Bea Ashby:
School starts in two days.
I've been sulking since three days ago when it finally hit me that I would have to be returning back to school for another dreadful year. Fortunately, my last year.
Justin wouldn't be joining an actual school. Dad said he'll be home tutored and start an extra circular activity. For the past few weeks, he's been in the basement, working out in the built in gym.
The rule was to not go down there when he was training so I wouldn't see Justin for hours on day due to this. But in the evenings, we would practice his spelling and morning walks.
A knock on the door captures my attention and I look up from my book, "Come in."
The door opens to reveal my dad. "I got a call from Dr Ramone, I need to go. I won't be long, can you handle being alone with Justin for about an hour?" Dad rushes. It's not like I haven't done it before so I tell him it's okay.
"He's in his room, call me if something happens." He says before leaving. A second later, he ducks his head back in. "Oh and let Justin know I'm out, will yeah?" Then he's gone.
When I hear my dad reach the last step and leave the house, I close my book. Sighing, I swing my legs over the bed and stand up. Walking over to Justin's room, I knock on the door.
Hearing Justin mutter a low, "Yes?" I enter the room.
He's sitting on the floor, a notebook out in front of him. His hair is falling in front of his face as he scribbled letters onto the notebook.
Walking over to him, I take a seat on the ground with him. Peering over at the paper, I see he's trying to writing a sentence. My name is Justin. It said, but he spelt 'my' wrong by writing 'mi'.
"You made a mistake," I murmur and he frowns, looking at the page. Looking up, he hands me the pencil and I fix his mistake. Justin takes the notebook back, closing it shut and slipping it back into his bag. He slips his bag underneath his bed. After informing Justin that my dad left, but would be back soon, Justin stands up. "Yucky," He says, running his hand through his hair.
He walks to the bathroom, closing door shut and I hear the water start. Standing up, I leave his bedroom so he could shower in peace.
Heading back to my room, I pick my book back up and read for another forty minutes. There are footsteps outside of my room until I hear a knock on my door.
Hesitantly, I open the door to see Justin. He's fresh out of the shower, sporting a pair of sweat pants and a black t shirt and sweater. His hair is pushed back from his face, dripping a little. "B-bea come J-justin in?" He questions curiously.
My lips part and I am unsure how to answer. "Go where?" I decide to ask.
He doesn't say. Instead, he turns on his heel and makes his way for the stairs. Shrugging my shoulders, I follow him.
Justin goes over to the sliding door and gestures for me to open it and I do. We walk out to the backyard until Justin sits down in the grass comfortably, laying back on it just like he did awhile back when he found me outside after the party.
"You want to lay down in the grass?" I ask in confusion. I didn't understand why he needed me out here. It was probably better if I was there to supervise him just in case anything happened, but still.
He doesn't respond and I know better than to always expect a response from him. I take the seat next to him and stare ahead of myself, occasionally peaking at him through the corner of my eye.
I notice how peaceful he looks laying out in the grass, wet hair sprawled around him. He has really nice hair that would be perfect yo comb your fingers through.
His shirt has ridden up a bit, giving me a peak of the marks on his skin. I'm almost tempted to reach over and pull up his shirt, but I refrain myself from doing so.
Justin is always covering whatever he has under there. I'm assuming dad said something about having to cover up.
After sitting in comfortable silence, I decide to ask him a question from his past. "What was the jungle like?" I find myself asking.
Justin instantly opens his eyes, blinking up at me. For a second I think he doesn't want to respond, but his lips part as if he's thinking about how to respond to my question.
"D-different," He mumbles in a thick voice. "Lots of trees and..." He pauses to think over his words. "Moving things." He shrugs. I assume the 'moving things' were animals and insects.
"Do you miss the jungle?"
He nods. "Sometimes l-lonely, but still h-home." He stutters.
My heart aches a bit for him. I remember dad mentioning that it was hard to get Justin off the island. He didn't want to leave and I understand why. He's spent most probably all of his life there. How he survived, I don't know. But he did it, and clearly he was okay with it to not want to leave. He was forced to.
