ᴍʏ ʙᴜꜱ ʙᴜᴅᴅʏ. [ᴍɪᴄʜᴀᴇʟ ᴊᴀᴄᴋꜱᴏɴ ꜰꜰ]

Ch. 13- A Haunting Past.

Darryl's face dropped as the three men approached him and his girlfriend. He could already tell, this wasn't gonna end well.

“Don't tell me you forgot about us, already.” The man in the middle crossed his arms, smirking. Darryl's lip twitched, wanting to speak, though he didn't open his mouth.

“I see you got a new lady friend, too.” The one with the mustache spoke up. Touching her significant other's shoulder, Ophelia, confused, asked him, “Who are these guys?”

“We were his buddies a year ago.” He pointed to the males behind him. “This is Sean and Clark.” He gestured proudly to himself.

“I'm Max. He used to ride with us up until he became a sissy.” Max glanced at his ex-friend's hand. “Why ya balling your first? Mad? Go ahead and swing at me. That'd prove you ain't a sissy after all.” Ophelia looked at Darryl. Was he really gonna hit that man?

She grabbed his fist, Unclenching it for him. “You don't have to fight them to be a man. It's ok,” she reassured him. It hung limp at his side. Darryl looked down at her affectionately. 

Max sneered in disgust. “Have you really forgotten who your friends are? Where ya come from? All for some prissy school and an uptight girl like her?” His buddies nodded in agreement. “Yeah! That's low, man.”

Ophelia moved in front of her boyfriend. “What's low is that you guys are harassing us! Do you even actually know him? It seems to me that you jackasses saw an innocent couple, and thought to come up to them and cause trouble!” The woman accused them. Everyone, even Darryl, was blown away by her outburst. The curly-headed man was more shocked by her use of a cuss word. He'd never heard her swear before. “She's right. You can't just come up to us and talk crazy.” He nudged her behind him gently, furrowing his eyebrows in anger. “Get the hell out of our faces. Now,” he bared his teeth, pissed off.

They howled, cackling like hyenas. “So y'all think you're tough? Especially you,” he said, speaking on Ophelia. “We ain't scared of a little ass woman like you. Maybe we did come up in here, screwing with y'all. One thing we didn't lie about was knowing him, though.” Clark pulled a photo out of his jacket pocket, handing it to Max. He shoved it in her face, forcing her to look at the image. Four males were present: Clark, Sean, Darryl, and Max, standing side by side.

They were telling the truth.

She took a step back. “And guess what? Ya boy's not much of a saint like he's showing ya. Remember when we robbed that old man, Darryl? And he had a heart attack right after?”

Her eyes widened in horror. Darryl did the opposite, squeezing his eyes shut as if he were hoping to wake up from a nightmare. “W-where is your remorse?”

Max shrugged. “The man was gonna die sooner or later. I think we did him a favor.” Clark prodded at his friend playfully.

“Let's not forget the times we did graffiti or when we got in fights with Tom and his gang. I busted Oscar up good. And we used to start food fights in school.” The guys bragged about their wrongdoings. “Forgot to mention, it's all peace with Tom and them now. That's how I got this.” Max waved the photo around.

Ophelia whimpered.

-“I don’t think I’ve ever told you this, but I love food fights. I used to have them all the time with my old friends back in middle school.”-

She remembered his words from before. He was affiliated with gangs, and he robbed people. The more she thought, the quieter their banter became. She remembered more that hinted at this.

-“So, you mentioned having friends in middle school.”-

-“Are you still friends with them?”-

-“No, not really. They changed.”-

-“I’m sorry. Did they mistreat you?”-

-“No. I just stopped hanging out with them. They weren’t the nicest, but they weren’t mean to me.”-

Another memory pushed its way into the front of her mind. She didn't want to remember these words, as she no longer believed them.

-“Do you think I’m a good person?”-

-“Yes. Even when I first saw you, I could tell you had a pure heart.”-

Could she, though? Or was she just blinded by his good-guy act?

“Ophelia? Ophelia!” Darryl shook her slightly. She grasped his hands, pushing them off of her. “You didn't tell me the truth.” He rubbed the back of his head awkwardly, a bad habit of his. “I didn't exactly lie to you, either.”

“BUT YOU DIDN'T WANNA GIVE ME THE SPECIFICS BECAUSE YOU KNEW I'D BE UPSET!” She yelled. Her voice became quiet. A whisper. “Tell me,” the woman made strong eye contact with Darryl, her optics wavering none-so-ever. “Did that man actually die?”

It was silent. Even the trio said nothing. “Yes.” That was the answer to her only question. She'd heard enough. Robbing people, desecrating public property, and being in a gang was one thing, as she thought he had changed. But to steal from an old man, and in the end, cause his death, was something she didn't know she could gloss over.

The tears built up. A whimper slipped out. Ophelia turned roughly, running away from them. None of them seemed remorseful, sorry to the deceased man. Ophelia gave herself up to who she thought was a good man. In her mind, they were evil people. Even Darryl.

She felt deceived.