The Shadow Setters Book 1: Prominence

Chapter 16

Chapter 16

It had been arranged between the two Conroy's that Jason was to make his own way back to the house after his first bout of exams were completed. After the first four had been sat and with the persistent calling from David pleading to be kept abreast of his son's progress, Jason had been quietly confident that he had performed well in his GCSE's, relaying his thoughts to David who reacted in a way that any proud father should when their offspring succeeds. When Jason considered all that had laid on his mind in the last few weeks and indeed at the present time, he was genuinely surprised at just how easy he had found the exams to be. He had retrieved all the relevant information out of a brain that was currently jumbled with many thoughts. 

As the train jogged along the tracks in its rhythmical motion, Jason pondered on just how he had managed to do well in his exams. He concluded after a while that just by being back in familiar surroundings with his closest friends and Katee, it had lifted the veil of uncertainty and worry that had dogged him since his move up north. It was even a pleasure to eat whatever he wanted without the fear or possibility of anything being tampered with or the upsetting business of having to regurgitate his meals. Continuing to look back over the last week had made Jason feel somewhat weary of the whole situation at his new home. Initially he had been annoyed at Katee's seeming lack of interest in what he had to say about the goings on up north. After spending a few days with her he had realised that the seed of doubt it had sewn between them concerning the matter was not what he had first thought. A fear of a dwindling interest in him was not the case but a genuine uncertainty on her side with the snippets of information that he had fed her with when they had tackled the subject. Katee had dismissed any relevance associated to what he had told her and when Jason mentioned that the sole instigator of the rumours had been a young girl, she suddenly became highly animated, as he knew girls of her age could become. In an instant she went on to tell Jason that Jo sounded like a bored lonely girl desperate for attention from the hot new guy in town and had decided that she was going to have him for herself at any cost even if she had to embarrass herself by lying through her front teeth to gain her prize. After Jason had attempted to calm the irate Katee, she warned him that if it persisted, it could cause problems between them and that if he did not want that to happen, then it would be wise of him to give Jo a wide berth. Knowing that he was onto a loser to even contemplate battling Katee over Jo, he let her blow herself out before trying to put the issue to rest, not before Katee drew similarities between girls like Jo and 'bunny boilers' and 'mentalists' as well as various other catty put downs littered in her verbal attack. 

As the dust settled and Jason reluctantly gave reassurances that the matter with Jo would be resolved, the two of them spent a great deal of time with each other, more than they ever had before in their brief history together as a couple. Jason began to look at Katee in a completely different way because of the volume of time they had shared. He felt that she was revealing much more of her inner personality to him which he began to grow more and more fond of as the days rushed by. Because of this, Jason began to look at his home situation through Katee's eyes. When he rolled it back in his mind he had to agree that the whole thing did sound preposterous and even felt slightly embarrassed that he had even told her in the first place. Katee had condemned Spider's encouragement of the happenings and had said that he should have known better and taken a similar stance to hers on the subject. When informed of her feelings towards him and his standpoint, Spider had laughed and told Jason that to him, it sounded that Katee was suffering from a bout of raging jealousy, possibly directed at both Jo and himself and went on to say to his best friend that at the end of the day he should keep an open mind to any subject because neutral thinking always revealed an unbiased and honest result. Very true, Jason thought. He knew that Katee was not Spider's biggest fan anyway without her even saying a thing, knowing full well how close he and Jason were, but never the less; the feeling was there within her for whatever reason. They were both very intelligent people though the feeling of dislike was not returned by Spider and for that reason, Jason loved him even more for it. For his own thoughts, Jason had put her dislike of Spider down to the two boys closeness and the amount of time they spent together. It was time that could be spent as boyfriend and girlfriend doing couple things. Even though Jason had a pretty good idea that Spider had come to the same conclusion, it was never raised between them, for the two of them knew there was no point. It was at times like these that Jason missed having a mother in his life. If it was him being na\u00efve concerning Jo's intentions towards him, running the whole scenario through with his mum, whatever she had been like as a person would have been so much easier than trying to work out teenage women with only a teenager's perspective and knowledge to draw upon. He wondered how she would have helped him in his life at times like these.