Jessica

Stinger Part Two

"Uncle Aaron?"

Miles was still trying to process what he was seeing. Aaron had disappeared for so long, without leaving a trace, that he thought the day he was bitten by the spider would have been their very last meeting.

Before he could ask any questions, Jefferson interfered and shouted at his brother: "Leave him out of this! Whatever you're here for!"

"But I came here for him! Look, I have a gift."

He searched in his pocket only to realise it was empty so he looked in his backpack instead and took out a little magnet with a drawing of ancient ruins on it.

"This is a little souvenir from Templo Mayor." He didn't pronounce it as flawlessly as Rio would have hoped.

"Mexico City? Is that where you've been?"

"For work. Then I came back a week ago."

"Right!" Jefferson scoffed "Work. This is how you gain my son's trust, with gifts, ice cream and movies."

Miles found that unfair and tried to speak back at him: "Dad! That's—"

"Mijo, not now." His mother said, interrupting him with such a cold voice that he could do nothing but obey.

"I just wanted to see my nephew. What's wrong with that?"

"We had a deal! You had to leave us alone. The real question is 'What's wrong with you?'"

Aaron looked at his feet, then pondered with his eyes closed. "I'll go now. To think that for once I wanted to be honest with you."

Jefferson escorted him out of the house in complete silence, Miles never said anything, instead he just hid the magnet in his pocket and before his dad closed the door in Aaron's face and locked it, they only shared a glance for an instant.

After doing that, Jefferson turned to his son and invited him to sit on the couch with him. His wife had the same idea and encouraged him to have a chat with them.

"We need to talk about your uncle."

"No going out, got it? I don't care who calls you this time, you need to hear this."

Miles awkwardly followed them and sat between them. Seeing how stressed his father looked, it didn't surprise him one bit when his mum uttered the first sentence.

"We think that you're finally old enough to understand how things really are. Your uncle is simply a bad person."

"What do you mean?"

Jefferson took charge of the conversation and answered: "My brother met the wrong people and did some ugly stuff. It's a shady business, the one he's in."

The boy looked up at the man of the house and said "So what you're saying is he made some mistakes. It happens. Doesn't mean we can't give him a second chance."

Jeff sighed and told his son "Miles, I made some bad decisions, too. Not in the same circles but still some stupid stuff."

"That's what I'm saying."

"No, son. You don't get it. I quit and started anew. I wouldn't even think about going back to my old life. Your uncle was given every opportunity to go clean and yet he's still in it."

"But, maybe..." Miles said looking down at the floor "maybe it's not too late. He still has a choice. Maybe I can change him."

"Miles... no." he seemed so devoid of energy when saying this "You don't know him like I do. Just because you watch movies with him or whatever doesn't mean you know the real him."