Lost

Chapter 20 - Confession

After a little bit of consideration, Ace and Caleb decided to take Jodee to the park. She could play on the play structure and the two boys could talk and watch her at the same time.

It was the weekend so school wasn't an option and there wasn't any sort of day-care Jodee was in, but they also didn't want Jodee to hear the conversation they were forced to have. This was the best solution to make out of a pretty bad situation.

Jodee had a hard time at first wanting to leave both of the boys to go play on the play structure by herself — it was something she did often but this time she just didn't want to. Ace wasn't in the mental mindset to help her through this so Cal stepped up and briefly explained what was happening and why she needed to go play for a little. Of course he didn't want to let on too much because he didn't know how much Ace wanted his baby sister to know and he also really didn't know a ton himself. Luckily for them, she didn't put up much of a fight and was currently on the monkey bars.

It seemed that in the very short time Jodee and Caleb had been alone as Ace dealt with his mother Jodee and Cal had become immeasurably closer. It was probably a much bigger jump than what had happened in the couple of months they had been seeing each other regularly. Caleb found this as the silver lining to everything bad that has been going on — he loved it.

"What happened with your mom, A?" Caleb asked. He wanted to beat around the bush because he could tell that this was a traumatic event, but they didn't really have time for that and Ace needed to talk to Caleb.

Ace just stared straight ahead, his eyes never leaving his sister as she zipped around the playground.

"Well is she okay?" Caleb demanded.

Ace paused for a second and Caleb could see that he was thinking, so Cal waited for a response. His eyes worked twice as hard as he wanted to catch even the little things from his friend.

He shook his head.

"Is she hurt?" Cal asked.

Ace paused for a second, seeming to determine if she was hurt or not before shaking his head very slowly.

Cal raised his eyebrow, what the hell. "Is she dead?" He asked although he didn't really think it was that serious of a question.

But his friend nodded his head almost immediately.

"What the fuck?" Caleb said under his breath before he could stop himself.

A million thoughts were running through his head a mile a minute. But he had to focus on one thing — he needed to see if she was dead before or after Ace got there. He was betting on after as seeing her die would invoke this response from his friend, but he was also banking on before as maybe Ace would also be distraught as his mother died because he was too late on getting to her.

"How?" Caleb asked, turning his body so it was very clear hearing Ace's side of the story was the only thing he was focused on. Before he was also watching Jodee, but Cal determined that Ace had that job down.

Ace's breathing started to increase slightly as he tore his eyes away from the playground to look at his friend, some tears lining the inside of his eyes.

They both knew he would never let them fall, but the act of allowing them to allow there was enough for Caleb to know that this was big and this would affect Ace for probably the rest of his life.

He opened his mouth just slightly before swallowing, his eyes breaking eye contact with his best friend and then looking back at him, labored breaths coming out of his nose:

"S-she..." He tried to say, his voice breaking half way through. Ace took a deep breath looking away again before gritting out. "Killed herself."

Everything seemed to stop after that.