way I could make it go away. And more than anything, that's what I wished I could do at that moment. It made me feel helpless and like a terrible friend that I couldn't make the crying and her pain stop and I hated that feeling. The feeling that somehow I had failed her. If only I had kept Jared's stupid comment to myself. Instead I fell for his plan and made Jessie feel this pain again. And that's how I felt; like somehow I had been the cause of this pain and not Jared or that bastard who had started this all.

I held on to Jessie as she cried and I felt utterly useless and conflicted. I wanted to stay here and be here for her as long as she needed me to be but another part of me wanted to leave her and find Jared. I wanted to make him pay for the pain he was making Jessie feel because he had clearly known the significance of those words to her. He knew the damage it would cause at the mention of them and he had done it anyway. No one who could be that callous deserved the right to call themselves a friend to anyone, ever. In my head, I just kept seeing me punching him until he apologized and even after he would it wouldn't satisfy me enough. But even more than finding Jared, I wanted to find the one who started it all; Michael. He didn't deserve the name of an Angel after what he did to Jessie. He didn't deserve to be off somewhere living a normal life, having friends and laughing as though he never harmed her. And even more he didn't deserve to be off somewhere with a girlfriend, enjoying their time together when he had left Jessie emotionally scarred and broken.

Every time I thought of any of this it just made me so angry that I came close to getting up and going to find them. But I couldn't leave Jessie like this and I didn't even know what Michael looked like. So instead I let Jessie cry into my chest and tried to make her feel better. Eventually, I managed to talk her into going into the living room and sitting on the couch until my mom got home so that I could bring her home. But even sitting on the couch, the tears continued to stream down her face. At first I was so preoccupied with her crying that I didn't even notice she was mumbling something. But once I did, I had to struggle to hear her. “I'm damaged goods and now I'm going to lose him too. Michael was right.”

“What?” I said, pulling away from her slightly to make her look at me. “Jessie, what are you talking about? Who are you going to lose?” She didn't answer me and just stared at me in between the tears. It took me a second to realize who she meant and when I did I had to struggle to keep the anger out of my voice. “Jessie, I'm not going anywhere. I'm staying right here. I meant what I said before about you trusting me and I'm not going to stop being your friend over something that wasn't your fault. The person who did this to you is the one that no one is going to want anything to do with, okay? It's not you.” Jessie continued to stare at me blankly and for a second I thought she didn't understand anything I had just said or that she had and just didn't want to believe it. Then the tears started to slow and I thought I saw something flash through her eyes before they went blank again. But all I needed to see was that brief flashing of it to know that I had reached something in her. “Jessie, I promise you I will always be here for you. No matter what.” A minute passed before she nodded slowly and placed her head back down on my chest. After that, it only took about ten minutes for her to cry herself softly to sleep.

*          *          *          *          *         

About a half hour later my mom walked through the front door. She saw me and was about to speak until I mimed for her to be quiet and pointed down to Jessie. Even in her sleep, the area around her eyes seemed a little red and swollen from the crying and I could tell that my mom saw it. She looked at me questioningly and I mouthed the word later as she nodded. I wouldn't tell her the real reason Jessie had been crying, but by the time later came I would have come up with a cover story. Right now my focus was making sure she didn't wake up and how I was going to get her two blocks to her house. As though reading my mind, my mom wrote on a paper and passed it for me to read with a solution. She can stay on the couch until she wakes up. I'll call her mom. I nodded gratefully at her, even though I had no idea what excuse she was going to use as to why Jessie was passed out on our couch. But whatever reason she had given seemed to work because Jessie's mom was perfectly fine with it.

My mom went upstairs to check on Cassie who had gratefully remained asleep during everything and before I even realized how exhausted I was, I had fallen asleep too.