The Troubles of Growing Up

Chapter 2

As we sat in the living room listening to him, I learned that he was my biological father. Apparently after my mom found out she was pregnant with me he decided to go into the military to help with financial issues with the family. He had promised Paige that he would visit as often as he could. He transferred to boot camp the next day. After his training he was stationed in California. He remained there for about a month and a half. Then he was shipped to Iraq. after about two weeks the camp he was stationed at was attacked at random. Nobody expected it. He was caught and imprisoned for six years. Him and all of the american prisoners came up with a plan to escape. One week later they put their plan into action. Only three survived. My dad, his best friend Jarod, and their drill sergeant, Molly. They obtained weapons from the enemies and had escaped to an island off the coast of Pakistan they thought. They survived there for eleven years. Then they began their journey home with a boat they salvaged and partially repaired. Their journey lasted for four days before they were startled by an Indian Cruise Ship who sent out a life boat. They had given them rooms removed their weapons and kept them fed for being american soldiers. The people on the cruise loved hearing their stories and enjoyed their company. Afterwards they gave them jobs on the ship for the time it would take to get enough money for the trip home. After they got enough they thanked the crew and bought plane tickets to New York. they arrived and found another soldier who made it out of the attack and he found them jobs. They worked for about seven months. After they had been captured, the military sent soldiers to their homes and told their families they were dead. My mom was crushed. She had opened the door and before the soldier said anything she started to cry. The soldier just said “I’m so sorry, your husband was a great man and personally one of the best soldiers i've ever seen. I don't want to believe he’s gone. I think he’s still out there. Missing you.” that made my mom smile and she hugged the soldier. He was a fellow friend of my dad's who had been recruited into the military three years earlier. They had been friends since high school. After seven months went by he told his boss about what happened and that he needed to get back to us. His boss gave him enough money to buy a plane ticket, and help with the financial issues that we had. He bought a plane ticket from New York to St. Paul. from there he stayed in a hotel for two days getting ready to come home. Then he did. He saw my step dad and kept walking. Then he saw Preston and me working on my truck. He stopped and smiled. Then kept walking. He was so nervous to see us that he took two weeks to knock on the door and, well you know the rest. At this point Preston came home from work. He didn't have the time to say much so he just looked at him and said “hey dad, good to see you’re still alive.” and he left the room. Our dad just smiled. Apparently my mom had gotten the message that he died and decided to name me after him. Because of that everyone started calling me “junior”. I hated that. After that my dad asked me questions. I told him about myself and how much I liked Nascar. He didn't seem interested.
“Do you like any sports?” he asked.
“Nascar is a sport.” I responded.
“I mean like with a ball or a goal like baseball, football, things like that.”
“No not really.” he looked disappointed.
“Never had anyone to be interested in anything with. Andrew is all I have.” Now I think he was more disappointed in the fact that I had no friends. That was all about to change though. My life was about to get a lot more interesting and way more depressing. I was sitting in my room making a new song when the phone rang. I reached for it but it stopped. As I figured, my mom answered it. I heard her greet the caller as a friend. "Hello Linda! How are you?"
Then her tone changed. I couldn't hear quite what she was saying at that point because I had started back on my music. I had just started getting into a new melody when my mom came in. She was crying. She gestured me to take the headphones off. "I just got a call from Linda." I could tell she was trying to keep herself together. "We need to talk. It's about Andrew."
I sat there and stared at her.
"Mom, what's going on?"
"It's bad. He was involved in a car accident about an hour ago"
She fell apart. She burst into tears
She grabbed me and held me so tightly I could barely breathe. I was devastated. I couldn't think of anything else other than him. How good of friends we were. How he was the only one.
"Is he...?"
"He's in critical condition in the hospital and..the doctors say he's not going to make it."
I froze. How could something like this happen to me? It turns out his vehicle was hit by a police car as it was passing through an intersection without it's siren. The officer was responding to a hostage situation so it turned it's siren off as it was approaching. Andrew had no idea what was coming. He had been transported the hospital. I would visit him only once. I didn't go to school for a few days. I couldn't handle it. When I came back, I avoided everyone. Nobody bothered me. Not even the teachers. Nobody. I did nothing that day and I skipped lunch. I went home and made the most depressing song my brother had ever heard. As I was sitting in lunch the next day I was minding my own business looking at the table when I decided to put my head down. I did. Then someone tapped my shoulder.
"Are you Josh?" I was shocked to look up into the eyes of the most popular girl in the school,
Charlotte Hope.