The Pain That Grows Us

Chapter Seventeen

No wheelchair?" Jason asks as he passes me on the driveway.

"Traded it in." I call over my shoulder. Where the fuck is he going?

"I will let you know how Justin's parent teacher meeting goes." Ryan sighs, putting the knee scooter in the living room.

"I thought I didn't care." I am still pissed off from earlier. He doesn't get to act like he didn't throw my problem in my face. As if I am not getting the help he thinks I need.

"Don't. I am not fighting with you again." I turn to see him looking around the room, "How the hell you can stand to be in here this long is beyond me."

"I don't have much of a choice." I look at the pictures on the walls, I still find it weird that there are pictures of people everywhere. Does anyone in the house actually know any of these people in the pictures?

"Right." He is dancing around the words he knows he needs to say, and so am I. I would rather take a bullet for him and call it good, than say the words I am sorry to him.

"Do you have any more homework? Any of that project done yet? Ms. Smith has been on my ass, saying you need to turn in something." he rubs the back of his neck.

"No. I haven't even touched that project yet. I will start it tonight." I can't keep putting it off, I have to face the facts. If she is alive she doesn't want to talk to me, for now at least.

"Look at you, no wheelchair." Talia comments as she throws herself into a chair opening a book.

"I am going to leave now." Ryan eyes her, "Before she goes crazy again." he whispers to me.

I don't bother with a smile or a goodbye, and neither does Ryan. Both of us still too pissed both of us knowing that if we start saying goodbye now, this has made us soft. We can't afford to be soft. Not when we have a war around the corner, and minutes separating us.

"I am not crazy." the words are out of Talia's mouth as soon as the door is closed.

"You called Jason your boyfriend." I maneuver my way to the chair across from her.

"I am tired of him pushing me away." She flips the page of her book.

"How long have you known each other?" I would be lying if I wasn't a tiny bit curious about their relationship.

"Our whole lives. My mom and his mom are best friends." She flips the page again, "His dad is the reason he is in here. He doesn't like to talk about it much, but his dad is the problem."

"I don't-"

"You want to know why we aren't dating, so I am telling you." She interrupts me. "His dad is in the military, like way up there, like no one knows he exists type of ranking. Which means he has seen some shit, and done some shit. He is good with Jason's mom and sisters, but when it comes to Jason, he is never good enough. He can never lift enough, he can never get a high enough grade, he can never ask a girl out the right way, he can never score enough points in a game. It's bad. I have been around for a few of those 'conversations' and it makes me sick. My dad tried to step in one time but it only made things worse on Jason." She shakes her head, staring hard at her book.

"Next thing I knew Jason wasn't at school, and he wasn't at home. No one would tell me where he was for weeks. It wasn't until I found out that he was here the whole time did things... Let's just say things went from bad to worse for me. But my dad didn't want to put me in here. Not when he knew how to help me, and for a while it worked. But eventually I hit a wall. I was missing Jason. No one understood why his absence caused such a problem for me, but when you have lived next door to someone for your whole life and know that they are always there for you, it's hard to have them just ripped away." She draws one of her legs to her chest, "We had started dating just a few days before he was sent here. I thought he was just being an ass and avoiding me, but when I found out the truth... Let's just say I thought I was part of the reason he was here. I guess I still think that."