The Boy Who Knew Me When (From Boys to men Trilogy)

                   The Boy

        Who Knew Me When

               J.L. BOSTICK

                       
Edited by: Michele White

Copyright © 201
4 J.L. Bostick

All rights reserved.

DEDICATION

  To Rio, in between and back again

  you have always been my muse.

       Prologue

                                                                                        June 17, 2010

Dear Diary,

  Life is a pretty damn scary when you think about it,  you can just be sitting around having a cup of coffee, reading the Sunday comics and two minutes later you are gone. Heart attack, car accident, brain tumor....murder. That’s just how it is, no matter how much you fight it there is no way of getting around the inevitable.

    It is kind of like in the movie Labyrinth when Sarah has to chose which path to take, one of her options is the road to sudden death. The truth is that the only choice we have is how we choose to walk the path after we cross that threshold because both doors lead to sudden death
. Even if we have cancer and have been sick for months, we don’t  plan on dying., not really. We keep hoping, praying that death will pass us by like miracles are a reality. So dumb! Everyone is just so freakin clueless.  We are all on the road to sudden death, that is the road we chose to take the day we were born. I know, total bummer.

  I  remember a time when all I wanted to do was dance in the sun. I wore these stupid purple fairy wings that I got for my seventh birthday and twirled around our back yard on a mountain of dreams with a heart full of unconditional love for everyone. I never wanted to grow up, all I wanted to do was twirl around like an idiot.  I can’t actually remember the day that carefree little girl abandoned me but sometimes, I yearn for her.

  I also yearn for Julian. The boy who was always by my side even though he is five years older than I am and didn’t have to be. What’s up with that anyway?

  I hate “him” , you know who “he” is, for taking them from me. I hate Nicolai for being a selfish ass. I hate my parents for abandoning me when I needed them the most and I hate Julian for never coming back.

  No, I take that back, I don’t hate him at all.  Truth is that I miss all of them and I am tired of missing them. 

  I want to live. I want to start highschool telling everything and everyone who haunts me to ‘fuck off’. I am tiring of hurting, I just want to be happy, is that so much to ask? But none of the morons in this crap hole town will let me forget. They just keep shoving it in my face and I can’t take it anymore! I just want to scream at them;

      “SHUT THE FUCK UP AND LEAVE ME ALONE!”

   Brea says I should just smile,  say “thank you” then walk away. She says that they are all just trying to be sympathetic but how sympathetic is it to keep rubbing it all in my face? Why is it so hard to believe that all I want to do is forget everything?

  Dear diary, I am done with all of this. Tired of sitting around waiting for Julian to come back because the fact is that he is never coming back. he left me to suffer the madness all by myself. I know it must have been difficult for him at the time, maybe more so than it was for me, but I needed him. I needed his smile, his hugs, his spirit, all of him to take the pain away because my mom and dad were useless. I miss him so much it hurts. I know I am being selfish but I loved him.

  Please take it all away? I have to forget!

Here it goes, the magic spell that will make it all vanish from my mind. I will just say it and it will be so.

  I Jemma Hale vow to forget about Julian Ackles and everything that we suffered through from this day forward. No more journal entries, no more cutesy little drawings, nothing. I command you to leave my head forever Julian, Nicolai, mom, dad....’him’, adios, arrivederci, goodbye.

I will no longer let the past destroy my tomorrow. I want to learn to dance again.

-Jemma

C
hapter ONE

 
There was no other way to look at it: I..am..a..loser! Not one college acceptance other than Austin Community College, which I did not particularly need to get
“accepted”
into because well, it
is
a community college. A college for people with big fat LOSER stamped on their forehead, for people who slacked off in high school and hold very little hope of a future. And for those blessed individuals with no family to give a damn about them; in other words, for people like me. It was my own fault really because for the majority of my high school experience I had very little ‘give a fuck’ and a whole lot of ‘
fuck it.’

 
Brea, my best friend since fifth grade did not even bother to apply to college. She did not see the point of paying thousands upon thousands of dollars to what she called an “elitist organization” when she could get the same education for next to nothing locally. But that was Brea. To be honest Brea could scoop shit for the rest of her life and still be perfectly happy.

 
When you are five foot seven with legs that go on forever, have Marilyn Monroe cleavage, skin like ivory, thick voluptuous naturally red lips and hair as dark as midnight you kind of don’t need to have a care for what the future holds. Everything in the world is just kind of handed to you. At least, that is what it seemed like from my point of view. That was Brea, drop dead gorgeous Brea, every man’s fantasy, every boy’s wet dream. Not that Brea didn’t have any plans. She had plenty of them but she didn’t have to go about it like the rest of us did. She just woke up and the seas parted. Therefore, Brea and her decision to go to community did not make her a loser, it made her a rebel and as far as I was concerned it made her even more perfect.

