Beneath the Surface

Jax

October 25, 2011

Carson pulls his explorer into my driveway behind Dillon’s mustang. I hate riding with Carson, his choice of music sucks. All the screaming is giving me a headache. We are all off work today after working six days straight, we decided to go eat lunch with Dillon’s parents at their house since we were all free. I don’t speak to any of my family thanks to Nicole, and Carson was Dillon’s foster brother when we were teens, so Dillon’s family is really all that any of us have. They’re Dillon’s biological parents, but they couldn’t have any more kids after him, and they love children so they fostered a lot through the years. Carson was with them for two years before he aged out, but they let him stay and he became one of the family. With me and Dillon being friends for so long, I spent a lot of time at their house growing up. We all try to get by to see them at least a couple of times a month.

As we climb out of the SUV a school bus pulls to a stop in front of Lexie’s house. I wasn’t home yesterday to see the bus, the boys must have started at their new school this week. I haven’t seen or talked to any of them in six days. Not since the night Jason had a nightmare. Well, except seeing the boys through one of my windows playing in their back yard. They seemed to be doing fine. They were acting like normal boys rolling through the yard wrestling, or throwing a ball back and forth.

One of the boys jumps off the bottom step and waves to us. That must be Justin, seems he’s not scared anymore now that he knows I’m a cop. I lift my hand and wave back to him. Jason follows behind him but with a much different demeanor. His head is down as he looks at his feet and his shoulders are slumped with his hands stuffed deep in his pockets. He looks upset, or defeated. I don’t know, but something is wrong.

“Hey boys! How’s the new school going?”

Justin looks at me strangely, “It’s OK. I guess. Don’t really know anybody yet. Jason doesn’t like it though.” Jason just shrugs and keeps walking, never looking up. Actually it looked like he tucked his chin even tighter to his chest.

I make a snap decision to try and help the boy. He obviously doesn’t have a dad in the picture and his uncles don’t seem to live anywhere close by since I haven’t seen them since the day after Lexie moved in. What does Lexie know about boy problems? “What’s the matter with the new school Jason?”

He mumbles something as he passes by us that sounds a lot like “People are assholes.” I see Dillon raise an eyebrow. I take it from Justin’s wide eyed look at his brother that I’m right about what Jason said. I look at Carson who shrugs his shoulders at me. I see I’m not getting any help from him. I have no idea how to deal with kids. I’ve never been around any except when Dillon’s family still fosters one for a little while and I usually avoid them unless I don’t have a choice. Kids are a bad reminder of my past with Nicole, so I try to stay far away from them whenever possible.

“Why do u say that Jason?” He turns to look at me. “Who the hell did that?” I growl and Jason and Justin both take a step back away from me. I take a deep breathe to calm myself and see Dillon and Carson both giving me weird looks. I don’t know where that sudden anger came from, but damn, if ever there was a kid that needed life to give them a break it’s this one. He obviously had something traumatic happen in his past, he suffers from what seemed like horrible nightmares, he just moved away from his home to a new town, had to start a new school, and now he has a black eye. That’s just bullshit! I soften my voice, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you. I was just upset that someone hit you. What happened?”

“Nothing happened I fell!”

“Sure you did buddy. Come over here will you?”

I squat down where I’m a couple inches shorter than him and wait. Both of the boy’s heads tilt in identical ways and I try not to laugh. It’s kind of crazy looking at them when they stand next to each other. I’ve never actually met twins before. Jason just stands there. “I’m not going to hurt you boy, come here. Get Justin to come with you if it makes you feel better.” The boys look at each other for a few seconds, almost as if having a silent conversation before Justin walks closer to his brother and together they walk towards me.

When they stop in front of me I look Jason in the eye. “I’m going to reach out and grab your hand. I won’t touch you anywhere else.” He looks nervously at Justin before nodding. I reach out and grab his right wrist and pull his hand up in front of him. “Okay, now if the floor tries to kick your ass again, this is what I want you to do.” Dillon snorts next to me but I ignore him and focus on Jason. I notice Justin is watching what I do closely. I ball Jason’s hand into a fist with his thumb on the outside. “Make sure your thumb is on the outside when you make a fist. OK?” He nods again, the boy really doesn’t talk much. Him and Carson should get along fine. Maybe it’s just me he doesn’t talk to though. “I want you to make sure his friends are around when you do this alright? If he-”

“The floor,” Jason whispers.

“Right the floor. Well if the floor hits you again I want you to make a fist just like this, and punch him as hard as you can right here.” I point to the bridge of my nose. “It’ll make him cry every time. You make him cry in front of his friends and he won’t mess with you anymore. Got it?” As soon as I got to the part about him crying Jason and Justin both started grinning at me.

“Hey what are y’all doing?”

We all spin around at the sound of Lexie’s voice. I jump to my feet and stick my hands in my pockets. Both boys answer simultaneously, “Nothing,” before running for the house.Belonging © NôvelDram/a.Org.

Lexie looks at the three of us but none of us say anything. “Did Jason have a black eye? We all nod in response. “Did he tell y’all what happened?” We all shake our heads.