Chapter 111: Mysterious boy II
"I... I..." he trailed off, his voice faltering as he reached up to nervously rub the back of his neck, looking boyish and innocent in his panic.
"I’m coming right back," he mumbled quickly under his breath, and I watched him in utter bewilderment as he scurried over to the master dresser. He began rummaging frantically through the inner boxes of the drawer until he finally pulled out a storage box.
He dropped the box onto the floor, and I looked at him dumbfounded as he matched the key to the lock, turning it until the latch clicked open. He reached inside and pulled out a stack of old papers, stepping back over to the bed to hand the stack to me.
I looked from his tense face down to the papers, slowly collecting them from his hands, only to let out a gasp of shock when my eyes landed on the page. Staring back at me was an old drawing of me when I was seventeen years old.
My heart skipped a beat as forgotten memories came rushing back into my mind. I remembered that day clearly; I had frantically run out of our apartment in the middle of the night to buy formula for a newborn, Mia, and I had caught sight of a shivering boy sitting outside the convenience store glass.
I had felt an inexplicable pull toward him at that moment, prompting me to walk outside and hand him the bottled water I was supposed to use to mix Mia’s food. I had never once imagined in my wildest dreams that the mysterious boy outside the store would turn out to be Jude.
I even remembered how I had returned to that convenience store for three consecutive days afterward, standing outside just hoping to see him again until I finally gave up and left.
I flipped through the rest of the old parchment sheets, seeing countless hand-drawn sketches of myself spanning across the years, alongside drawings of Mia growing up. I slowly raised my head, my eyes locking onto his anxious face.
"That night... you showed me a different world, Rosie, and I..." he began to explain, his voice thick.
"Why didn’t you come back the second day like you were supposed to?" I interrupted, my voice soft.
"I got sick," he responded honestly, and I nodded my head slowly as the pieces clicked together. "So you’ve really been stalking? You’ve just been following me around?" And I didn’t know what to say; my brain was in a jumbled mess.
Jude dropped to his knees at the edge of the mattress, reaching out to desperately grab both of my hands inside his warm ones. "I couldn’t help myself. Your blue eyes pulled me in from the very first day we met, and you showed me kindness that night when I had nothing. I just wanted to be grateful to you, but then it turned into an obsession to never forget your face... and then I finally saw you again years later." He pulled my hands tightly against his chest, and I could feel the erratic pounding of his heart pressing against my palms.
I glanced up to look into his eyes, feeling the intense rhythm of the organ. "I can’t give you a logical explanation as to why it has to be you. It’s just you being you. I love everything about you... how selfless you are, how kind you are, and how courageous you remain through every hardship. You are so beautiful that you have enchanted me since the very first day, and I never wanted to let you go. I wanted you so badly that..."
I stared down at him in silence, my heart beating so loudly against my ribs that I was genuinely terrified he might hear it. God, my mind was spinning.
But then, the rest of his late-night confession flashed through my brain, and a specific detail caught my attention. Mia. My gaze sharpened as I remembered how the gig came to me, and I looked down at him, my voice dropping. "Mia."
Jude winced visibly at the tone of my voice, his shoulders shifting. "Yeah... the flyer..." he admitted quietly.
And immediately, the truth hit me like a slap to the face as I vividly remembered the day Mia had run into our cramped apartment holding that job flyer, excitedly telling me she had randomly found it lying on the ground outside, and I was so stupid to believe that a kid like Mia could be smart enough to understand the job.
God! I knew Mia was intelligent and smart for her age, but I didn’t even rethink it, as I had read over the flyer multiple times, contemplating if a high-paying opportunity could possibly be real, but Mia had convinced me that we needed to give it a trial.
That little devil! That meant my seven-year-old niece wasn’t even accidentally playing a role; I was trapped right in the middle of two snitches who had set me up from the very beginning. Fuck, the realization of being completely left out of my own life choices causes my gaze to instantly harden against him.
"Get out!" I commanded sharply, forcefully detaching my fingers from his grip and pulling my hands tightly back against my chest to prevent myself from sinking right back into his warm embrace.
Jude’s eyes widened in panic, his mouth dropping open as he tried to find the words, but I leveled him with a cold, unyielding look that silenced him instantly. "Give me some space, Jude." I demanded, my chest heaving as I tried my best to calm my racing heart down.
"I’ll be waiting right outside the door when you are done," he says softly—so softly that the broken tone doesn’t even fit his usual teasing, playful voice.
I don’t give him a single response, merely letting out a tight grunt as I look away from him, refusing to look at his hunched shoulders or see how disheartened he is by my rejection. I just desperately need a quiet moment to myself to process everything.