Dad said that Justin was unstable for months, but he worked with him and finally, he was able to bring him to our house so he could experience living with other people and be in a real home instead in a lonely room on his own with occasional doctor visits and medical examinations.
"Avocado want see s-something?"
I stopped pulling at the grass and glance to see Justin already standing up. "Sure, but where are you going?" I ask as he quickly jogs down the large garden.
He heads over to where a huge tree stood. Kicking off his shoes, Justin examines the tree before grabbing onto the side and placing foot on a large part of the tree.
"Justin!" I yell, rushing over. "What are you doing? You might hurt yourself!" I say in panic. What if he falls and cracks his skull open? What if one of the branches break? All though I doubt they would, the tree was huge with strong, wide branches. If you got high enough, you could actually sit or lay down on the thickest branch since it was so big and wide.
He ignores my pleads for him to get down and continues to climb up the tree with his bare hands and feet. I watch in amazement as he manages to pull himself up and grab the right places to get himself up without even getting a scratch.
When he gets to the biggest branch, he pulls himself over and I gasp as he latches onto it a bit, dangling for a bit.
"Oh my god," I mutter, covering my eyes. I can't watch this.
That's when I hear a whistle and look up to see Justin looking down at me victoriously, leaning against one side of the tree, his legs spread out in front of him. "Holy shit." He actually did it!
He has amazing speed, stamina and he can swim while holding his breath underwater for a long period of time and now I find out that he can climb trees with no equipment or proper foot wear? The jungle clearly has given him practice. This obviously isn't the first time he's climbed up a tree.
As amazing as the sight was, he needed to get down. But I didn't want him to fall or hurt himself. "Justin, please listen to me," I start, "You need to get down before my dad shows up and-"
"What the hell is going on out here?"
Uh oh. Too late.
My dad was sprinting over to us in a panic. "How'd he get up there? Justin you need to get down before you hurt yourself!" Dad shouts. "Wait, let me get a ladder!" He yells again.
Turning to towards me, my dad looks at me with furious look on his face. "How on earth could you let this happen?"
"I tried to stop him, but he was already climbing! What did you want me to do? Go after him?"
Dad shakes his head and walks over, probably going to get a ladder. Justin was peering down at us curiously when he finally gets the messages and climbs down the tree half way before jumping off mid way and landing perfectly on his town feet.
"Shit..." I mutter, running my hands over my face. Again... obviously not his first time doing this.
Dad returns in shock, dropping the ladder once he saw what Justin did. "You," He points at him, "Inside."
His tone is strict and Justin clearly understands. He doesn't make a move to leave when dad looks at me. "You are in big trouble young lady. I leave you two for an hour and he's outside climbing up trees? Do you know how dangerous that was? What if he fell? He could have been seriously injured!" Dad starts ranting.
"You know what? You clearly can't handle being around him on your own. Until I say so, you will not go near Justin," Dad sternly says, crossing his arms over his chest. "You will not talk to him, you will not help him with his work either.
Is he serious?! But nothing happened! He was fine, Justin didn't hurt himself. Why the hell am I being punished for Justin not getting hurt? I understand that he could have been hurt, but he wasn't. He was fine. He didn't have to punish me for it. Having to help Justin was punishment in the first place! Now he's postponing that punishment by giving me a new one?
I open my mouth to argue, but he quickly shuts me down. "But-"
"Don't argue with me unless you want me to take the keys to car away from you." Dad threatens and I instantly back down. He wouldn't dare. We stare each other down until I feel someone step closer towards me.
From behind, Justin lightly takes ahold my wrist, trying to get me to look at him. But I pull my wrist back as if his touch burned my skin. "Don't," My voice is weak.
Glancing back, I see Justin look at me in confusion and in... hurt? I tear my eyes away from him and walk away.
When I head inside, I close the sliding door behind me and don't look back.
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A/N:
Aww :( So Bea is on punishment for letting Justin climb up the tree because he could have almost hurt himself if he were to fall.
Guess we'll just have to wait and see what happens next.
-Diana