Page 20 of A Love So Wrong
Jade steeled herself. "You know dad left us strict instructions on how to use the money," she began slowly. Jade recalled that day very clearly when Henry finally confessed a portion of his plans with his wife, leaving out theplan-bportion he concocted with Gideon. "The trust he set up for you and this house and all the bills are strictly set up not to be touched."
"I'm not talking about that silly trust, Jade," Sandra shook her head irritably.
Her and Gideon had listened quietly from the hallway as Henry sat from his spot propped up on the bed and told Sandra very patiently that Gideon would be overseeing the terms of the trust account that paid out the house's utilities, property taxes, maintenance, medical bills, and groceries. With only a little less than two hundred thousand, that account was supposed to see to Sandra for the rest of her life. If any large medical bill came up or emergency, or worse, her being placed in Stardust Cove’s senior living facility, it would all have to come from that account. Frugality and planning were key, Gideon would not spend one penny of that on a sewing machine. That day Sandra had yelled and cried to Henry that he was treating her like a child making her own son the account executive over their estate and funds, but after a while of continued crying, Sandra eventually understood Henry would not budge on his decision.
"I'm talking about the secondary account, my spending account I get monthly," she explained exasperatedly.
Jade stiffened. God, how she wished the phone would ring and save her from having to tell her. Looking to the pair of waiting blue eyes, Jade dropped her chin to her chest with a slight groan. Not looking up, she tiredly reminded her mother of her recent shopping foray online. "Last week, you spent the rest of this month's allowance on sixteen rolls of that expensive alpaca yarn."
"But…" The stark realization seemed to evaporate her words as her eyes widened, revealing the whites of her eyes. Shaking her head, Sandra stood up and began looking for something around her chair and on the table.
Before Jade could ask what she was looking for, Sandra spoke as she fervently picked up and tossed aside patterns and scraps of fabric. "This is nonsense," she snapped. "I'm a grown woman, and I will not be treated like a child in my own house. I'm calling Gideon right now to…"
Jade was up and out of her seat when she saw her mother's hand enclose around her phone. Putting her hand over the phone's surface, Jade gave her mother a hard glare. "No," her tone so deep and so final it froze the older woman in place. Ignoring her mother's shock, Jade pulled the phone from her loosened grip and sat it back on the table. "Gideon is at work right now, driving a tanker truck full of propane to Dallas and back, he does not need to deal with this."
As if she had been slapped, Sandra stumbled back to her seat and looked at Jade with pure and utter shock. "You don't care about me at all, do you?!" she shrieked, slapping a hand on the armrest.
Stunned, Jade couldn't say anything.
"Gideon this and Gideon that," Sandra nearly growled, little flecks of spit soaring through the air with each angry word. "It’s always Gideon with you. You always take Gideon's side over mine. You don't love me," she accused her in a howl of tears.
Guilt pierced at Jade's heart. Instinctively, she wanted to kneel down beside her and draw the woman into her arms and tell her she was wrong and to convince her of her love. But wasn't that how they got in this position in the first place? Gideon always warned her about spoiling their mother, even dad had hinted to her a few times that coddling Sandra was his job, and he didn't want her starting that habit he himself should have never started. But Jade didn't listen. She loved her mother, and she only ever wanted to see her joyful smile.
Sitting down on the couch next to her, Jade pressed her lips together in an effort to resist apologizing. She did nothing wrong, she reminded herself. Putting a hand on her mother's shaking back, Jade listened as the woman's cries grew louder while her mind drifted back to her accusing words. Of course, Jade always turned to Gideon's side, she always would. Gideon was there for her from the beginning when she barely knew him.
~
It was her second week at the foster home when she had seen the new boy being brought in and introduced to the others. Gideon was quiet; he stood there, clutching the straps to his black backpack as his hard eyes surveyed everyone and everything in the room. Those razor-sharp, amber-brown eyes scared her, and she could still remember her stomach dropping at the knowledge that there was now another scary boy to add to the other two that were already there in the house. She had told herself to stay out of his way then and there. Maybe if he didn't notice her, he wouldn't pick on her as the other boys did.
