Wistful Remembrance (Wattys 2014 HQ Love Award Winner!)

4. I Feel Like A Giant Mystery Myself...And Now I'm Adding Him Into The Mix

It wasn’t dreams that kept me up later that night, but my mind since I was still awake.  The name that had been stuck in my head the entire day hadn’t left, not even for a moment.  Neither did his eyes. 

John Raymond. 

Saying the name wasn’t the only thing that caused a physical reaction from me.  Even thinking it made the hair on my arms stand up on end. 

I sighed in the darkness of the room, hearing Jason’s deep breathing from beside me and Drake’s light snore from the couch.  I couldn’t just lay there…I needed to know.  Nothing they had said at dinner gave me any information.  Even if they didn’t directly say that they knew a John Raymond, the looks on their faces told me otherwise.  There was something that they weren’t telling me and I was going to find out.

As quietly as I could, I headed out of the room, grabbing my laptop off the desk, and headed out into the sitting room.  My parents’ door was closed and there was no sound indicating that they were awake.  So if I kept quiet, I’d be able to get some answers myself without them censoring everything.

Not knowing what to search for, I typed in the most obvious thing:  John Raymond. 

At first, there were only a few online profile links and others with either the name John or Raymond in them.  It wasn’t until I clicked on the News link that I actually got somewhere. 

When his picture appeared on the screen after clicking on one of the articles, the same feeling I’d gotten when I’d seen him in person flooded through me.  His hair was still messy, green eyes still haunting, but he was wearing a business suit instead of just a white button-up.  With his arms crossed over his chest, I was able to make out a gold insignia ring on the pinky finger of his right hand, but I couldn’t tell what was on it.  It a long moment to look away from his picture and look at the headline, dated the month before.

Jonathan Raymond, 25, Appointed New President and CEO of Antecedent Industries

Wow.  Twenty-five and already a president and CEO.  Maybe I didn’t know him, just heard about him on the news and thought I did.  Wanting to know more about him, I read on through the article. 

Preceding the tragic death of former President and CEO, Edward Parsons, his protégé, Jonathan Raymond, is storming onto the scene of all that is ‘big business’ after being appointed to the position this past week.  Not even a week on the job and Raymond is already making headlines. 

With Antecedent Industries being in a multitude of business ventures, from global shipping to antiquities dealings to private security, Raymond has partnered with two other big businesses in the same field.  First off:  Favero Antiquities.  After declining a buyout from another company, owner Roberto Favero’s partnership with Raymond comes as quite a shock to the industry.  So far, the partnership and its reasons for being are still under wraps.

As for the second partnership, it comes with even larger shockwaves:  MAR Corporations.  Since both concentrate on the same businesses and are basically the biggest rivals in the global market, this partnership does not come without some hard-pressed questions.  Most notable is the rivalry between the two, though it looks as if that is all in the past on paper.  But what we could not help noticing at the press conference between the two was Raymond’s discomfort with Juliet Frost, owner and CEO of MAR Corporations.  As seen in the image below, Raymond’s disregard toward Frost is easily picked up on.  He seemed more comfortable in dealing with her nephew, Ryan Frost, President of MAR and head of the security division, pictured with Raymond and Frost below.