Sandcastles | Completed

10 | memory lane

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"How old were you on this picture?"

I saw Elijah looking at a picture of a younger me, "I was... 15?" I walked closed, "Oh nevermind, I was 16. That's when my dad took us to Florida. I'll never go back."

"Florida not that bad." He laughed.

"It wasn't. I just associate bad experiences with things, like if a song was popular when I'm having a shitty year, I can't listen to the song without remembering that that was a bad year."

"So the year you turned 16 was shit?"

"You know Elijah, I'm not gone keep telling you all my business while you sit over there and pay me dust when it comes to your life." I half-way joked.

It was partially a joke because I was dead serious. I was the talker in the situationship, and he listened and offered tidbits to keep me talking, but he never talked about himself. At first, I thought he was being polite, now I realized it was purposeful.

He sat there for a few seconds, "I got married when I was 18."

"Whew shit. I meant like tell me your mama middle name or something... Why would you ever get married that young?"

"The timing wasn't the problem. It was the person."

His mood had changed tremendously, and I almost felt bad for asking, then I realized he volunteered that strain of information. Like I said, I didn't mean for him to tell me something like that.

Before I could respond, the look on his face was replaced with the signature stoic gaze, "So why was 16 a bad year for you?"

"Not the whole year... Just some of it. My grandma and them live there, and My dad wanted me to move out there."

"....He has life figured out for you, huh?"

I didn't care for his comment, "I mean he's trying. It doesn't always work out, but he tries."

As previously mentioned, my dad used one incident in high school as a catalyst for his crusade to protect me from every man to walk the Earth. Now that I'm older, I do see what he saw but at the time I thought it was an extreme overreaction.

Elijah nodded, "Sorry if I offended you."

"You didn't offend me. He acts like that for a reason and it's technically my fault, so I try to understand."

He waited patiently for me to begin the story.

"What?" My dad asked the principal, "What?"

I stared at the same monitor in shock. In shock because Brandon actually told on me.

"The young man is Demetrius White. Ava's brother."

Ava and I had been friends since I was 10, having sleepovers and whatnot. I always thought her brother was cute, but he never paid us attention. Over the past summer, he was in the home more and started showing interest.

It was easy because I was over there every day, he and my dad were close, so it didn't seem weird that he spent time at our house.