Chapter 16:

"How far that little candle throws its beams! So shines a good deed in a weary world." –William Shakespeare

Jorge waited impatiently in the car, drumming his hands on the steering wheel. Julie had gone in by herself. He'd offered to go with her, but she'd refused.

She was out now, her stocky figure eyes down at the ground. She glanced up briefly, and Jorge could see that her eyes were full of tears.

He stopped his drumming and waited silently as she opened the car door and sat in the seat, breathing deeply. Silently, he put his keys into the ignition and started heading back.

It was the most awkward car ride he'd ever been in. He kept his eyes on the road and tried to ignore the muffled sniffs of the girl next to him. He glanced over at her once when he paused at a red light and just saw tears spilling out of her eyes as she hurried wiped them away with the sleeve of her sweater.

He didn't say anything. If she wanted to talk, she'd talk to him. He didn't need to press her.

She did.

"Hey Jorge?" Her voice came out in a broken gasp, and she tried to hide the sound of tears in her voice. It didn't work, of course.

"Yeah?" He pretended nothing was happening. Nothing at all.

"Why?"

Jorge sat staring out at the distance ahead of him. Why? She was right. Why? Why did her dad treat her like that? Why did Connor head off? Why was Connor getting married to her mom when they both knew that Kathy deserved so much better? Why was Julie suffering? Why was he suffering?

Jorge looked at her, his eyes softening when he saw the sad look on her face and felt as though his heart was breaking. "I don't know, Julie. I don't know…"

He didn't know if he'd ever know.

xxx

Jason ran out, holding his Enjoi under his arm. He walked out to the ramps and crashed into a person who just happened to be standing in the middle of the doorway. Frankie. It figured.

"Escalante," Frankie muttered in a low hiss. "You're about to pay."

"I already told you," Jason protested weakly. "I had nothing to do with it. Becky kissed me, I did not kiss her!" He realized how stupid he sounded. Why couldn't he sound convincing?

Frankie grabbed him by the jacket's collar and pulled him outside. Jason punched him in the stomach, but Frankie didn't even break in his pace. He had abs of rocks.

Jason tried to yell out for help, but Frankie, as if expecting, hurriedly stuffed a dirty rag into his mouth. He pulled him out to behind the building where nobody could see them and dropped Jason on the ground.

Jason spat out the rag. "Dude, Frankie. This isn't funny."

"Whoever said anything was funny?" Frankie wanted to know. He held up a gleaming metal baseball bat and grinned evilly. It was only then that Jason realized that it wasn't funny. It wasn't funny at all.

xxx

Jorge groggily pulled down the covers on his bed. He heard some noises from Julie's room. Stumbling out of bed, he pushed back his hair and scratched the back of his neck. He rubbed his eyes and headed over to Julie's room. It didn't take long. They were conjoined by a bathroom anyway.

He opened her door and looked in. Kathy and Connor were yelling at each other and Julie was sitting up in bed, her eyes tear-filled again.

"WHY WON'T SHE OPEN UP TO ME? I'M JUST TRYING TO BE A GOOD FATHER!" Connor was roaring.

"SHE'S SCARED, OK, CONNOR? YOU HAVE TO UNDERSTAND THAT? ROBERT USED TO HIT HER! SHE'S AFRAID OF MEN, OK?" Kathy yelled back. She glanced at Julie who looked absolutely terrified and screamed, "LEAVE HER ALONE!"

"HOW CAN WE LIVE LIKE THIS IF I CAN'T TALK TO YOUR DAUGHTER? SHE'S A COMPLETELY SPOILED BRAT! I WANT TO BE GOOD SO I DON'T MESS UP LIKE BEFORE!"

"YOU SHOULD TALK TO YOUR OWN SON, CONNOR! DON'T YOU DARE TELL ME HOW TO RAISE MY CHILD BEFORE YOU LOOK AT YOUR OWN!"

"I CAN START OVER WITH JULIE! THAT'S WHAT I WANT! IT'S TOO LATE FOR JORGE! I WANT TO BE A GOOD FATHER, KATHY! I WANT TO!"

As Jorge stood there, a helpless rage took over him. Before he knew what he was doing, he was screaming along with them—Connor and Kathy looked shocked. They hadn't even known he was there.

