Back to the Beginning

Chapter 2 - Jackson

My Name is Jackson walker. I've always lived with my mother and father.

My father is a very successful lawyer who owns his own firm. My mother is teacher. We had always been extremely financially stable, I never really thought much of it.

I had always pretty much gotten whatever I wanted.
Growing up I had everything a kid could want. Except a friend.

That all changed the first day of third grade.

The class was doing attendance and my head perked up when I heard the name "jolene Parker".

She had long light brown hair.
She had a t-shirt on that looked way too big to fit her.
Her pants had rips and didnt reach the bottom of her legs, like she had grown out of them.

Her name reminded me of my favorite super hero. Spider man. Also known as Peter Parker. He was my hero as a kid. He was always so brave, but never cared about fame or being known. He just cared about helping others.

When they called her name she said "here" in such a quiet voice, it was practically a whisper.

Lunch time came around and I looked around for a place to sit.

I saw the girl from class sitting alone at a table.
Maybe we could be alone together.

I took all of the braveness I had in me and walked up to her.

"Can I sit here?" I asked, gesturing to the chair next to her.

All she did was nod. She tried to keep a straight face, but it was clear she was trying to hide the happiness she was feeling.

I was doing the same.

I noticed she was reading a book instead of eating lunch.

"Do you not have a lunch?" I asked.

She refused to make eye contact with me. I could tell she was uncomfortable.

"Uh. No, I forgot."

I looked at my spider man lunch box for a moment, wondering what Spider-Man would do in this situation.

"You can share with me if you want..."

I could see her eyes widen.
She had these big blue eyes that were hard not to stare at.

"It's okay! I'd feel bad. I don't want you to be hungry because you didn't eat all of your lunch."

"No really! I had a big breakfast so I'm not that hungry anyway." I said with a smile.
It wasn't true, but maybe she would believe me and take some of my lunch.

Before she could say another word I put a bag of chips and half of my sandwich in front of her.

She didn't protest and we both just sat at the table alone and ate with each other

I had finally made a friend.

We soon became best friends.
I could tell something was off with her home life. She never brought a lunch. There was no way she just "forgot" everyday. I bought a bigger lunch box so I could bring lunch for her too. I remember asking to come over to her house but she quickly refused. I wanted to ask what was going on but I could tell she don't want to talk about it.

One night she showed up knocking on my window. She looked really scared.
She didn't say why she showed up. I knew she didn't want to talk about it, so I just let her in. We just hung out, later on she was in a much better mood than when she got there. I remember hearing her stomach growling so I snuck downstairs and grabbed leftovers from dinner that night and brought it up to her. She ate it so fast. It was like she was starving.