Letters to Nowhere(40)

“Half the cost.” Jordan shrugged. “There was a coaching position open and my dad took it, knowing I’d be able to live at home and save us fifteen thousand dollars this year. I couldn’t change my plans for last fall since I’d already committed to paying the resident fees, but they found a replacement for my room before winter break.”

“So you’ve been around here all this time,” I said.

“Since freshman year.”

“That’s why you said you don’t know him,” I mused, thinking aloud. “Your dad.”

“That’s one of the reasons. I had some problems before high school. I got in trouble a lot, did some stupid stuff.” He glanced down at his hands. “My dad and I were in Chicago then, living in my grandparents’ house.”

His dead grandparents’ house. “What kind of stupid stuff?”

“Getting caught drinking, smoking pot. I got arrested a couple times.” He shut his eyes like he didn’t want to look at me when he admitted this.

I worked hard to keep my expression neutral. “For what?”

“Underage drinking the first time, and the second time I was skateboarding on private property…at three in the morning.” He opened his eyes and gave me a tiny smile. “I fell and broke my arm. My friend freaked out and called an ambulance. It was kinda bent funny and the bone was poking through the skin.”

“Did you have surgery?”

He lifted his arm to show me the scar. “I’ve got metal pins in there, too. Don’t go to an airport with me.”

“But you weren’t, like, cutting school and showing up drunk and high all the time, were you?” I asked trying to get a gauge on this bad version of Jordan.

“No, but I was a bit of a daredevil, and the fact that I had to appear in court a few times and had an assigned social worker for a while worried my grandparents a lot.”

“The grandparents in England? Your mom’s parents?”

He nodded. “They’re rich and British, so they told my dad I needed to go to a better school and probably one that’s a boarding school. Apparently that’s what wild British boys do to straighten up, instead of juvenile detention. The ones with money, anyway. They found a school in St. Louis, which didn’t seem too far from Chicago and it didn’t sound too bad to me. It actually sounded kind of cool. I wanted to go. And for the most part, it is pretty cool.”

“So they pay for it?” I asked.

“They did the first year. I got some academic scholarship money for good grades and then my dad applied for financial scholarships to fill in the rest because he doesn’t like to take handouts from my grandparents,” he said. “It’s a little awkward around them now. Not that I’ve seen them more than a handful of times since leaving England.”

“So you were a little British boy.” I smiled at the thought. “Did you have an accent?”

“I did. It’s so weird to hear myself talk on videos.” His face turned serious again and I could sense his need to change the subject.

“So…that’s the story behind the dorm disease phobia,” I said.

“Yep.” He smiled. “I’m just glad you don’t have meningitis.”

I laughed. “Yeah, ‘cause then you’d have it too.”

“That’s not the only reason I’m glad.” He lifted his gaze again, looking right at me. “What were you dreaming about the other night when Dad woke you up?”

I covered my face with my hands. “God, that was awful. Did I scream really loud? In my dream I was screaming and it felt so…real.”

“Loud enough to wake my dad up from downstairs.”

I squeezed my eyes shut. “In the dream, it wasn’t them…I mean, I know it wasn’t my parents, but it didn’t sound like them either. We were in the car and they kept saying, ‘Don’t you want to come with us, Karen, we’re a family, we should do this together.’ And I didn’t want to. I wanted out of that car so bad I couldn’t even think about my mom or my dad or what was about to happen to them. I jumped out.” For some reason I felt guilty for having this subconscious reaction and a tiny part of me worried what Jordan would think.

Jordan took a deep breath and I felt him slide a little closer. “I used to have nightmares like that too. I saw the explosion in so many different ways, things you couldn’t even imagine. Stuff I would be too scared to ever say out loud. Dad used to have to wake me up like he did with you. But I always made up something, told him I dreamt that I went to school naked or got locked out of the house in the winter.”

“How do I make it stop?” I asked him, desperate to keep a nightmare sequel from happening.

“You tell me about it,” he said frankly. “Every time. Give me all the worst details and then your mind won’t have this horrible stuff buried that’s only allowed to come out when you’re unconscious.”

That was when I remembered what he said the other night, about not having anything to offer anyone, except me. He gets it. He gets me.

And then my hand was under his blanket, fumbling around for his. The gesture was completely friendly, but the electric shock that surged through my weak and barely functioning body was anything but friendly.

“Jordan?”