Otherworld: A Son of Two Realms

Chapter 13: "Breaking News"

The coffee shop across from school was bustling with students celebrating the end of semester, the end of exams, and the start of summer break. It'd been a few days since he returned but Jack had decided to wait until after finals to tell Kate. Admitting he was a liar would be bad enough. He didn't want to also be responsible for her flunking finals.

Nursing a cup of coffee, Jack watched groups of students meeting at nearby tables, laughing joyfully and sharing summer plans. The entire café seemed to buzz with celebration. He suddenly felt awkward asking Kate to meet in such a happy place for such an awkward conversation. He had partially picked the cafe in hopes that, if she didn't take the truth well, she wouldn't go into a shouting rage. But suddenly he realized that she might just break down and start crying hysterically. Maybe, in her distraught state, she would scream the truth so that everyone could hear. Someone would probably film it on their phone and then he would become a viral sensation: the son of Marcus Ward, who drove his girlfriend crazy by lying about himself. Gossip sites would have a field day and, if his father or Harriet ever found out...

"Hey," Kate said without much enthusiasm, dropping into the chair next to him.

"Hey. How's it going?"

"How's it going?" Kate repeated, making him immediately regret the question. "You're serious? We don't talk for two days then you come back and act like a zombie the rest of the week. I get a vague text asking to meet me here to 'talk,' which, by the way, might not be the best verb in the dating vernacular for you to use right now. So how's it going? Let's see, I just wrote an eight-page essay detailing the effects of Nero's reign on the Roman Empire. Small side note: I now know why Nero was fiddling. Then I got to sit through a two hour chemistry practicum during which I was supposed to make a blue liquid turn green using just the compounds provided. Turns out I'm not destined for success in potions if I ever attend Hogwarts. Oh, and my aunt called to say she wouldn't be able to pick me up from school today because she and her new guy decided to try their luck at the race tracks, even though we have about ten dollars worth of expendable income and my aunt knows as much about horses as you do about communication."

Kate crossed her arms over her chest and sat back.

"I can give you a ride home," Jack said softly.

That earned him a vicious glare. "I'll walk. Just tell me what you want to talk about."

"Okay," Jack said, rubbing the palms of his hands over his knees. He'd spent all night drafting the perfect confession in his head but now, with Kate in front of him, he could barely muster a full sentence. "I want to start over. At the beginning. The beginning of you and me."

"At the Business Club table?"

"Well, no, after that. Actually, we were sitting right here, working on that English presentation."

"The one about Marcus Ward?"

Jack nodded. "Yeah. Him. Well, the thing about him..." Jack looked down at his hands, which gripped the edge of his knees as if the pilot had just told him the plane was going down. The thought was right there in his head: the truth that he wanted to scream just so it would finally be out there. But the words simply wouldn't come. Shame and fear kept them corked up inside.

Suddenly, Jack felt a warm touch on his clammy hand. Looking down, he saw Kate's fingers rest over his, inviting them to relax. He turned his hand and let his fingers interlock with hers. She didn't say anything. Her expression didn't change. But through that touch, she told him everything he needed to know. Slowly, the words came. "I have to tell you something about myself. It's about myself...and Marcus Ward."

"My god, Marcus Ward!" someone blurted out across the café.

Jack turned his head to see who could have possibly overheard him in the crowded room. The boy who had said the name was not looking at Jack, but one of the TV's mounted to the wall. As more people turned to look, Jack followed their gazes to the TV.

A news anchor sat at a desk. A picture of Marcus Ward was displayed over his shoulder. It was the picture Jack had thought of last week when he saw his father dressed in a costume and sitting on the floor.

Someone turned up the television's volume.

"...nearly ten years combined on the bestseller's list. Ward was found unconscious at his estate near Rocky Mountain National Park in the early hours of the morning. Paramedics and police arrived in response to a 9-1-1 call but were unable to revive the 61 year-old. He was pronounced dead at St. Anthony Central Hospital in Denver around nine o'clock. Ward is survived by his son, Jackson and will certainly be remembered as one of the most celebrated authors of..."

The rest became a monotone murmur as Jack focused solely on his father's eyes. They showed nothing but life and fulfillment and passion. They were old eyes, aged and traveled yet full of adventures still unwritten. He remembered that look in his father's eyes, a look Marcus would get whenever he got into the zone, churning out page after page of Guildron lore, crafting plots and characters as if they were part of his own past. In that look, Jack knew the future of Guildron was already written. But no more. Somewhere, in an ambulance, or a hospital, or a morgue, those eyes were clouded and lifeless.

Grief should have flooded through him, extinguishing all other thoughts and senses, but Jack's mind simply refused to process any of it. His father was dead. This was fact. But it couldn't be true. He had seen Marcus less than a week ago. Less than a week earlier, Jack had spoken to him, touched him, pitied him. But in that short exchange, never had it crossed his mind that it would be their last. Maybe if it had...

Across the cafe, someone sniffled. Jack looked over and saw a girl hold a hand to her mouth. Her eyes were red, her eyebrows arched in grief. Another girl put an arm around her, whispering something. All across the room, people stared at the television with somber expressions, some talking softly amongst themselves, some simply shaking their heads.

The whole scene repulsed Jack. These people had never known Marcus Ward, never spoken with him, never shared a dinner table or a Christmas morning with him. Their grief was a sacrilege, a farce compared to his. And yet, as he looked at their faces, the random people in the cafe seemed more distraught over the news than he could feel. That repulsed him even more.

It was then that Kate finally spoke. "Give me your keys."

"Keys?" Jack repeated without much comprehension.

"Jack," she said, squeezing his hand. He looked to her. In his mind, the hurricane of emotions churned into a singular white noise that left his face blank. "Give me you keys."

"Why?"

"You need to go to Colorado."

It took a full moment for the realization to hit him. "You know? How?"

"You're a terrible liar," she said, with a crooked smile. "I know you were about to tell me, but this isn't the time to talk about that. We need to get you to Colorado."

At the edge of Jack's mind, a thousand emotions were swirling over one another, each one threatening to overwhelm him, if not for the levy of Kate's mere presence. At that moment he was only sure of two things: He needed to leave Dallas and it could only be with Kate.