We didn’t say anything to each other at first as we walked down the street together. We looked behind us a few times to make sure Mr Waters wasn’t following us. Every time we heard a car approach from behind us, we would stand still and glance over at the car and praying that it wouldn’t be James’ Dad. So far so good he hasn’t come for us.
“Are you hungry?” James asked me, starting the conservation.
“Yeah, I am. I haven’t eaten anything all day, except for a donut. I locked myself in my room all day. I was so mad at my family for starting the protest. Well, Daniel organised it.”
“Do you want to get some pizza and sit in the park?”
I smiled. “Yeah, I would like that.”
“I like what you have done with your hair by the way. The orange streak in your hair looks kind of cool. I have never seen someone with orange streaks before.”
“I have never either and I thought it would be cool to put them in my hair considering it’s my favourite colour. I have used other colours too. Pink was the last colour I had used.”
Sometimes I don’t know why I even put the colour streaks in my hair. I guess I just wanted to change my looks a bit. I hadn’t paid much attention to myself since what happened to James. I even put on a few pounds because I was depressed, but I managed to snap out of it and not let one stupid thing take over my life.
“Well, the colour looks great on you.”
I smiled at him, thanking him.
We continued to walk in since, trying to think of what else to talk about. To tell you the truth it just felt awkward. I guess that we haven’t been together for so long and now we are back together, I wasn’t even sure what we could talk about. It reminds me of how we used to be when we first started talking to each other.
As we walked, I searched for something to talk about. What do you even say to a friend that you haven’t seen in for so many years? I guess you could talk about a lot of things, but for some reason I couldn’t really think of what to say. All I could really think about is what my family is going to say when they find out that I’m out here wandering the streets with James. Mr Waters was on my mind too. I kept wondering whether or not if he would chase after us in his car, pulling James into the car to take him home. He would most likely pull me into his car too and…
My mind drifted to where we were in James’ room and the things his father said that he would do. I wasn’t sure what I would do if he did it again. And the fact that he will send James back to jail. I don’t know what scared me the most. Being raped again or seeing James get put back into prison for something he has never done, only because his father didn’t want him around and that’s why he did what he did to me.
“You know how your dad said that he did what he did to get rid of you, what does he mean by that?” I asked James.
James was quiet for a second. “He was planning to get rid of me. I came home late a couple of nights before and he didn’t like it that I was hanging out with you all the time. I remember him giving me this evil smile and he promised me that he was going to make sure that we won’t ever see each other again.”
I felt sick in the stomach. “That’s why he raped me? He didn’t want us to see each other and then framed you?”
“Yeah, that’s what happened. And then he kept threatening us if we were to tell the truth.”
Everything played in my head of that horrifying day. “You know how I tried to tell the truth about what happened? Just after the judge sentence you and walked you out, your dad pulled me aside and threatened me for trying to tell the truth. He then laugh at me because no one believed my story.”
“Only because the judge thought you were trying to protect me.”
“Yeah. How come you never told me the real reason why he did what he did?”
“I don’t know why. I guess with everything that was happening, it just slipped my mind and I forgot. You aren’t mad at me for not saying anything to you, are you?”
I shook my head. “No, I’m not. I could get mad, but there’s nothing I can do now that it has been done. Besides, it’s not your fault. You did try to stop him.”
“Yeah, but I wished I could have done more.”
I still see James’ face all the time when I think about the incident. He had tried to protect me, but was forced to stand there and watch me. His face was so helpless and horrified at what was happening. He had fought with his dad, but Mr Waters was way too strong and he just wouldn’t let him come anywhere near me. Every time he tried to stop him, Mr Waters would often punch him or just shove him really hard that he would be on the ground. I don’t know how he could do it, but I guess it showed how strong he was when he managed to hold me down and hold back James so he couldn’t come anywhere near me.
I pushed the memory out of my head. I didn’t want to think about it any longer.
“Do you think your dad will notice us gone?” I asked, changing the subject.
James shrugged his shoulders. “There’s a chance he might, but I don’t think he would care that I’m gone. But if he knew that I was out here with you then he would come after us.” He turned to face me. “So, how long have you been collecting the CDs for me?”
“I have been collecting them a couple of months after you were sent to juvie. I figured you would want to keep up to date with music while you were in there, so I started collecting anything that I knew you will like.”
He put an arm around my waist. “Thanks so much, Ellie. Um, just one more thing and then we can get off this subject for good. My dad never came near you while I was gone?”
I thought back to yesterday when I saw him at the mall with Daniel. “No, he has never come near me. I see him sometimes. He would always give me this smirk, and then he would act all innocent when he is around everyone else.”
