Keep the Faith (Bulletproof #1.5) (2 page)

Chapter 2

Anna

So whose bright idea was it to get up at the ass crack of dawn? Oh, right. That would be my dumb-ass idea.  Well, it’s the price I have to pay I guess. I don’t know how Jayde did it every single day. Getting up early, grabbing a cup of coffee from the café and heading on into work at the newspaper. Just like that, I’m struck by the pain of the loss of my best friend. That good for nothing neighbor of hers did something to her, took her off the radar to where nobody can find her. I’ve never been one for prayer but maybe it will help me feel better.

“God, if you’re listening, please let her be okay. Knowing me, I know I’m not the most religious person, but if she’s okay, I’ll go to church every single Sunday until the day that I die. Oh, and I’ll donate generously every Christmas. I’ll even give up crazy monkey sex for Lent. Wait, you’re not going to hold me to that last one, are you? Okay, forty days without the crazy monkey sex will have to suffice if it means bringing my best friend back. In lord’s name, amen.”

After my little prayer, I roll over and check the time. Just after seven in the morning. Damn it all to hell I do not want to get up! Grabbing my phone, I scroll through the notifications. A few social media notifications, some emails, and a text from Sarah.

“Hey, get your ass up! You have to get to the paper and get this shit rolling. Thank god you told Brooke not to come in. I can’t stand that whore.”

Laughing at the message, I type out a reply then place the phone back on the nightstand. So glad the wicked bitch of the south is gone until we find Jayde. When we get Jayde back, I’m so hoping she fires that bitch.

Finally giving up on the idea of going back to sleep, I crawl my happy ass out of bed and stagger into the bathroom. The hot water would do well to wake me up and get me going. However, something else comes to mind when I’m talking about waking up and getting me going, but this is a family show so going there would be a bad idea.

As I stand in the shower, reflecting on life as I do so every morning, everything seems to come crawling back into my mind. The ball. Fuck-face Finn, how we didn’t see him for the sadistic bastard he was…and it hit me. Finn is a damn good actor. He fooled us all, including my sister from another mister. I miss her so much. She’d call me a pansy if she saw me crying over her right now. I smile at the thought. Thinking about Jayde, it makes me recall the day I thought I would never see her again, the day I moved away.

“So why are you leaving then? I’m going to miss you,” Jayde says with a slight whimper to her voice. Part of me feels horrible, but I have to go with my family. Besides, she won’t miss me that much. She’ll make more friends soon enough.

“Jayde, I have to go with my family. We can still write and talk on the phone. Mommy just got me a new cell phone. It’s really cool and can text little smiley faces.” I hold up my shiny new phone and wave it around. She turns away from me and the dam opens up. I’m only ten but I can’t handle tears. Oh gosh, here it comes.

“I know you have to go, but I’m going to miss you.” Without another thought, and before I can change my mind, I pull her into a tight hug. I’ve always been a little jealous of her having lots of money and I didn’t, but she was always so nice to me. Far be it from me to try and sway her hurt to somewhere or somebody else but I have to at least try.

“You’ll make new friends. Don’t worry about me. We’ll keep in touch.” Yeah, right. She’ll make lots of new friends in that little rich school she goes to then forget all about me. Part of me wanted to say that’s a lie but I didn’t. Another part of me wonders why she will miss me so much. She’s so stinking rich it ain’t even funny. I barely have nice clothes and she has two freaking closets full of the best clothes money could buy.

“You really think so?” Ah crap, here come the tears again. By now I’m sure it’s no secret, emotions and tears are not my thing. Heck, I can barely handle it when my mom is watching her soaps and blubbering over something that happened six months ago. Those soap operas of hers, I’ll never understand them.

“So let me give you my number and new address and we can write and talk every single day. I hope your aunt and uncle will bring you out to Seattle to visit once we get settled in. That would be super amazing,” I say excitedly, hoping to bring some sunshine back into her face.

“I’ll try to talk to them about it. Promise you’ll write every day?” she asks, hugging me again, much tighter this time.

“I promise I will…you’re my best friend ever,” I say. Jayde’s face lights up with a beaming smile. Looking down into her pocket, she pulls out two half heart necklaces. On the purple one, it says “best” then on the pink one it says “friends.” She hands me the purple one and I snap it around my neck. It’s cute, not my style, but very cute.

“I bought these for us, so our friendship will stay with us forever, no matter where in the world we are.” Yes, now it’s my time to get emotional. My eyes begin to water profusely with tears and I pretend I have something in my eye to wipe them away.

“Anna, dear, it’s time to go. We must get an early start.” I was too busy talking with Jayde that I didn’t even hear my mom and dad pull up in the driveway. Turning back to Jayde, she isn’t looking me in the eye.

“Don’t forget about me, Jaybird. Promise?” I smile.

“I promise, Annabanana. I promise I won’t….”

Chapter 3

Anna

And that promise held true for about three months. First, we talked damn near every day. Then we talked a couple times a week. Then maybe a letter here and there. After that, the letters stopped coming. The phone stopped ringing. It was as if she fell off the face of the earth and we never spoke again. That day in high school, when Jayde walked into the cafeteria and saw me sitting there by myself, she knew it was me straight away. Jayde wore some frumpy pony tail hair style, and large black rimmed glasses. She walked up to me that day and slid into the seat opposite of me without so much as a hello then stared at me like I had two heads.

