Connor's Tale - A Jonnor story

Chapter 9 - Dinner at Home

Building a model of DNA was pretty cool, not really all that hard, it just involved making sure we matched the colors of the base pairs correctly as we built our strand and mostly we just talked about what we were doing. But as we were finishing up Jude asked me "Can I show you something?"

I nodded and he reached over to his bag, that duffel bag that had everything he owned in it, and he pulled out a set of keys "It was my dad's" he said handing them to me. I noticed that there was a small pocket knife on it with T.J. burned into the wood handle. "It doesn't open anymore, I just like the fact that he carried it around" Jude tells me.

"Yeah." Connor says trying to find the right way to ask without sounding like a jerk "Hey, what happened to your dad?" Connor hands the key ring and knife back to Jude.

Jude takes a second before saying "He's in jail."

Connor is stunned again. How can one person have all this happen to him Connor thinks? Dad in jail, bullied in school, moving from foster home to foster home, having almost nothing...it's not fair! Connor wants to say something, something reassuring, but he isn't doing too well today and doesn't know what to say to his new friend.

"Well, he...he was in jail" Jude said with a completely different look on his face, like he was talking about someone totally different. "Then he had to leave the country. And now he lives in..um..on an island." Jude continues.

"Um...okay" Connor says, but he is watching Jude talk and he knows, knows in his gut, that this isn't right. It's like the Jude he has been talking to up till now has been replaced by someone different. He is making this up...but why?

"He made a lot of money and some people got mad so he had to leave. But he'll come back and get us. And he's gonna take us to his really nice house..." Jude looks down, not paying attention to the pipe cleaners in his hand that he has been twisted together over and over again. "Right on the beach and there's a pool and these really awesome cars and, and that's where all my stuff is at. At my dad's."

Connor knows he has to make a decision, do I call him on this or let it go? Why is he saying all this?

"Why are you lying?" Connor says before he even realizes it. He wants to be friends with Jude, the real Jude, not this fake person telling stories.

"I'm not" Jude says, but his eyes are telling Connor the truth.

"You don't have to lie" Connor says not breaking eye contact. He wants Jude to know he is there for him.

Jude looks down, ashamed. "Sorry" he says barely above a whisper and Connor feels bad. I don't care about any of that, I just want us to be friends, real friends he thinks. How can I fix this? Remembering his PSP that he brought, he smiles and starts to reach for it in his bag. "Hey, want to play Ridge Racer?" He turns it on and hands it over to Jude "You go first." Which is a big deal for Connor, he always goes first when he plays with his other friends.

Jude looks confused at first, like he has never seen one before, and watches as the game starts up "Whoa, this is so cool!"

Connor watches Jude smiling as he looks at the game, a real, honest smile and he can't help but smile back. He is surprised by how it feels watching someone else be happy, it feels like all the pressure and discomfort that had happened when Jude was lying about his dad was gone and they were better than before. Connor doesn't understand why seeing Jude happy makes him happy.

Jude looks up at Connor with a huge smile, but doesn't say anything before starting the game. It was even better than when he wore the nail polish. They played for a while longer before getting back to their project. When they were finishing up Connor got a text from his mom that she was on her way to pick him up so they cleaned up everything and headed downstairs.