Forgotten Past

Chapter Fifteen

Previously:

"They won't kill him." Jackson's mom scoffed. "Just tell me his name. I'll make sure he goes to prison and thinks about the decisions that he's made." She said gesturing to my body. I bit my lip and said the name. 

"John Woods." Jackson's mother gasped.

Jackson Taylor

I tilted my head in confusion. Did she know him? I looked to Aiden for answers. He looked at me and shrugged his shoulders, not knowing much more than me.

"What's wrong, Mom? You know him?" I finally decide to ask. She looks at me with wide eyes. I furrowed my eyebrows. "Do you?" I grabbed her hand and looked her in the eye.

"No!" She ripped her hand out of my grip. I could see tears threating to fall from her eyes. I walked closer to her and reached out for her. She backed up and brought her hands up to her face and covered her mouth. "Please no, please not now." She murmured to herself. 

"Mom? What's wrong? Are you sure you don't know him? You're kind of acting like it." I asked, confused about the whole thing. I continued to walk toward to her until something stopped me. I turned and saw that it was Aiden. He shook his head and looked at my mom, who was now bawling her eyes out. I looked over to my friends who looked as confused as I was. I turned back to see that my mom was gone, but my dad was left in her place. When did he get here?

"Son, I don't think you should pressure your mother on the subject." I went to open my mouth again, but he gave me the 'do as you're told' look. My mouth immediately closed. "Aiden, are you alright?" My father asked Aiden. Aiden nodded his head slowly, probably still confused about my mother's outburst.

"Dad? Do you know who he is?" I asked. He just shook his head.

"I'm sorry, son. I have no idea who that man is. I've never heard the name anywhere." I sighed. What's so special about Aiden's dad that it made mom cry. I turned to the rest of my friends who looked confused still. 

"Do you want to stay and talk to Aiden for a while before he gets out? Only two hours?" I asked them. They all smiled.

"Yeah! Come on, let's go grab some chairs." Mason yelled out, tugging along Lukas, who in the process, almost dropped his book. I looked at Aiden and smiled. He sat down on the bed and I followed his movement. 

"See you later, son. I'm gonna go find your mother. Have fun. Oh, and Aiden, feel better." He smiled as he started walking towards the door.

"Thank you, Mr. Taylor." He yelled after him. 

Mason and Lukas came back with the right amount of chair and spread them out across the room. There was one extra chair for me, but I wasn't going to use it. I'm gonna sit next to Aiden on his bed. Mason was on the far right, followed by Lukas, Ethan, Liam, and Noah. 

"So, Aiden. Let's tell some stories. Ethan and I have so many!" Liam looked over at Ethan and smiled. He looked back to Aiden and gave him an encouraging nod. He's probably trying to get everyone's mind off of what just happened. Aiden smiled and nodded.

"Okay!"

"Okay, so... about me, about me..?" He brought his hand up to his chin in thought. Suddenly, his index finger went up in the air. "Oh, I know! So, you know how Ethan and I are best friends? Well, when we were about twelve, our parents both went on a business trip together for about a week, because they work in the same place, but that's irrelevant. We decided that it was a good idea to throw a party, us being the stupid pre-teens we were. We did and we invited the whole school. It was crazy. But guess what?"

"What?" Aiden smiled.

"We stayed upstairs playing video games the entire time." By now, both Ethan and Liam were laughing their butts off at their funny childhood selves. The rest of us soon joined in on the laughter.

"Oh, my god, what did your parents say!?" Mason asked through his laughter.

"We cleaned the place after it was over. You might not believe me when I say this, but twelve-year-olds party hard." Liam shuddered at the thought. 

"Yeah, we went through at least five gallons of Hawaiian punch, cups everywhere," Ethan added, chuckling.

~~~

After the two hours were up, the rest of the guys left, leaving only Aiden and I. I got up and started gathering his things. I stopped when Aiden tapped on my shoulder. I turned and gave him a questioning look. 

"Yes?" I asked. He looked down at his feet. I put my hand on his shoulder and pushed him towards the bed. We both sat down and Aiden spoke up.

"Um, I was wondering if we could, I don't know, maybe, since we're alone now, talk about what happened?" I tilted my head.

"After my birthday last week?" He nodded once. "Yeah?" He looked up, a blush on his face.

"I was wondering... what it meant... to you?" He asked, his head slowly going down. I smiled and used my hand to lift his chin so he could look up at me.

"It meant everything." I whispered, leaning in a bit. His eyes flickered to my lips.

"Really?" He whispered back. 

"Yeah." I closed the gap between us. Our eyes fell as we leaned into the kiss. He brought his hand up to my face as we slowly kissed. I was about to get more into the kiss when I heard a flash. I pulled away from Aiden making him whine a little. I smiled at him and turned to see what the noise was.

Sophia. Standing there. With a camera in her hand.

"Sophia!! What the hell!? You can't just take pictures of people like that!" I got up and was about to take the camera, but she ran out the door, laughing her ass off. I smiled and rolled my eyes. I turned back to Aiden to see that he was trying to hold in his laughter. Once he looked me in the eyes, he burst out laughing, causing me to started laughing along with him. I wrapped my arm around his shoulder and said through laughs, "Come on, it's time to go home."