Ones Ignored

Chapter 26 | "He never stopped, Ivory. That was the first of many."

The car ride to Jameson's house is silent. I had sat in the backseat while Jameson and Maeve sat in the front, not talking to each other. I find that Jameson's house is not that far from school and that if you took the nearest highway, you could get there in ten minutes. I'm marveled when he pulls into his driveway.

His house is big, that's my first thought. His house is bigger than the rest of the houses in this neighborhood. He parks his car and then gets out, Maeve following after him. I get out as well with my eyes widened as I take in the front door. It is so high that my neck cranes in order to get a good look at it. Jameson opens the front gate and the three of us walk in.

He doesn't need to knock on the door, he uses his key to get in. Once we are inside, the place is dead quiet. I don't think either of his parents are home. I'm looking around the area when I hear Jameson's voice. "Maeve", he calls out to his sister who is already starting to walk up the stairs. He follows after her and places a hand on her arm to pull her back.

"What do you want?", she yells at him, and I could hear the anger in her voice from here.

"I didn't mean to yell at you", he says to her, his eyes on her face but she doesn't look at him. He lets go of her hand to instead to place his arms over her shoulders. I watch Maeve lose the standoffish demeanor she inherited earlier, her shoulders sagging under his arms. "I'm sorry for yelling at you, Mae. I'm not mad at you."

"Are you sure?", she asks him, pulling away.

Jameson nods and says, "I was being a jerk. One who couldn't keep his feelings controlled. Don't be mad at me."

"I'm not, you dummy ", Maeve says, losing her anger and replacing it with siblingly love. She walks up a few more stairs up the spiral staircase and shouts back, "Tell me when it is dinner time." Jameson looks at her retreating before he turns on the staircase and walks down toward me. I try to play it off as if I was staring at the plant right down the staircase and Jameson shakes his head as he walks by me, having caught me.

"Come", he whispers and I follow after him. He walks us to the living room where he motions for me to take a seat on the couch that didn't even look sat on ever. I take a seat carefully, tucking my hand underneath my knee. Jameson takes a seat close to me and stares at the space between us.

He looks up at me after a while and meets my eye. In them I can see the regret and guilt in them. "I didn't mean to say all of that."

"When you picked apart my issues?", I ask leaning away from him. There was a lot between us that we couldn't make go away just because we were sitting here together.

"Yes that", he says not even bothering to hide the guilt on his face. He runs a hand under his jaw and says, "I picked you apart."

"Piece by piece", I echo his answer and that makes him look away from me, his hand fisted up at his sides. He was angry at himself— I could see it in the way he was clenching his jaw and the look on his face. He looks back at me and says, "You figured out one thing about me and I started to use all I know about you to make you leave."

"Why did you do that?", I ask because it was clear that he hadn't meant to say all of the things he did to me the other day. He hadn't meant to use my abandonment issues to tear me apart. He didn't need to say much, I could see the apology all over his face. I wanted to know why he did it. He couldn't take it back, but he could explain it to me. Why he becomes so closed off and arrogant when somebody sees him.

"You were going to figure me out", he whispers and I shake my head. "I wasn't going to force you to open up if you didn't want to."

He moves back a little and says, "No, I know. It's just..." He stops, picks at the hem of his shirt for a little bit, his eyes moving back and forth in a way that tells me he is thinking about a response. "I was afraid."