"The scariest thing about distance is that you don't know whether they'll miss you or forget you."
The drive back to Ohio had been an exhausting but exciting one for Audrina. She'd been hoping that one day, maybe, she'd get a chance to come back and see him again.
She twisted a strand of blondish brown hair around her fingertips in the back seat of her parents car as she thought back to the last time she'd seen him, her childhood best friend, Jonathan Good.
- flashback -
{ Jonathan Good, 14 / Audrina Camden 12}
"Hey Jon?"
"Yeah, Drina?"
"Promise me when we move you won't forget me.. Please? I won't forget ya."
"Don't make promises ya can't keep, Drina." Jon said quietly as the two teenagers swung on an old swingset down at the park. The sun was sinking lower and lower in the sky, and this was the last night he'd see his friend Audrina, most likely the last time he'd see her, ever.
Her father's shouting angrily had her grimacing, gritting her teeth and Jon grabbed her hand. He could tell the man had been drinking and he said calmly, "Come with me. I.. I wanna show you something."
He took her to the spot he always went when his mom was at work, or she had one of her boyfriends over, this little hill beside the bridge across the road from the apartments.
"Jon, I'm gonna get in trouble." Audrina muttered as they parted some bushes, walked up a steep trail. The bridge was right next to them and Jon stepped up, held out his hand. "Do ya trust me?" he asked, smirking, the beginnings of a cocky smile as he looked down at her, waiting.
The yelling of her father, who didn't like Jon, not in the slightest, this being a huge reason she had to sneak out and hang out with him, or anything, was getting farther away now, maybe he'd go down to the bar at the end of the block and tie another one on.
She hoped so because there was so much she wanted to tell her best friend before she had to leave him for good, so many things she wanted to make sure he knew before she was gone, before she couldn't run to him when her father hurt her or her mother and scared her.
"I asked ya a question, Drina." Jon said calmly, as he held out his hand, still standing balanced on the edge of the bridge, waiting.
Audrina smiled and grabbed hold of his hand, letting him pull her up onto the bridge's edging as she muttered quietly, "With my life, Jon." to answer him.
He smirked and then sat down on the edge, patting the railing next to him. Audrina sat down carefully and then gasped as she looked out over the whole city, the sun dipping lower in the late afternoon sky, painting it pink and orange and a sort of dusky shade of purple.
They were leaving when night came. Her father had gotten a job in New Jersey as a detective on their police force, and he had to be in New Jersey by the beginning of the next week. Since they were making the drive across country, he wanted to start early.
It wasn't a trip Audrina was particularly looking forward to, because she knew her father took this job, on purpose, to get herself and her mother away from her grandparents, their butting in and meddling, accusing her father of cheating on her mother and abusing both herself and her mother.
This was his way of asserting his dominance, making sure his 'girls' stayed under his thumb. He was good at that kind of thing.
She'd probably never see Jon Good again, and this thought had her a little more than sad and bitter. She didn't want to leave him behind, she knew that as bad as she had it, he had it ten times worse. She didn't want to leave behind her protector without his own protection.
"I'm.. I'm gonna miss ya, Drina." Jon murmured as Audrina looked up and said quietly, "Not as much as I'm gonna miss ya, Jonathan."
His arm slid around her waist and he cautiously pulled her closer. He'd already lost his younger cousin, who was also Audrina's friend to CPS. His mom was constantly hurting him and letting men into the apartment, letting said men rip them off while she got high. To date, Audrina was probably the one good thing (other than his dream to become a wrestler ) he had left and now she was being taken from him too.
And he'd probably never get to see her again, tell her how he felt about her in all honesty.. How he'd been feeling about her for the better part of the year almost that he'd known her.
Biting her lower lip, she leaned up and pulled his head down to meet hers, then clumsily kissed him. She'd never actually kissed a guy before, but she'd wanted to kiss him for a while now. Since she was leaving and probably never going to see him again, now seemed like a good time to do it.
Jon caught his breath a second, then pulled her from the railing beside him, sitting her in his lap, deepening the kisses as he stopped them and looked at her, trying to catch his breath.
"Any reason ya did that?"
"Jon.. Remember how I read ya that book called the Notebook a while ago?"
"That chick book?"
