Page 47 of Valentine Dare

18

Trent

I couldn’t believe it.After all that effort and wanting to wind Kurt up, we’d somehow found ourselves in a slump. Brent was quiet, Prent even quieter and in a couple of days, Jenny would be on her way.

“I can’t believe her mom just wandered in here and got the trial moved to New York.”

I partially agreed with Brent. He was sitting at my desk, supposedly studying, and I was lying on my bed, trying my best not to think of Jenny.

“We fucked up. We should just tell her how we feel!”

Brent jumped up from behind the desk and now was sitting next to me on the bed.

“We?”

He said, “Yeah, we, bro. We knew the moment her mom swarmed in here and said that she was taking her to New York something was up for sure! We couldn’t trust her. Prent looked as if he was about to catch flies. All the color ran out of your face, and I just wanted to punch something.”

I sat up. “Yeah, I felt like shit. But they are her parents.”

Brent shifted to stand up again. “I swear, everyone’s gone nuts. Her parents? What…the dad gets arrested, the mom runs off leaving her homeless and all of a sudden, none of that matters cause they’re her parents.”

“Exactly. And keep still, you’re making me feel dizzy.”

I said as Brent continued to pace the room, driving me insane and making me regret asking him to come in, to discuss what to do. Two days left and we had to find a way to change her mind. I hated the idea of her leaving but didn’t know how to make her stay.

He took off his shirt, then threw it across the room. Usually, I would tell him to pick it up, but I wasn’t in the mood to say anything, not tonight.

“We should just tell her how we feel?”

He shook his head. “It would be wrong in so many ways. Telling her how we feel would be like, ‘Hey, us or your parents.’ That wouldn’t be right. They’re her parents whether we like it or not, even if they hadn’t acted it before now. Maybe they realized the error of their ways. No one’s perfect. Maybe now they want to make amends.”

“I just don’t fucking trust them,” I said, shaking my head.

We both slumped back on the bed, feeling helpless and not knowing what to do with ourselves.

“We’re going to college soon. We shouldn’t even be thinking about all this. Shit, what the fuck do we do, bro?” I asked Brent, thinking we didn’t have a solution to our initial problem. We were in fucking turmoil, unsure whether to cross the road or stay on this side of the track.

Prent burst in. “Jenny’s gone. She didn’t want to say goodbye.”

We both jumped up.

“How do you know?”

She sent me a message saying bye. I’m sure she’s done the same to you.

I picked up my phone off my desk. And, sure enough, there was one message waiting. I didn’t hesitate in reading it and seeing what she had to say.

Sorry,I’m shit at saying goodbye. Thought it would be better this way. J

I slumpedon the bed and handed Trent the phone. He read it and fell back on to his bed. I couldn’t believe she’d left without saying goodbye. Maybe it was a good thing. We were about to convince her to stay with us, but we had nothing to offer her. Only our hearts, even if we were too proud to admit to ourselves, let alone her.

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