James mumbled bastard underneath his breath. One thing I liked about him is that he never swore out loud around me. He said it’s disrespectful to do in front of a girl. If he does swear, he just says it softly.
I glanced over to look at him to see how the cut on his forehead was. The blood had dried up.
“How’s your cut?”
“It’s fine.”
Once we near the shops, I told James to get the pizza while I went to the pharmacy for something to fix up his cut. I knew he was going to protest about it. He always does.
There was one time I remembered when James came to my house after his dad smashed a glass bottle in his face after getting drunk. He didn’t want to be at home at all and decided he wanted to spend the night at my house. Thankfully my parents and brother were asleep when he came around at eleven o’clock at night. He tapped on my window to wake me up. As soon as I saw his face, I pulled him in. He didn’t want to talk much about what happen. He said he was just in his room when his dad came home after being at the pub. He just beat up James for no reason at all.
I grabbed his hand and lead him into the bathroom, telling him to sit down on the toilet. I searched the medicine cabinet for something to fix up his wound. I grabbed a bag of cotton buds, some anti-bacteria and wet the cloth under the tap.
“You don’t need to do this, Ellie,” James protested. “I will be fine.”
“No, I have to clean it up.” I kneeled down in front of him, sitting the stuff on the floor beside me. “You don’t want it to get infected.”
“I know, but I don’t want you to feel like you need to do this. I can clean up after myself.”
I smiled at him. “It’s okay. I want to do it.”
He didn’t say anything. I examine the huge cut across his left cheek. From the looks of it, it seemed like a deep wound that needed stitches. Using the wet cloth, I cleared away the blood.
“You should really go to the ER. This cut is deep and you need stitches. I can get my dad to take you.”
“No. Don’t. Please. I can’t go to the ER.”
I glanced into James’ eyes and saw the fear in them. I knew he was terrified of telling people about what his dad does to him. But I knew he had to tell someone. I could imagine what it would be like to be so afraid to tell the truth to people, but I don’t think I could put up with the things Mr Waters does to him.
“If I went to the ER,” James explains, “questions will be asked. I can’t tell them what my dad did. The last time Dad did something horrible to me when I was ten I actually did tell. I showed my teacher these burn marks that my dad put on my skin with his cigarette. Dad denied it of course and then told child services that it was actually me that burnt myself and that he caught me playing with matches. Later he did something horrible, punishing me for blabbing to a teacher about what he did. I never told anyone again. If Dad ever beat me up, I would skip school so I didn’t have to explain the bruises I would get.”
I didn’t ask what his father did and I didn’t want to know. I could feel his pain and understood why he came here instead of the ER. Sometimes I don’t understand why Mr Waters treated James like this. Maybe he was taking his anger out on him because his wife left him. I don’t know. I don’t know anything about him before his wife left him. Perhaps he was a nice guy or maybe he was still the same old rotten guy. James didn’t remember his mother so I guess he wouldn’t remember how his father used to be. She left when he was about two or three.
I fixed up his face and then we lay down in my bed. I made sure my door was lock just in case my parents were to walk in and see James and I together. I didn’t want to give them the wrong impression of why James was here. He held me close to him, neither of us saying a word.
“Can I help you with anything?” a cheerful voice said, interrupting my thoughts.
I glanced up to see this cheerful coloured woman who looked to be in her late twenties, maybe early thirties. I was too busy thinking about James that I didn’t even take notice that I was standing in front of the first aid section.
“Um, I’m right thanks,” I told her.
She smiled at me. “Okay. Let me know if you need any help.” She walked away.
As soon as she was gone, I grabbed a bag of cotton buds. I was going to get anti-bacteria too, but then I figured I didn’t really need it. I just had to clean the blood so I don’t think it will be an open cut and get infected. I near the counter and spotted the fridge with drinks. I opened it and grabbed a bottle of water and stood in line behind this tall muscular man to pay for my stuff.
I left the pharmacy and then headed towards the pizza place to meet up with James. He walked out with a pizza box just as I near the restaurant. He seemed uncomfortable about something. I saw a couple approaching him and as soon as they spotted James, they crossed the road. My heart crush when they saw that and I suddenly got it why James was feeling uncomfortable. It was the way the locals were treating him.
I didn’t need to ask what he was thinking because I knew.
A girl on a skateboard who looked to be high school came whizzing past me. She headed towards James and pushed him with her elbow from behind him. He almost dropped the pizza box.
“Get out of my way, freak,” the girl said and just kept moving down the street.
James stared at her for a second before he turned to me just as I stood beside him.
“Can we go now?” he asked me.
I nodded.
