“Jude is right, Patrick,” my mom said, sounding weary. She’d been down this road with him many times and already knew that nothing we said would change his mind. “You need to stop comparing the boys. Gideon has different interests and you have to learn to appreciate that and respect it. Not every boy wants to play football.”
My work here was done. I’d said my part. Dug my own grave. Now, my mom had taken up the cause and I left her to verbally spar with my dad. On my way out of the kitchen, I grabbed a green apple from the fruit bowl and glanced at Gideon. He gave me a nod, just a tip of the chin but it was his way of saying thank you. For once, it felt like we were on the same team. And that felt pretty damn good.
But I had something more pressing to take care of right now. Taking the stairs two at a time, I closed my bedroom door behind me, cursing the fact that our bedrooms didn’t have locks on the doors.
I took the wrapped gift down from its hiding place where it had been since I moved it from my truck earlier today and sat on my bed with my back leaning against the headboard, the gift in my lap. I’d had this gift in my possession for three days now and it was a miracle I hadn’t opened it yet.
The wrapping paper was midnight blue with gold stars.
The gift was for me so it wasn’t like I’d stolen something that didn’t belong to me. I turned it over, ran my hand over it, trying to figure out what could be so important that she’d ransacked my room trying to find it.
Fuck it.
I ripped off the paper, crumpled it into a ball and tossed it aside. Then I stared at the book in my hands. A photo album? A scrapbook? Aurora Borealis on a black background graced the cover and in gold marker, it said: The Book of Jude.
I opened it and studied the collage of photos. I recognized most of them. We were nine years old in these photos.
She was so fucking cute back then. Tiny but fierce. In every single photo, we were either laughing or smiling. Jesus, I missed those times.
I turned each page slowly to reveal more memories. It wasn’t just photos either. There were handwritten notes. Ticket stubs from baseball games and movies we’d gone to. Dried wildflowers that I suspected were from the time I’d picked a bunch of them in the field for her. She’d put them in a mason jar on the kitchen windowsill. Fortunes from Chinese fortune cookies that we’d laughed at. The woven friendship bracelets she’d made us that first summer.
She’d kept everything. I didn’t even remember half of these photos being taken nor had I realized that Lila was the sentimental type. Guess you learn something new every day.
After poring over each photo, each memory, I turned the page and was disappointed to see it was the final one. But this, I suspected, was what she’d wanted to take back. I glanced at the door. The house was quiet. I was alone in my room.
Taking a deep breath, I read the letter she’d written me.
Dear Jude,
I’ve tried to write this a hundred times but the words came out all wrong. Maybe there are no right words. I guess I just have to speak my own truth and hope you can find a way to understand and forgive me.
I’m sorry I pushed you away. I treated you like crap and I ruined our friendship. At the time, it made sense to me but with each passing day, it makes less and less sense and I don’t know what to do about it. But I’m going to try to explain where I was coming from.
I was scared of letting you in because you’re going to leave me and you’re going to become a Marine. And if I let you get too close only to lose you, then where would I be without you?
Alone. Missing you. Miserable.
After my mom died, the thought of you leaving me was too much for my heart to handle.
There’s another reason I pushed you away. I felt guilty. I was kissing you on the roof when my mom died. I should have been there for her. I hate knowing that she died alone, you know?
So I pushed you out of my life. I punished you for something that wasn’t even your fault.
But I’ve missed you every single day. I miss you so much it hurts. And I don’t know how to find my way back to you. To us. To the way everything used to be.
And I think that’s part of the problem. We can never go back to the way we used to be because we’ve changed. Life changes us. We’re not little kids anymore, so nothing is as easy as it used to be. But some things haven’t changed.
Even when you sometimes act like a bonehead, you’re still my favorite human. You’re still the first person I want to talk to when I wake up and the last person I want to talk to before I go to sleep. Whenever something happens in my life—the good, the bad, the ugly... every stupid little detail. I wish we could just hang out and talk about everything and nothing.
You’re still the boy who gave me his favorite hoodie on what could have been the most embarrassing, humiliating day of my life. But because it was you, it was okay. You make everything better. Even on bad days.
You make me feel stronger and braver. You make me laugh and smile more than anyone ever has. You make me angry and jealous and you drive me crazy because some days all I can think about is you. And that really, really pisses me off.
And I don’t even
