Letters to Nowhere #1 (Completed!)

Letters to Nowhere: Part 48

"Oh yeah...I'll let you know when I feel well enough to be pissed off at you for that."

            "Hey," I said, not hiding the defensive edge in my voice. "You kissed me."

            Jordan turned the TV down a few notches and angled himself to face me. I was sitting up now, curled in the corner of the couch, knees pulled up to my chest underneath the thick blanket.

            "You really freaked me out the other night," he admitted.

            The ends of his hair curled a little, probably from being wet. It looked really cute. "Sorry about that."

            "Last year this kid in my dorm died of meningitis—"

            "What dorm?"

            Jordan looked completely bewildered by my confusion. Obviously, I had missed something important about his life. "My school is a boarding school. Also a day school. This is my first semester as a nonresident."

            "Huh," I said, sinking further into my spot. "What made you move back home during the school year?"

            "Half the cost." Jordan shrugged. "There was a coaching position open and my dad took it, knowing I'd be able to live at home and save us fifteen thousand dollars this year. I couldn't change my plans for last fall since I'd already committed to paying the resident fees, but they found a replacement for my room before winter break."

            "So you've been around here all this time," I said.

            "Since freshman year."

            "That's why you said you don't know him," I mused, thinking aloud. "Your dad."

            "That's one of the reasons. I had some problems before high school. I got in trouble a lot, did some stupid stuff." He glanced down at his hands. "My dad and I were in Chicago then, living in my grandparents' house."

            His dead grandparents' house. "What kind of stupid stuff?"

            "Getting caught drinking, smoking pot. I got arrested a couple times." He shut his eyes like he didn't want to look at me when he admitted this.

            I worked hard to keep my expression neutral. "For what?"

            "Underage drinking the first time, and the second time I was skateboarding on private property...at three in the morning." He opened his eyes and gave me a tiny smile. "I fell and broke my arm. My friend freaked out and called an ambulance. It was kinda bent funny and the bone was poking through the skin."

            "Did you have surgery?"

            He lifted his arm to show me the scar. "I've got metal pins in there, too. Don't go to an airport with me."

            "But you weren't, like, cutting school and showing up drunk and high all the time, were you?" I asked trying to get a gauge on this bad version of Jordan.

            "No, but I was a bit of a daredevil, and the fact that I had to appear in court a few times and had an assigned social worker for a while worried my grandparents a lot."

            "The grandparents in England? Your mom's parents?"

            He nodded. "They're rich and British, so they told my dad I needed to go to a better school and probably one that's a boarding school. Apparently that's what wild British boys do to straighten up, instead of juvenile detention. The ones with money, anyway. They found a school in St. Louis, which didn't seem too far from Chicago and it didn't sound too bad to me. It actually sounded kind of cool. I wanted to go. And for the most part, it is pretty cool."

            "So they pay for it?" I asked.

            "They did the first year. I got some academic scholarship money for good grades and then my dad applied for financial scholarships to fill in the rest because he doesn't like to take handouts from my grandparents," he said. "It's a little awkward around them now. Not that I've seen them more than a handful of times since leaving England."

            "So you were a little British boy." I smiled at the thought. "Did you have an accent?"

            "I did. It's so weird to hear myself talk on videos." His face turned serious again and I could sense his need to change the subject.

            "So...that's the story behind the dorm disease phobia," I said.

"Yep." He smiled. "I'm just glad you don't have meningitis."

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