target. He said that he thought Brandon had become my crutch, an appendage that wasn’t really necessary but I insisted on having around for fear of falling. When my crutch left my side I fell to the ground, thus explaining my behavior with his best friend, it was me latching on to the closest thing. He explained that until I learned to let go of him I would never truly understand the depth of my feelings, I might not actually love him at all. That was the last time I visited the great Dr. Schneider. I never shared the doctors thoughts with anyone for fear that saying them out loud might actually make them true. Would he tell me the same thing about Ford? I didn’t want to know. Of course it no longer mattered because Ford was no longer available to me. I am not so sure he never was.
Chapter Seven
Julian
She was gone. One minute she was standing right in front of me looking sexy as hell and the next minute she had left me standing alone unable to explain myself. I told Heather coming here would be a bad idea but she insisted on it, promising that she would be completely hands off. I should have known she was full of shit. She usually was. We broke up two months ago after I went home for a few weeks and found out she was slutting around with Benicio the guy who mowed her dad’s lawn once a week. I don’t put up with that kind of shit. Once a girl decides to be with me I expect them to be with me and only me. My gran had practically begged me to fly with Heather back to Austin where she’d decided to transfer after years of studying at home. I knew she was only moving here to be near me but she was a grown woman and there was nothing I could do about it. The only reason I agreed was because gran feared for her safety. “A pretty girl should never fly alone Ford, there are all kinds of deviants out there just waiting to get their hands on someone like her.” she argued. I never told her what happened between me and Heather, I knew that it would break her heart, she truly loved the girl. When Heather decided she wanted to leave San Juan early, I was not going to argue with her. I had filled out all of the required paperwork at home health and they had someone coming out to help gran starting Monday morning so I was free to head back. The plan was to drop Heather off at her sisters and head straight over to Jemma’s apartment. She had been all I could think about for the last 24 hours and all I wanted was to crawl back to her and figure out what this thing was between us. But after hearing about the Omega Pledge BBQ, Heather asked that I drop her off there, which later turned into “Walk me in.” The only reason I caved was because as President I figured it might be best if I at least made an appearance. Boy was I wrong. I never thought it was possible that Jemma and I would ever cross paths again. Over the years I had wanted to visit her family more times than I could count. I’d even been back once or twice while gran and I sold off the old house but guilt plagued me and I never gathered the courage to visit the Hales. There were days that I wished I would have just let Nick have the fucking eraser he tried to steal from me in Kindergarten. Perhaps we would have never become friends and at the very least Mr. And Mrs. Hale would not have lost a son. I could only imagine how horribly they had suffered the loss. I can only imagine that losing a child is one of the worse things that could ever happen to a person. Kids were destined to eventually lose a parent but a parent should never have to mourn their child. How could they not blame me for the pain inflicted on them? I was the boy who lived and I hated myself for it.
I remember the events of that horrific day as if they happened yesterday. We were sitting in a middle booth, laughing and carrying on about the fact that Nick was too scared to take a photo with Bugs Bunny during our trip to Six Flags. He downright