A/N: Thank you guys for the reviews. I'm almost to 100!
Whoo! :D
Jack's P.O.V.
The sadness in her voice made itself evident and I didn't want to put more
weight on her already falling shoulders. So I had smiled, even though Kim
made it clear that she wanted to kiss me again, but couldn't.
But it's not like I didn't already know that.
I sighed. Not knowing what to say or where to go after a conversation like
this.
After ten more minutes of silence, I cleared my throat and got up.
"So you ready to go?" I said stretching, when Kim nodded, I held out a hand
to help her up. She took it not to long after, picked up her bags, and we
started to walk. It was a silent walk, just like I expected it would be. I'll be
honest; it was more awkward as it has ever been. I almost jumped for hoy
when we up Kim's porch. Once we reached her door, she turned to me with
half a smile and I just shrugged my shoulders not really knowing what to do
or say to her at the moment.
"Thanks Jack, I had a really great day." she complimented me, holding up
the bag with the dress a little. The dress I called her beautiful in.
"You're welcome Kim, but really, it was nothing." I said smiling. We stood
there for a moment not really saying anything. I started looking at the trees
on her lawn, and started to whistle a distant tune.
I noticed Kim finally reach into her bag and take out her keys, and slowly
put then through the knob, opening her front door. She turned to me one last
time and waved a small goodbye and then disappeared inside her house.
I sighed, and walked down her porch steps and kicked at some stray rocks
while these thoughts of Kim and our awkward goodbye just seconds ago.
Everything is changing; even our goodbyes to each other are weird,
different, and awkward.
I kicked an empty, crushed tin can that reminded me much of Kim and I's
friendship, into the street and huffed out an angry breath.
I continued to walk, not knowing what to do with myself.
"JACK!" someone called from behind me, it sounded like a girls voice.
"JACK!" I turned around, already knowing who it was.
"Dawn?" I asked with a confused face. "What are you doing here?" I said
looking around. I realized how stupid I sounded asking that question when I
was walking on a public sidewalk.
"I was looking for you." Dawn said breathlessly.
"Why?" she shrugged her shoulders.
"Honestly, I was worried about you. You just seemed to be getting worse
ever since that day we talked at school by that pond, then the whole episode
at the restaurant…" she said slowly finishing off, scratching her head. I
shook my head.
"Dawn, I'm fine. I just finished having a wonderful day with Kim." I said
putting on one of my best smiles.
"Oh yeah, well it must have went great by the way you were kicking at
everything in the street with a vengeance." She said finishing off with a
small laugh, and then a worried look came back on her face. I sighed, not
wanting to upset her.
"Look, so what if Kim and I's friendship is still a bit rocky? We still
managed to have a small good time today. At least I did."
"Well I'm glad." Dawn said showing true sincerity. "But on more important
matters, I still didn't give you the information I found about John." she
finished up while we started to walk.
"Really? I forgot all about that." honestly, I did. The information we both
seemed to want to ruin John's reputation and show Kim that he wasn't the
right guy for her.
And that maybe, just maybe, I was.
"How could you?" Dawn said laughing. "It's the only thing we've been
after."
"I know." I said laughing along with her. "I just tend to forget things that
don't have to do with Kim sometimes. She's just really important to me right
now." I said blushing and looking at the floor. I kicked another pebble, but
with a lighter, happier grace then before.
Dawn just smiled at me.
"So the information?" I said cutting to the chase.
"Oh right," she said laughing. "I found out that he isn't really who he says
he is. Remember that night I was in the woods?" she asked pointing to me. I
quickly nodded.
"Well, I followed him from one of his friend's house because I just
happened to be in the area, and I saw him meet a girl at the local café. Then
1 hour later, he left and went through the wood, that's when I called you by
the way. But anyway, he dropped this in his haste to get to the other side of
town." she went into one of her many pockets in her cargo shorts and pulled
out a folded, crusty, square piece of paper and then handed it to me.
I took it, it felt old dusty and crumpled in my hands as I unfolded it.
At the top I saw John's messy handwriting in words I couldn't even
understand and some of it was covered in dirt anyway. But the one thing I
did understand was the names listed on the bottom. Some were even
underlined.
Melanie
Moriah
Cereta
Biancha
Kimberly
Sharon
Samantha
Zoe
Jazzy
Nicole
Valarie
I looked over the list three more times, making sure that was it was Kim's
name that was written, not to mention that her name was one of the many
that was underlined. I turned to Dawn holding up the paper.
"So what exactly is this?" I said fairly hoping she would know.
"It's John's list of hits." She said, gently grabbing the paper and pointed to
the top, the handwriting I couldn't understand.
"So that's what that means." I said pointing to the illegible spot. "John's HIT
LIST." Dawn nodded, and I felt all queasy inside, the title didn't sound good
for those names on the list. And to make it even worse, Kim's name was on
the list, she was fifth.
I needed to sit down, so I plopped myself right down on the curb and Dawn
soon followed. She held out the paper to me, but I didn't take, I didn't even
want to see it. I'm not even sure I still want to know what it even means.
"Jack… ?" Dawn said quietly. "Look, you don't have to know if it's really
hurting you this bad already…just because Kim's name is written on here."
she said slowly patting my shoulders, even though she looked pretty
awkward doing it. I shook my head.
"No …no it's fine. I do want to know. I'm not going to get away without
knowing what this list means. He's probably looking for it, so we shouldn't
waste any more time." Dawn also nodded, and picked up the paper once
again which she had placed momentarily on the floor in order to pat my
back.
"Okay well, here we go."
I took a deep breath and pulled myself closer so I could see more of the
wretched list and the door opened to John's secrets.
Finally.