Ones Ignored

Chapter 35 | "Your dad hits Jamie"

I'm feeling slightly better the next day at school. That sentence easily becomes a lie when I walk in and find Jameson in the hallway. He was walking past me when I was at my locker and he stopped. For a second, but then went on his way. I watched him walk away with a straight posture but the slight hiss from his mouth told me that he was recently hurt on his back.

His dad probably hit him around the time before he was arrested. Was it bad? I didn't know. I wanted to know, but then again I didn't. The wanting to know was a hard factor playing into all of this.

I wanted to know how Jameson was doing. I wanted to know his home situation now. I wanted to know if his mother was paying him more attention. I wanted to know if he was doing okay. All of those required me to actually speak to him and that was a hard thing.

I'm getting my lunch and walking toward my usual lunch table when there is a loud disturbance at a table at the back of the cafeteria. I watch as Jameson slaps his hands down on the cafeteria table in front of Maeve who jumps in her spot. He leaves her with a look and marches out of the lunch room, not bothering to open the door gently.

The air in the cafeteria is suddenly sucked away and I'm feeling uncomfortable yet again. That was, well. Jameson was angry. I guess I knew the answer to my earlier question.

I'm about to turn away again when Maeve makes eye contact with me. Her blonde hair had gotten more pale throughout the year, it was now platinum now. When she catches my eyes she walks out of her seat and heads straight for me. I should turn away and pretend I never saw her. I should leave. I should just go, I couldn't look at Maeve and not see an image of her father in my mind.

An image that probably isn't true to the t but good enough.

"Ivory", she shouts when she is close enough to me because even with my internal monologue telling me that I should go, I stayed. "Is my brother sleeping with you?", she shouts. The question is loud enough for a few people to look my way and a few people to snicker. I tighten my hold on the tray and try not to glare at Maeve who had shouted that phrase.

"No", she says to me once she is standing in front of me. Her pale face reddens slightly at the bridge of her nose and she shakes her head. She places a hand on my arm and tries again, "Is my brother staying with you?"

"Jameson is not at home?", I ask the first question that comes to my mind. Maeve shakes her head, her eyes widening ever so slightly. "If he is not staying with you then where is he staying?"

I want to tell her that I don't know, that I had no clue, but I don't say anything. She takes that as opposite and says, "He hasn't come home in a few days. Ever since our dad got arrested."

Maeve says the word dad with so much emotion, to much love that it takes me aback. She didn't know the lengths of how much of a bad person he was. She didn't know that he took pleasure in seeing girls scream, fight against all cause. She didn't know that her father hurts Jameson to the point of him getting used to it. She didn't know all of it. Or any of it. She only knew what she was used to.

The way Jameson talked about his father's relationship with his sister showed me that they had a good one. One where her dad was protective of her and if that was all Maeve knew, then she wasn't going to not love her father.

The question is: Does she not know why her father is not home yet?

"Ivory", she says wanting my attention. "He hasn't been doing anything, not taking me to school, not talking to me. He has been distancing himself from our family."

It didn't take a genius to know why but I was surprised that he had caught off ties. He had also cut off ties from Maeve, his beloved sister. There was a time where he had hated her, but now he loves her. I saw that much a week ago, and now he was not talking to her?