The Eye Of The Ankh #Wattys2016

Chapter Seven

We were sitting on Anna's back porch in her comfortable outdoor furniture. Jude had a blanket wrapped around her shoulders, sipping coffee. I was sipping tea.

I don't really like coffee all that much.

"Why'd you leave the game early? And I want the truth." Jude said, wrapping her fingers around her mug, trying to keep warm.

"I wanted to avoid someone."

"Who?" She questioned, but I'm sure she already knew who.

"Ethan." I smiled sheepishly. The soft indie music I had put on ended and a new song began to start. "How did you feel after your dad died?" I questioned, switching topics away from Ethan.

"Such a dark subject." She retorted, breathing in the steam from her coffee. She closed her eyes while doing so.

"I'm curious."

"Well. I mean, he was cheating on my mom. But that's nothing I'm supposed to talk about, not something the kids should get involved in. I don't even know how long it had been going on. I mean, it could've gone on all throughout my childhood, I just never really knew. Point it, I knew when he died. The marriage was bad, and sure my mother was heartbroken, but at the same time I think she was a little relieved."

"What was his name?"

"Thomas. Thomas Adams."

I nodded.

"Why were you avoiding Ethan?" She brought the conversation away from her father and back to Ethan, just as I hoped she wouldn't do.

"I kissed him."

Jude laughed. "Ha!" One short burst. "I didn't think you really liked him. Pfft. Guess I was wrong."

I smiled. "I feel like you're taking this better than Quincy would."

Jude rolled her eyes. "Quincy takes everything too seriously. He needs to chill, stop being so on edge. He hasn't been quite right since Dad died... It's been worse lately. I thought that the meeting would help, but it made him worse."

I nodded. "Maybe he just hasn't come completely to terms with it." I looked up into the sky. "Everyone I talk to about my parents expect me to cry, like really cry. I just haven't. My therapist thinks I've built walls around the whole thing to avoid facing it. But she's full of bull shit. I haven't put up walls because I tell people what has happened. I just haven't cried."

"How'd they die?"

I bit my lip. "They were murdered."

"Tell me about that night." It seemed like the thing to be a question, but it was more of a command.

I looked over at Jude. She was studying me, how I reacted to what. "I got in an argument with my parents and left the house. While I was off driving to calm down, my parents were being murdered. My mother was strangled, my father bled out from a head wound. Detective told me that my father was likely pushed away, his head landing on the corner of the coffee table. They never caught the murderer."

Jude was silent.

She took a sip of coffee.

Then she cried.

My parents were never good at handling crying. I remember as a kid while growing up, that if I fell and got hurt and started to cry, I would be turned away, told to either stop crying or go get myself some ice cream. This method usually worked, unless I was really hurt, and ice cream wouldn't do. In those cases, my mother would hold me until I stopped crying. But she would hold me like someone does with a crying baby: away from their body and with tight arms.

They were never good with anyone who cried. I can remember rare times where my parents would sit, stiff and silent, as a friend of theirs cried. Even the smallest tear made them uncomfortable.

This is not a good trait to pass down.

Although I react much the same when it comes to someone crying, I've learned to fake the discomfort.

So as Jude sat on the porch, crying into the winter night, I sat down my tea and stood up, pulling her so she stood too, and wrapped my arms around her. I was uncomfortable, but she was easing. So it really didn't matter how I felt. This wasn't about me.

I feel like that was where my parents failed.

It was always about their discomfort over the crier's.

I'm better than them.

"Let's go inside," I said, ushering my friend towards the door.

"Okay." She sniffled. "I was getting cold anyway."

I smiled and she mustered up a poor excuse forone.