Total pages in book: 92
Estimated words: 94897 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 474(@200wpm)___ 380(@250wpm)___ 316(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 94897 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 474(@200wpm)___ 380(@250wpm)___ 316(@300wpm)
I barely knew him!
I don’t even remember him!
My real dad is alive. He’s always been there for me. So you can just chill!
It was not the same for that girl.
Nope.
She was probably fourteen, fifteen, and Jag was guessing it was her mom who was gone.
That was a lot of time to have in before you lost everything.
He didn’t know what he’d do if his mom kicked it.
Or Hound did.
Or something happened to Dutch.
No, he did know.
He’d go off the rails. He didn’t even care. End up dead or in prison.
But his birth dad? Graham Black?
Jag didn’t know the man.
So, yeah.
When it came to Jag, people could just chill.
Her though?
That girl?
For her, even on his birthday, able to drive by himself, he stayed at the cemetery.
He wanted to go over there, take her aside, say to her, “Yeah, just look like you’re listening, nod and move on. It’ll be over soon. They’ll go away. And then it’s just your family. It’ll always be just your family.”
He wanted to save her from that shit or at least shield her from it.
But he couldn’t do that.
Still, he stayed.
He stayed while everyone came over and fucking touched her. Her arm, or shoulder, her hair, her hand.
And it was tough to sit through that. It was tough not to haul his ass over there and stop that shit.
Christ, why did they do that?
Like, your mom was gone, and you wanted people pawing you?
But he sat where he was and stayed through all that.
He stayed, watching her walk with her dad and brother to their car.
The dad held her hand.
He had his other hand wrapped around the back of his boy’s neck.
Jag couldn’t even look at the dad’s face.
He knew what he’d see.
Jag had been looking at that for as long as he could remember.
But seeing it new? Fresh? Raw?
Nope.
He wasn’t looking at that dude.
Jag also stayed after they drove away.
After everyone was gone.
And he stayed to hold vigil as the cemetery workers took care of things.
Put her mom under dirt.
Did right with the process. Laid the flowers on just so.
Yeah, Jag stayed through all of that.
Only when her mom was all good did Jag look at his father’s tombstone.
“Later, Pops,” he said, getting up, brushing off the ass of his jeans, and making his way to Dutch’s truck.
And it was fucked in the head.
But to this day, he would swear it happened.
Swear that he heard You’re a good kid, Jag, in a voice that was totally familiar.
At the same time it was not.
* * * *
It was a couple of months after when he saw the tombstone go up.
He was in Dutch’s truck again, alone, visiting his dad.
And he was pissed because Hound and his mom were just not getting it on.
Seriously with that, what the fuck?
Hound was, like, wasting his whole damned life waiting for his mother to snap out of it.
But did she?
No.
Hell, everything she needed was right there.
In her boys.
And in Hound.
Jesus.
But yeah, Jag saw the new headstone, which was good. Seeing that, he could think of her, the pretty girl, and not think about why he kept coming to his dad’s grave, especially when he was frustrated that his father’s wife wasn’t hooking up with a man his father considered a brother.
And Jag didn’t know why, but when he saw that new gravestone, he turned right around, drove to the store, bought some paper, envelopes and Ziplocs, as well as duct tape. He found a pen in Dutch’s glove box and drove back to the cemetery.
He sat on his father’s grave and wrote her a note because he knew, that headstone was up, they’d come back for certain to check it out.
The note read:
Hey,
I’m the guy from across the way. Just to say, it sucks now and people are gonna be weird about it for a long time. Just ignore them and do your thing. You got her in your head, you know? That’s not going anywhere. Ever.
And you got your dad and your brother. That’s big.
I got my mom and my brother. And they’re like, everything, you know? We look out for each other. We’re a family. Totally.
I can’t say it’s all good, because it’s not.
I can just say you get on with it.
So let people do their thing, you do yours, and stick tight with your dad and brother.
You’ll be OK.
Hang loose,
-J
He’d then folded it up, put it in an envelope and wrote For the Girl Across the Way on it.
When he was done with that, he’d taped it to the base of her mom’s headstone.
Her mom’s name had been Bryn.
Pretty.
He wondered what the girl’s name was.
At the time, he figured that he’d probably never find out.
* * * *
It was a week or so later when Hound caught up with him.
“Reckon this is for you,” his stepdad-not-stepdad had grunted, handing him an envelope in a Ziploc.