Audrina laughed, nodding as she said "That one.. There's a quote in that book.. I want you to remember it, cause it's.. It's how I feel about you.."
"What is it?" Jon asked, as he looked at her in curiousity, actually sort of 'seeing' her in a different way. He swore under his breath. Naturally, he'd spend all this time as her best friend, never once realize how he really felt about her until she was about to be lost to him too. He waited, wondering what she was trying to tell him, what she was about to say.
" You are, and always have been, my dream." she muttered quietly as she looked up at him, trailed her finger slowly along his lower lip.
"And ya leavin. Story of my fuckin life." Jon muttered bitterly as Audrina sighed and hugged against him, scooting closer to his body where she sat in his lap, her head resting in his neck, taking one last deep breath in, his cologne filling her nose. "I don't want to go, Jon. I'm only 12, I got no choice." Audrina mumbled as she looked up at him, the tears stinging her eyes now.
She wanted to cry more than she had in a really, really long time, right looked at him and bit her lip as she sighed and said quietly, " I'm never gonna get over you. I'll write ya and.." as he held his finger to her lips and shook his head.
"Don't make promises ya can't keep, Audrina. I'm not gonna promise anything either, okay? If we see one another again, it happens.. If not.. I'm gonna try like hell not to forget ya." Jon muttered as he gave her a gentle shove towards the apartment complex, towards her waiting parents and their moving van, towards a new life..
- end flashback -
Her father's clearing his throat and giving her a stern look had her jolted out of her mind, looking back at him, as she asked quietly, "What do you want?"
"I mean it, Audrina. If I even think I see you with that damn Jonathan kid again while we're back here, you will not like what happens as a direct result. He's a bum and he's no good. He's gonna wind up in prison if he's not dead already."
"You'd love that, wouldn't you?" Audrina flared before she could stop herself.
She braced herself for the sting of his hand on her cheek as it came next and she dropped her eyes to her lap as she murmured, "Yes sir, I promise."
"Good girl. Now get out and get your ass in that school building. Remember our talk just now, Audrina.. I meant what I said.. If I see you two together, you will not like what I do."
Her father's car drove off, dropping her off at the high school. She'd hoped he'd bring her directly to school, she personally didn't want to spend another day trapped with her parents, their rules, the fighting, their expectations.
At least at school, she wouldn't have to worry about her father getting drunk, getting angry, 'disciplining her' for something he imagined she'd done, or just because he felt like doing so.
The moment she was in the hallway, her warm brown eyes scanned the people around her, trying to find Jonathan. She was more than a little disappointed when she didn't see him.
He'd be a senior this year..
She was actually ahead enough that she was eligible to graduate early, and she'd decided that she wanted to take all of the seniors courses this year too. So she held out hope that maybe they'd have a class together or something.
All she did know was that she had to see him again. She'd thought of this moment the entire trip back to Ohio, so much so that she'd been almost too excited to sleep.
The secretary handed her a schedule, pointed her in the general direction of her homeroom after pressing the call button, letting her homeroom teacher know she was on her way down to the classroom.
The teacher was really boring Jon. He'd been torn between nodding off and doing something, raising hell somehow just to get the hell out of here, so he could ditch and go to the gym when the intercom kicked in, rousing him out of his almost asleep state.
The teacher answered the secretary then turned off the intercom and turned to the class as she said "Apparently, we're getting a new student. Her name is Audrina and she's moving here from New Jersey.. Now she's younger than you all are, so for the love of God Almighty, be nice to the poor kid."
This last statement, when said, was uttered mostly for Jon's benefit, he suspected, as Jonathan Good had the reputation, and a well earned one at that, for school hellraiser.
As soon as he heard the name, though, he was tuning out anything else the teacher said in regards to her being in his class.
"Nah.. It's not the same Audrina." he mumbled.
And if it were, he figured that most likely, she'd completely forgotten about him by now.. There'd been at least 4 years to this point, and even if he hadn't forgotten her, he figured that he'd been forgotten.
Audrina turned the knob on the classroom door and stepped in, taking a seat near the middle of the classroom.
As soon as he saw her, he sucked his breath in a little. It was Audrina.
Feeling eyes on her, she looked up and around, and almost immediately, her eyes locked with his. She managed a smile, mouthed, "Hi." as she wrote something down on a slip of notebook paper, hurriedly then tapped the girl sitting between himself and her.
