Operation Charming Jordan

31: His Confession, His Sins

Jordan searched the entire house for the third time before he went out to the barn, to find Jess lying on a stack of hay with a blanket.

He sighed at the sight of her. She was his sunshine and now to see her in gray and black with worn out eyes.

The decision to pull her back to the house or stay was pressing but he decided to stay. He moved towards her and sat beside her, throwing his arm around her shoulders.

She did nothing but looked up at the roof of the barn. "How do you get rid of pain? " She asked the first question. The question had been on her mind.

He wanted to speak but she beat him to it. "My granduncle and mother died when I was just five," She laughed, not the happy laugh but the sad one.

"Now around Christmas, Norman did too. After Christmas. Tragedy, right?" She remarked bitterly.

Jordan leaned back and look at the roof of the barn. "Yeah, it is."

"So how do you deal with the different pain? From your dead mother to the man who raised you the best way he could." She paused for a second. "I never got to tell him that I love him or was grateful. How do you? " She asked again.

He raked through his hair. "I don't," He confessed and continued as she kept quiet. "I had a cousin" He began and his mind took him back to the past.

His mind whisked him back in time. He looked up to see the bride to be and the groom stand at the altar. He looked at the bride's black lace body fitted wedding dress and the groom's white tuxedo.

A smile wore his face as he aimed towards annoying the groom.

"Any objections?" The pastor asked, before searching and settling on the brown haired boy of seventeen going on eighteen with his hands raised.

"You may," The man pushed the boy as the whole crowd rested on him.

"Can you hurry up? I am hungry." Jordan asked and the crowd took a breather. And suffered a good laugh or two with the groom pointing sweet daggers at him.

The wedding moved forward without any problems and proceeded to the reception where Jordan laughed or flirted with his aunts.

He watched from his seat all by himself as his aunts went to talk to someone they knew or dated.

"Dan!" He turned to see the groom who extended his arm.

Jordan had rose to shoulder bump him. "Marco, my favorite cousin."

"Quit it, you tried to sabotage your favorite cousin's wedding." He threw a skeptical look at him that could burn through him.

"I just had add a little humor besides how many people says objection and the wedding doesn't carry on." Jordan tried to clarify what he did.

"Don't push your luck. Tonia is happy to have a nice story to tell our kids to come about our wedding." He grinned from ear to ear before turning to see the bump on his wife's tummy.

Jordan looked at the grand hall, "Your wedding planner did an amazing job." He whistled at the swan white theme going on.

"You need to do an amazing job  on your school life."

Jordan looked up. "Hey, I am offended."

"Be offended and get to work."

"Whatever, man. I am going out of here soon." Jordan punched his shoulder lightly.

He left after the first dance of Marco and Tonia. And pulled out his phone.

"Buddy, where are you? " The voice over the phone asked.

"I am on my way." With that,  he whistled his way off to the location.

As he reach the scene, hugs and kisses were on his way to the kitchen to ignore the loud music of the party or to grab a drink of himself.

"Hey, Liam." Jordan said to the boy who blew smoke from a blunt.

"You made it!" His buddy hailed.

"Yeah, I did. So what's you got here? " He asked, before he felt a hand slip around him.

He turned to his girlfriend and back to his friend.

"We got everything," Liam smiled wide as he slipped them two blue pills. "And I mean everything."

With that, he left with the girl he  held upstairs, leaving Jordan with his girl.

"Can we?" She asked as she guide her hands to his chest.

Jordan looked at the pills in his hands and shook his head. "We don't need this. Let's go with the flow."

He dropped the pills with a slightly annoyed girlfriend and made his way out with a bottle of alcohol.

They sat on a couch to watch the party. She danced on his laps to get his attention but he just drank.

"I am coming back." She said before disappearing into the crowd.

He nod as continued to drink and wait for a while before standing up to find her with a enough booze in his system.

He found her against wall with another guy who whispered something in her ears. She laughed and did the same before taking his hands.

Anger clouded his mind as he came up to them and threw a punch to the boy who bounced on him.

The chants of fight filled them before Liam and other people came to pull them apart.

"Don't touch me!" Jordan spat before making his way out of the cleared path.

He made his way to his car with a throbbing head and a blur vision. He called the first person he could think of.

"Cris, where are you?" Marco asked.

Jordan told him before going unconscious. He did receive a call that sober him up.

Jordan pulled himself back to the present and laughed as he saw her eyes on him.

"Marco had an accident, he was hit by a reckless truck driver. He  lasted a month in the hospital before passing away. Brain dead." He laughed as he tried to blink back the tears.

"His wife, Tonia lost it and had to be sent to asylum. Crazy and  pregnant." He felt a tear drop on his cheek.

"He was the perfect son and I was the struggling one. Grandfather gave his place to me and I couldn't take it. I did the best thing for everyone, I ran." He turned to see tears in her eyes.

"I am sorry, I didn't know," She said.

"Don't be. It was my mistake." He said in a low voice.

Jessica laughed bitterly. "It is funny because I promised myself not to cry when Tammy died. I promised to be cold as ice in that aspect." She smiled as she looked up. Tears ran down her cheeks and Jordan pulled her into his arms.

"Why cry when my father is in a better place?" She asked. "Certainly better than wasting in sickness or pain. He is simply resting into that goodnight."

He rubbed her shoulder as she cried as his way of comforting her.

"I never got to tell him that I loved him.  He was more than my father could ever be. He was my father and a father to to a seven years old girl who needed a father."

"I am sure that he knows. They know we do. " Jordan said, ignoring the tears in his eyes. The guilt that rubbed off him. He had put her first instead of his pain.

"Thank you so much."

"Thank for listening to mine, Catherine." He closed his eyes, and imagined his cousin smiling at him.

Thank you for being my elder brother, Marco.