 
Don’t get me wrong, I am no dog. I am aware that I have certain attributes that would prevent me from having to leave the house with a bag over my head. But I also know that I am different in a way that not even I can explain. For one, my face is “off”.  Brea says I am nuts but I can see it, I am not blind. My eyes are round, not the large yet sexy bedroom round eyes you would find on let’s say Amanda Siegfried, they are half the size and sunk into my head so that I look like a puffer fish. The only saving grace preventing them from making me look like a total perv is the glassy blue color that says “Fuck with me and I will turn you to stone”.

 
Not to mention, my nose is too long, my neck is longer than my head, my auburn hair is a stringy, lifeless mess and my lips are so full it always looks like I am pouting or blowing kissy faces further elevating my fish status, especially when I am pissed, which is why I try my best NOT to be pissed. And my body, GAWD, don’t get me started. Besides my slightly saggy 36 D’s, my legs are too long and my butt is too big. Thank goodness I am not brain dead because I would be completely hopeless.

 
As far as guys, well, according to my friend Brandon who just so happens to be my first boyfriend, “Jem, you have your head too far up your ass to give a damn about anyone other than yourself, no matter how much they care about you.”

 
Of course he said that 20 minutes after I dumped him, right before Senior Prom and he
has
apologized more times than I care to count, but he said it none the less. Maybe he is right; my head is a little bit up my ass. Hence, why I am stuck at ACC instead of going off to someplace amazing like New York or Los Angeles for higher education like most of my senior class, himself included. 

 
I met Brandon freshman year, he was new to Taylor, Texas, a small nothing little town about an hour outside of Austin. Thanks to our high school principal, Mrs. Hale (who just so happens to be my aunt), I was nominated for welcoming committee. I had fought tooth and nail to avoid being noticed and here I was being forced to put on a smile and show some stranger the ways of high school. Something I myself knew NOTHING about.

 
My dilemma quickly resolved itself, turning into a new dilemma once our eyes locked on one another. I had never had a boyfriend, not that I had any interest in them. There was way too much shit going on in my life to bother noticing the opposite sex. Not to mention that I was only 15, one year older than most of my friends thanks to failing seventh grade. 

 
But here was this boy, who I very much noticed, taking my breath away. Here, standing outside of second period with my aunt in tow, stood this nearly six-foot-tall, fourteen-year-old Adonis, blonde messy hair, ripped to the nines, lips that would have made any girl want to taste them, naturally tanned skin, angelic hazel-colored eyes and amazing hands. Oh my gawd, his hands were beautiful! I found myself at only fifteen years old wishing they were all over me, an image that turned my body pretty much to mush. Then he smiled, he smiled and I fell flat on my ass sending my books flying down the hall and leaving my cheeks crimson from embarrassment.

 
From that day on we spent every day together, things escalated quickly and before we knew it we were a couple. Our only problem was that I only loved and lusted for him, but I was never “in love” with him. I gave him everything that I could possibly give but in the end my failure as a human being, my failure to give myself fully to anyone, failed us both.

 
About a week before homecoming, I gave him my body and from that moment I knew things had to end. Please, do not misunderstand me: the sex was perfect, he made my toes curl, my breasts peak and my body throb and pulsate in ways that made me feel completely weak from head to toe in the most amazing way. Feeling him inside of me was one of the best things that ever happened in my 18 years of existence.

 
I have no doubts that he was the one everything was meant to happen with. He was kind, gentle, giving and mad about me. But there was nothing else there for
me
; suddenly I realized he was nothing more to me than a friend. Afterward I felt a sense of doom, I felt dead inside and I ended up spending all of the next day in my room crying for reasons I did not yet know.

 
Around midnight I stumbled into the bathroom and caught a glimpse of my red puffy face and realized just how much I hated myself. It was then that I also realized I had not been crying because I was sad about giving Brandon my virginity, no, I was crying because when all was said and done he told me he loved me.

 
He said that he loved me so much he was planning on skipping out on Columbia University to stick it out with me at a frickin’ community college. My inability to commit to life was about to take him down as well and it terrified me. I cared too much about him to destroy him. I am simply not worth that kind of love and commitment. Brandon, sweet, delectable, perfectly drool-worthy Brandon was and is too good for me. That is when I decided to end things. He was angry at first, said a bunch of things he didn’t mean and just got up and walked away.

 
To be honest the entire time that I was breaking his heart all I wanted to do was rip off his clothes and ride him until the cows came home. But for his own sake I had to keep my distance and not allow myself to give him another inch of me. 

 
Once graduation was over Brandon apologized saying he didn’t want to lose me as a friend; I on the other hand never did apologize. Not because I was not sorry but because I couldn’t let him know that I was ripped to shreds over pushing him away. He had become such a huge part of my life and though I was not in love with him, how could I be, I still cared about him deeply. 