"Can you give this to him?" she asked, nodding her head to Jonathan.
The girl looked at her, brow raised and hissed "Are you crazy? If you're smart you will not talk to the guy."
"Give him the note."
"Fine. It's your funeral." the girl stated matter of factly as she turned and gave Jon a scowl, tossed the paper onto his desktop.
Jon rubbed his neck, looked up from carving his initials into the desk's wooden surface, gave the girl sitting next to him a deadly glare as she pointed to the slip of paper, nodded in Audrina's direction and mouthed, "Apparently, she's stupid."
He slid down lower in his desk, unfolded the slip of paper and read it.
'I missed you, Jon!'
For a few moments, his hands hesitated over the pen on his desk, and eventually he picked it up and wrote back, 'Sure ya did.' as he tossed the paper onto the girl between them's desk and tapping her, leaned in and muttered, "If ya smart bitch, ya move.. Let her have ya seat. I mean unless ya just like havin to play messenger."
The girl gulped and hurriedly got up, changing seats with Audrina, who sat down next to him.
She bit her lower lip as she read his reply to her note, then looked at him. He shrugged and then raised his hand, asking the teacher, "We're a book short. Audrina can use mine."
Eyes turned on him and he smirked his usual arrogant smirk as the teacher looked at him for a moment almost as if he had three heads then sighing said "Alright Jon.. But no tricks. No disruptions."
"Not makin any promises." he muttered as he slid his book between their desks and nudged her with his elbow, moving a little closer, whispering, "I ain't the same guy anymore."
Audrina studied his eyes a moment, bit her lower lip as she shrugged and muttered back, "Yeah? Well, I'm not the same girl anymore, either." giving a slight wink as she did so.
Of course, she didn't realize just how much he'd changed, and how much he'd been through while she was gone.
She sat reading the History book, twisting a strand of her hair around her fingertip as she did so, fully aware of his staring a hole through her. She finally looked up, gave him a questioning look.
This was sort of awkward. All the 'dreams' she'd had time to formulate on the ride back to Ohio.. This was nothing like them. It was almost like the young man he'd grown into was trying to make as many people as he could, hate him.
This scared her slightly.. But not enough to stop the way she felt about him then from flooding back.
She'd fought her way into his life one time, she'd just have to do it again, apparently.
But how?
The second the bell rang, they gathered their books quietly, and she was walking out, down the hallway to her locker, when he caught up to her, tapping her shoulder roughly.
"Ouch, damn it, Jon." she said as she turned around, looked at him intently.
"Ya gonna hear a lot of shit about me. So I'm probably not gonna be 'that guy' ya pretended to give a damn about back then, Drina. Whether ya believe them or not is ya business, not mine." he muttered casually as he caught sight of his friend Sami, gave her one last look over slowly, with his eyes, and made his way into the thickening crowd, catching up to his friend.
They were going to blow off the rest of school that day, and go down to the gym, train with this guy they knew named Cody and his friend Les.
Just like every other day.
Audrina stood there, his 'warning' repeating over and over in her mind. She saw him about to slip out of a broken emergency exit, and before she realized what she was doing, she was following him, blending in carefully.
Jon was just about to open the door when he felt a hand on his arm.
"Where are you going?"
"Where I always go." Jon said stiffly as he looked at her, not quite sure how to proceed. Yeah, she was back, yeah he still wanted to be her friend, but the fact remained...
He wasn't that kid anymore.. Since she'd left, he'd lived through a lot and he'd learned a lot, been burnt a lot. And he was fast closing himself off from everyone.
If he didn't want to hurt her, which he feared he'd ultimately wind up doing, he'd discourage her from getting close to him again now.
Audrina watched him walking off, confused. Sure, she got why he was like this, she remembered how bad he had it back then, but..
He was different now, more closed off than he'd been back then.
It left her wondering just how hard this was going to be, getting back into his life, and if she'd ever be able to do it..
Because she knew that she was still in love with him. That she'd probably always be in love with him. If 4 years apart hadn't changed that, then this new attitude of his probably wouldn't either.
She turned and walked down the hallway, going to her next class, worried about her former best friend, the guy she loved more than anything.