It seemed from the moment she entered the house, Jade was targeted by Jimmy and Devon. Both older than her by four years, the twelve-year-old boys took great pleasure in messing with the "mute." On the third day, Mrs. Cade had sat down and had a word with the boys, and Jade naively thought that would be the end of it, but her heart sank, and her stomach burned with betrayal as Mrs. Cade sat her down in the kitchen too and told her that being silent wouldn't do her any favors and that Jade needed to speak up and stand up for herself. It was as if it was just as much Jade's fault that her hair was being pulled or she was being pushed into walls every time Devon walked past her in the hallway. Jade couldn’t say anything, she simply nodded at the exasperated woman.
From then on, Jimmy and Devon's assaults only increased. With no tolerance for her silence, the other girls in the house kept to themselves and ignored Jade. She had no one to rely on but herself. Using the rules of the house to her advantage, Jade had stayed in the girl's room for all her spare time. When it was time to do her assigned chores, she kept a wide berth from the boys and made sure to stay near Mrs. Cade whenever possible. In the morning, Jade waited in the back of the group at the bus stop for school, using others as a human screen to separate herself from them. Jade quickly realized that both Jimmy and Devon only really liked to mess with her when she was separated from others and caught alone, so she did everything she could to stop that from happening.
Or at least she tried.
It had been nearly two weeks since the new boy arrived and a month since she had been dropped off at the home by the social worker. That week the last remaining girl in the house was picked up by a distant relative. Watching the smiling relative hug the girl and usher her into their car made Jade's chest feel as if it was being hollowed out. Why did her mother leave her? Why was she left all alone? Every day felt like she was gasping for air that she could never seem to get enough of. Each morning when she opened her eyes to see the wooden slats of the bunk bed above hers, Jade felt like crying.
That night, alone in the girl's room, she listened to the sounds of the house settle down to nothing. Doors closed, lights went out and talking eventually ceased as everyone fell asleep. She had begun drifting off into sleep when the rough hand closed over mouth. Panic seized her chest as she opened her eyes wide and screamed into the palm over her lips. Standing over her bunk bed, she could see the shadowed faces of Devon and Jimmy staring down at her. Jimmy's face was twisted in evil excitement as he began pulling at her pants with his free hand. Jade let out a scream, but the sound was trapped and muffled, and she knew no one beyond this room could hear her.
"Hold her still!" Jimmy hissed at Devon, who was trying to capture her frantically kicking legs.
Tears fell down the sides of her face and into her hairline when she felt the cold air of the room on her bottom as her night pants were ripped away from her.
She tried to claw at the cruel face hovering above her in a desperate attempt to get him off, but he was too tall, and her fingers barely grazed his face.
She could feel the disgusting warmth of a hand forcefully reach between her legs and Jade choked out a sob behind the hand pressing painfully into her face. A shadow appeared suddenly behind the two boys. One moment Jimmy was sneering excitedly at her, and the next she watched as his head bounced in a sickeningly loud crack against the top bunk's wooden frame. Dropping like a stone, his hands fell away from her, and she watched as the shadow grabbed the second stunned boy. Pulling Devon back further into the shadows of the room, Jade couldn't make out the dark shape or what was happening, but she could hear the boy's shout and the deep thuds of fists making contact with flesh. After a few moments, the dark shape stepped back to her, and she finally saw the worried face of Gideon staring back at her.
Gideon had saved her that night in more ways than he could ever know. Since that day, they had been the family the other desperately needed. Together they were friends and confidants to each other’s secrets. He was the one she whispered to in times of sadness, recounting the day she found her mother's dead body and a note of apology. She told him how she spent days in their apartment with her mother's body in the bedroom before she called the police. Gideon had been the one to assure her that her mother's death wasn't her fault. Over time he convinced her to let go of her guilt in hesitating to call the police, he explained to her from the details of her mother's body that she was beyond any help when Jade had found her and that her catatonic fear that day was normal.
Gideon was there for her when she needed him most, so of course, she would choose Gideon first. Jade could only hope that Sandra would someday understand that.
~*~
Pulling down the dark private road, Gideon unknowingly let out a breath of tired relief. Fuck, that day had been long. Classes had been boring but annoyingly necessary since he had two tests coming up, and work was just as long and tedious. It was only the thought of coming home and experiencing the best part of his day that got him through the better part of the day. Turning the truck into the wide entrance to their driveway, the bright headlights of his truck flashed across the darkened house and the girl sitting on the front step.
Fuck.
Not bothering to take the truck the rest of the way down the drive to the steel garage, Gideon stopped it and quickly hopped out.