 
I could not for the life of me imagine going our separate ways, never again having him there to keep me safe, something he never failed to do. But as my mother always said “If you love something, set it free, if it loves you in return, it will come home again.” so I set him free. Only I hoped he would never come back again because I was nothing and he deserved someone that was not only something but someone who could and would give him everything. 

“You know…Brandon’s plane leaves in a few hours.”

 
Brea never failed to point out the obvious. She had come over to help me pack the rest of my things so that we could move into our new apartment in Austin which we had found a few weeks before.

“Yeah I know, what do you want me to do about it?” I asked defensibly.

  I couldn’t think about Brandon, it had been months since I ended things and I could barely stand to look at him without my eyes welling up with tears. Brea kept telling me how much she knew I was hurting.

“Jemma, look, I know you love Brandon, even if you don’t want to admit it to yourself. You cannot keep shutting him out. Four years,” she sighed, “you are throwing away four fucking years! If you did that to me I would want to ring your neck! Instead Brandon just wants to be your friend and you are tearing his heart out by ignoring him!”

  I slammed my dresser drawer and tossed a handful of socks into my Hello Kitty travel-all.

“Fuck Brea! Don’t you think I know I am hurting him? Do you think I WANT to hurt him? Stop fucking throwing this shit in my face. He was going to give up a perfectly good opportunity, one I would KILL to have but fucked up to the point of no return. I don’t deserve him. Better I break his heart knowing he can take it than take his life knowing he won’t recover.”

  I watched Brea’s face turn from angry to flabbergasted in a matter of seconds.

“You know Jem, I love you, you know I do, but you are fucking stupid as fuck. And you got one thing right in that stupid bullshit pity filled rant you just gave: you
don’t
deserve him!”

 
Brea, huffed out a pissed off sigh and stormed toward the door to my room. She briefly stopped to face me before leaving.

“I am heading over to wish him luck.” She paused. “Did you know, I liked him, I mean like liked him?”

  I raised my eye brows at her and shook my head not really understanding or knowing what to say.

“Well, I did, in fact I have had a crush on him since the moment I laid eyes on him, which was before you I might add. I never told you because when you ran up to me the day you two met with that smile on your face and those perfectly pinked cheeks I decided not to say anything. I had waited so long to see you happy like that; you actually had a gleam in your eyes. If he was the one to give you your color back then I wanted you to have him.”

  Tears began to well up in my eyes as she turned her head to the floor.

“Had I known, you were going to treat him like you did, that you were just going to throw him away, I would have moved Heaven and Earth to see to it you never got to him. Anyway, I thought you should know that. I am so disappointed in you Jem.”

  And with that she was gone. Even though she was trying her damnedest to fight them I could see the tears in her eyes. I could also see the pain that I caused my best friend, the person who had gotten me through the most trying times in my life. I could also see something I had never seen in her before. I could see that unlike me, Brea was in love Brandon. She loved me enough to sacrifice her own happiness just to see me smile. How could I have missed it? 

 
Were there any signs that she had feelings for him? I couldn’t remember a time she had shown those kind of emotions toward anyone. She always gave the two of us our space; she encouraged our relationship, sometimes to the point of ridiculousness.

 
Was that it? Proof that she had been harboring unrequited feelings for the love of my high school life? Perhaps to fight off her own emotions she
had
to see to it that we worked. All I know is that in failing Brandon, I seem to have failed her as well.

 
After cursing myself for being so stupid, I finished packing the last few items in the room I had called my own since I was eleven. The lavender walls seemed so bare; remnants of the photos that had hung on them hours ago were seared into the paint. I felt a sense of nostalgia realizing that once I walked out the front door I would be nothing but a memory to this life and starting over would be my only option. There was no coming back.

 
After the heated conversation I had with Brea only hours before I wasn’t quite sure what kind of beginning was in store for me. We have never had an argument before, much less a conversation with such shocking confessions. We were soul sisters, we spoke, we shared, we joked, we hugged, we teased, we comforted but we never fought. I did not know how to get her to forgive me for being such a horrible friend.

 
I had told her for years that I was not worthy of such an awesome friendship but she would blow me off and dismiss me as being ‘
ridiculously self-conscious and clueless
’. If it were not for Brea I am not sure I would have ever made it through middle school, little alone all of the madness of high school. I have horrible self esteem and am insanely hard on myself, I know that. Because of her I started believing that I had a few redeeming qualities making me worthy of existing in a world full of chaos.

 
Brea and I met in fifth grade, the year that my life drastically changed. My dad was going through a lot of health issues so he and my mother decided to move closer to Austin so that he could get the best help possible. My aunt, my father’s sister, who at that time was on the City council pulled some strings with a friend and found us a little house in the country.