We walked down the street in silence. The sun was starting to set and I knew that by the time I get home I was going to be dead for being out here. Hopefully Daniel doesn’t rat me out and say that I snuck out to see James. We didn’t dare to speak. We were afraid to as we past people as they whispered to each other. It felt like high school all over again as people would whisper about us whenever James and I were together. I wasn’t sure if they ever said anything nasty about us, but people thought we were sleeping together and that’s why we were together. Of course we weren’t. We were just friends. Nothing more. Our grade just found it weird that we were socialising with each other. But the whispering got worst when the school found out that James was arrested.
It got to the point where I was refusing to go to school even though I had no choice of going. I just couldn’t make eye contact with anyone and it was so hard to walk through the corridors with everyone staring at you, saying things that probably weren’t even true. Sometimes people said things out loud on purpose when I was standing just in ear shot, saying that I deserved what James did to me. It hurts to hear people say that, especially when you know the truth and they don’t know the full story that really happened.
We reached the park as parents were starting to leave with their children. It wasn’t because they saw us coming. I don’t think they even notice we were there. They were leaving as it started to get dark. James and I found an empty table and sat down, sitting across from each other. James opened the pizza box and we both grabbed a slice of pizza.
“So I guess the whole of LA and maybe the country hates my guts?” James asked, chewing the food slowly.
“They don’t just hate you,” I replied. “They hate me too. I’m sure of it.”
“I doubt that’s even true. No one hates you.”
James was right. They didn’t really hate me. People just had a mixture of feelings to what they thought of me. Some felt sorry for what happened to me while others thought that I was seeking for trouble and didn’t have any sympathy towards me at all.
“Okay, they don’t hate me,” I replied. “They just think I’m stupid and that I deserved it.”
“You don’t deserve it and you aren’t stupid.”
I smiled. He returned it and then bit into his pizza. I chewed mine slowly and all of a sudden I didn’t feel like eating anymore. Just knowing how much the community hates him makes me sick in the stomach.
“I don’t feel like eating anymore,” I said, putting the half eaten pizza down.
“I don’t feel like it either, but at least this pizza beats the hell out of prison food.” He continued eating.
“Then why are you still eating?”
He shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know. It’s already half eaten so I might as well finish eating it.”
He did, stuffing the rest of it into his mouth. When he finished he said, “Now that’s the best meal I have tasted for a long time.”
I started to laugh when I saw some cheese strings hanging from his chin. He gave me a weird look and wondered what I was laughing at. I told him and he quickly wiped away the cheese strings.
I made him move over so I could sit beside him and fix up his cut. He kept saying that I didn’t need to do this, but I ignored his complaints. I wanted to do it. I opened the bag of cotton buds and took one out, uncapping the water bottle to wet it. I then put it to James’ forehead, just above his eyebrow to wipe away the dry blood. It started to bleed again, so I just reached for a fresh cotton bud and held it to his cut, putting a little bit of pressure on it to stop the bleeding.
James stared at me straight in the eye as I cleaned away the blood. Even though he protested earlier about me fixing it up for him, I could see it in his eyes that he was thankful. James never had his dad fixing him up as a kid if he was ever to fall and scrape his knees or cut himself. Instead he was the one who had to patch himself up. Even when he was about ten and had a broken arm he had to take himself to the hospital because his dad didn’t want to take him. He had to deal with the pain on his own. The doctor asked questions, especially since he showed up in emergency on his own without an adult. James hated lying. But he had to lie. I’m the only one who knows the truth. He told me it once. I remember it when he walked into school with the arm. He claimed that he had fallen off his bike. I don’t know if people believed him or not, but they did. He claimed no one was around so he went to the hospital on his own. He never told me the full details of what really happen. Just that his dad had pushed him hard to the ground.
I removed my hand from him once I cleaned up the blood. I put the bag of cotton buds back into the bag.
“Thanks, Ellie,” he replied, giving me a smile.
I smiled, but didn’t really turn to look at him. From the corner of my eye I saw him reach over to me and pushed some of my hair away from my face, tucking it behind my ear. I turned to face him, our eyes locking together.
“Do you want to go sit inside the tunnel?” he asked.
I answered yes and we gather up out things and headed over to the playground equipment, climbing inside. James placed the pizza box next to him and I did the same with the paper bag with the cotton buds and water inside. I then rest my head against his shoulder. We sat there in silence without saying anything.
Hours past and neither of us wanted to go home. We knew that once we go home we will be in trouble for sneaking out. James will most likely be abused, and I will get a long lecture for sneaking out, unless my family never took notice that I was gone, or I will have to listen to the insults that Daniel says about James. If we both had a choice, we would stay here all night.