"HOW CAN YOU BE A FATHER TO ANOTHER CHILD WHEN YOU CAN'T EVEN BE A FATHER TO YOUR OWN? HOW CAN YOU BE A DAD TO SOMEONE WHEN YOU DIDN'T EVEN TO YOUR OWN SON? HOW CAN YOU TAKE JULIE TO ALL HER HOCKEY GAMES WHEN YOU NEVER EVEN WENT TO ONE OF MINE?" Jorge felt like he was pouring out his soul, all the hidden feelings he'd kept locked up inside of him all this time. He needed to let everything out, get everything out—he couldn't keep his feelings to himself any longer. "HOW CAN YOU GET TO KNOW ALL HER FRIENDS WHEN YOU CAN'T EVEN NAME ONE OF MINE?"

"I can name you friends," spat Connor in a dangerously low hiss. "William, Alex, and Jo-"

"WESTON! ALEK! JASON!" shouted Jorge. "WHAT KIND OF FATHER ARE YOU? YOU'LL NEVER BE A FATHER! EVEN KATHY COULD HAVE SAID THAT! I DON'T KNOW WHY YOU'RE EVEN BOTHERING-"

In one solid movement, Connor crossed the floor and slapped Jorge as hard as he could across the face. The impact of the blow caused Jorge to crash against the door and crumple to the ground.

As Connor paled and he looked regretfully at his hand, Jorge stood up, his eyes filling with tears and anger. Without looking back at his dad, he ran into his room and grabbed up all his clothes which lay sprawled around the room, stuffing them into his suitcase. He zipped it up and grabbed the handle, running as fast as he could down the stairs despite Kathy's cries and Connor's voice yelling, "OH MY GOD JORGE, I'M SORRY I DIDN'T MEAN IT!"

He ran outside into the driveway and grabbed his father's keys out of his pocket which he had forgotten to put back after driving Julie earlier that day. He got into the car after stuffing his suitcase into the trunk, and was about to leave, but there was a commotion from the front door and a figure came stumbling out. Jorge was about to leave, but the figure waved its hands and yelled, "Stop! Stop!"

Jorge stopped. Julie, breathing deeply, ran over to the passenger side and threw a backpack into the backseat.

"I've been thinking about running away for awhile," she panted, answering Jorge's puzzled look.

Jorge nodded, and stuffed his keys into the ignition, not noticing that tears were running down his face and dampening his shirt. Julie didn't say anything—it was a rather silent ride.

When they reached their destination, Jorge stopped the car and hurriedly wiped away the tears from his cheek. Julie looked at him. "The airport?"

"Yeah," Jorge told her.

"Where are we going?" Julie wanted to know.

Jorge thought it over. At first he thought they'd go to Connecticut so he could see Alek and his mom. Then he thought harder. He didn't want to go back to his mom and see the disappointment in his mom's face. She'd wanted so much for Connor and Jorge to have some real father-son time. Yeah right.

He glanced at Julie who was standing there sort of impatiently, pushing back her pink hair. "We're going to L.A."

xxx

West moaned in frustration as he slammed the door of his dorm. Mad looked up, a bit worriedly. One glance at West's distressed eyes and he knew the answer.

"Sarah doesn't like you."

"Shut up!" yelped West, chucking a shoe at Mad. Mad just dodged, the shoe hitting the wall behind him.

West collapsed on a bed and sighed. He realized how immature and petty he was being. But he realized that it wasn't just that Sarah didn't like him. He felt like something bigger was missing. He needed something else.

He knew what it was, but he wasn't admitting it to himself.

He needed his dad. Badly.

Sometimes his friends just couldn't cut it.

Only his dad had gone and taken his own life and West had found him… oh God, he didn't want to think about it.

"West," began Mad gently, putting down his sketching pad and heading over to the teen. "West, it's ok to miss your dad."

"How did you know?" West asked him. He'd never told Mad anything.

"Same story for me," Mad said with a sad smile. "Yeah, it's true, West. Sometimes things get hard."

"How did your…" West broke off. He had no business asking that type of stuff.

"Hit-and-run," Mad replied shortly. "For a long time, I didn't want to remember, West. I didn't want to think about it because it just hurt more and more and ate away at me. But I couldn't hide it anymore because the pain just kept coming and I couldn't forget. So I remembered, and it didn't hurt so much," his voice broke in pain, and he wiped a couple of tears away. "It's ok to miss your dad, Weston. He wouldn't want to be forgotten."

West sat on the bed, thinking hard. Alek had tried to tell him that all the time, only he'd never listened. Alek hadn't known anything.

All of the sudden, the phone rang, breaking West from his thoughts. He picked it up, and an operator said there was a message for Weston McArthur. The operator's serene voice turned into a panicked Alek's.

"God, West, you need to get to Jason's camp right now. I'm getting a plane right now—you need to get over there."

"What?"

"Go, West, go. Come on, you have to get there. Jason's hurt."

Review?