Dipping Into Together

Ch 12

2 Weeks Later

It had been two weeks. Two, painfully lonely weeks. Two weeks that were spent worrying the whole time. Jonah hadn’t come back to school, until today, that is. As I walked across the school courtyard, for whatever reason, I glanced up, and froze. There he stood, wearing all black, back turned to me, shoulders hunched. He looked so alone and vulnerable. I quickened my pace, crossing the courtyard in seconds. I stopped when I was a mere few feet away from him.

“Jonah,” I called out to him. He tensed, visibly, tensed. I could tell that his muscles clamped up, his shirt was thin. He didn’t even turn. Didn’t even acknowledge me. His hands balled into fists, but he didn’t turn. “Jonah, please, I need to talk to you about something.”

I had thought it over, and I thought it would be best to just go ahead and tell Jonah about his uncle. There was nothing else for me to do. Even though I hadn’t seen Jonah’s uncle recently, that doesn’t mean he’s gone away. I know he’s somewhere waiting, just hanging out underneath the surface. It wasn’t safe, and I knew it. I knew that it was serious, even though nothing serious had happened yet.

“Jonah this is serious. I don’t give a shit if you hate me. I need to talk to you,” I tried.

But he didn’t even listen, didn’t even care. He just straightened out his shoulders and walked away, leaving me standing there feeling defeated.

---

“Honey?”  my mom said, knocking on my door. I looked up as she walked in, trying to make myself look cheerful.

“Hey, Mom.”

“Hey sweetie, I needed to talk to you for a second.”

“Yeah, sure, what’s up?”

“Well,” she said, sitting down in the desk chair, “my work wants me to go to a meeting in Chicago.”

“Are you going?”

“Ah, yes, I am,” she smiles uneasily, as if I’d be against the idea of her leaving.

“That sounds fun, Mom. When is it?”

“Actually, the flight leaves tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow, wow, that’s soon.”

“Yeah, I know, but you’ll be okay, right?”

“Yeah of course I will.”

“I’m going to leave you some money tomorrow if you need it. I stopped by the grocery store today and stocked up, so you should be good food-wise. Now, this is going to be a little long, the trip, I mean, because there are going to be a lot of meetings. I’ll be gone a week, tops, okay? But if you need anything, anything at all, I’ve left you the name and number of one of my coworkers, Lisa Richards, call her if you need anything at all.” She sighed.

“It’s okay, Mom, and I’ll be fine and yeah, thanks for Ms. Lisa’s number and all.”

Unexpectedly, she got up and walked over to me and pulled me into a hug. I let out a ragged breath, feeling all of my emotions, all of my worries, everything, just collapse, I wrapped my  arms around her and hugged her back tightly, savoring the feeling of hugging someone, anyone, and especially my mom. “I love you, Mom,” I whispered fiercely.

“I love you too, sweetie.”

---

This was a bad idea. A horrible, horrible idea. My mom had left this morning, and here I was, eleven o’clock at night, running like a madman down the street towards Jonah’s house. I needed to tell him. I wasn’t stupid; I wasn’t just going to go up and ring his doorbell, I was going to wait in the bushes. Hopefully he’d go out tonight and I could get his attention as he walked out. It was a spur of the moment kind of thing, I hadn’t really thought it out, obviously.