Don't look back

Chapter fifteen

My depressed mother called me everyday at work after that day. She would give me updates about home. About Jamie and the funeral preparations. I even talked to Jamie and Jasper a couple of times. And Leslie once. She was completely pissed at me. But she still loved me, I knew that. My brother and grandparents and aunts and uncles and cousins all came to stay with my mom and Jamie. My mother buries her grief in her family. Having no family...grief buries me. I took a couple of days off of work after I got the news. Joy stayed with me. I cried and cried and she held me and cried with me. That was something I loved about her. She was so kind that she would cry if I did before she even knew what was wrong. But every night. She would leave. One day I decided that I was done with all the secrets. I followed. I was determined to find out where the hell she was going every fucking night. I followed at a safe distance and she walked crisply through the cool night air. We walked for only 10 minutes when she stopped in front of a building that was in a worse neighborhood then our house, if that was even possible. It had broken windows and peeling front door. She walked through and I waited two minutes before following her. When I walked inside I almost turned around and left. I knew what this place was. It was a whore house. The naked girls and the alcohol and the drugs. This was where Joy worked? There was a man in the back with his back facing me. He was, from what it looked, leering at the other girls. Where was Joy? He looked to be the main person so I summed up all of my courage and marched toward him poking his shoulder. He turned around. His young face, blue eyes, and brown hair were all so familiar and I knew instantly who he was. He was the man in the alley. The man that caused all of my grief. The hairs on the back of my neck all stood up straight as an arrow in unison, poking my scalp. The black cloud pounced on me filling my lungs with ice water. I felt like someone stabbed the base of my skull and blood was dripping down my tense body. My eyes glazed over and the black pain replaced it. I fell to my knees hard. I heard a crack. I didn't care though, I had started to shake as memories and unwanted flashbacks were popping in my head. My toes and fingers curled up and I distinctly heard someone screaming. It was a high pitched ear drum shattering sound that racked through my feeble body. It voiced of misery and pain. Then I realized, with shocking finality that it was me.