“I know this is going to sound crazy as hell but you look really familiar. Have we met before?” The girl asked me. This girl wore black rimmed glasses and a frumpy good-girl “never been kissed by a boy” look to her and I knew right away who it was. I looked at her up and down before she knowingly smiled. 

“Anna?” she asked in disbelief before leaning in a little closer as if that would help. “Is that really you?” Yeah, my assumption was definitely true. It’s most definitely her. The purple heart she gave me all those years ago is still clasped around my neck, hidden beneath my black T-shirt.

“Depends on who this Anna person is. To you, I used to be called Annabanana.”

At my correction, Jayde jumped up and lunged at me, hugging me tighter than I’ve ever been hugged in my life.

“Oh my god I can’t believe it! I’ve missed you so much you have no idea!” She said, letting go of her death grip she has around my body.

“When did you get back? It’s been so long I can’t believe you actually recognized me. You’ve definitely changed.” Sure a few pounds heavier, a heavy coating of makeup and a grunge styled hairdo later, you could say I changed a bit.

“Yeah I guess I have. We moved back last week but I wanted to keep out of school until after Spring break was over. Readjust back into the southern life and all that.”

Jayde is practically buzzing with excitement. “So, why the move back?” I start to say, but she holds up her hands in surrender. “Never mind. It’s none of my business.” Grabbing my apple, I tug at the stem until it snaps off.

“My parents divorced, and my dad wanted to stay in Seattle where his job was and my mom missed the country life so much, she decided to move back.” I shrug like it’s no big deal.

“Oh, wow. I’m sorry,” she says and I sit my apple down to say something. “I don’t need anybody’s pity. I’m adjusting. I mean, I’m only sixteen so this kind of stuff happens all the time, right? Isn’t that what they teach you in those stupid transition classes?” She nods. Transition classes are required for every new high school student. They teach you the fundamentals of growing up like menstrual cycles, parent issues, and all that good shit.

“Okay…so let’s catch up. How about we hit up Starbucks after school? My treat.” As much as I want to say something, I don’t. Biting my tongue was hard and painful. Almost to the point of bleeding. Catching up, falling back into that same pattern that I left six years ago. It was either run away, or fall back into the same friendship I thought I didn’t care about all those years ago.

“Sure, Starbucks sounds like fun. Let’s do it.” So I chose the latter.

Big whoop…

Moving away, forgetting all about her was the stupidest thing I’ve ever done. That day, I swore I’d never do that again as long as I lived. Seattle changed me in a lot of ways. But moving back to Charleston, reconnecting with Jayde and my old life, made me realize how much I never wanted to move back to Seattle. Jayde taught me what has become our greatest passage, everything happens for a reason. Jayde kept that passage in my head the whole ride to Seattle and the whole six years I was gone. Then, on that fateful day in the cafeteria, I knew exactly what she meant by that.

The shower water had turned cold at my step back into time. Jayde has been my best friend for the past twenty years and she’ll continue to be my best friend until the day we die. I refuse to believe she’s dead. No, I would have felt it. It’s such a shock whenever something happens so dramatically to either one of us, the other feels it. That’s how close we are. Our parents always said we were probably twins in a previous life because it’s scary how close we actually are.

Grabbing the towel on the rack, I wrap the white plush softness around my slim body and stand in front of the mirror, further reflecting on everything that has happened. Maybe I could stand to gain some weight. I’ve always been slimmer than everyone in my class. When I got into college, I became a gym nut, slimming down to a petite size in no time.

After I brush my teeth and get dressed in my best flowery dress, one which I despised more than anything but I’m only wearing it for Jayde, and once my hair is brushed and styled, I’m off to the office.

Arriving at the newspaper, everyone turns to look at me with sadness in all of their expressions. I try my best to give them my “don’t fucking look at me with pity” look, but it’s failing drastically.

Gwen is sitting off to the side at her desk and she’s staring over at the empty space that housed my best friend. I feel for her because we all miss Jayde. Her father used to say she was the sunshine that entered the room and brightened it up without even trying. Looking around the office, everything is eerily still. The crowd wasn’t as bustling busy as a newspaper should be.

“Why isn’t everyone doing what needs to be done to keep things normal around here?” I shout into the air in the best stern voice I can muster. That seems to break the trance Gwen seems to be in, then she shakes her head while returning to her work.

“Ahem, sorry, Anna. We’ll get to work,” Gwen says so low I almost didn’t hear her. I don’t know if she isn’t used to me being in charge or she’s just that depressed. Or a combination of the two. Me taking over here for a while shocked everyone, considering I know nothing about running a paper.

“Gwen, can I see you in Brooke’s office for a second?” Luckily, we sent Brooke out while Jayde was missing. This office can’t stand to see or react to her bitchy negative attitude while my best friend was god only knows where.

Gwen nods without voicing her reply which just breaks my heart. Gwen is always the energetic one who always has something sassy and witty to say. Something I admired about her was her ability to do the same thing Jayde could do which was light up a room. Her desk is always sparkly and glamorous. One might say she’s the southern belle out of all of us. As much as I despise anything remotely resembling anything girly like that, I have to admit she brings a certain flair to the office.

Walking into Brooke’s office, I shut and lock the door behind us so nobody can interrupt our talk. Gwen leans against Brooke’s desk and doesn’t look me in the eyes. I don’t need her to in order to see what sadness is going through them.

“Gwen…we’re all worried. Hell I’m worried just because you’re worried. But this office, this paper can’t stop going. Jayde would want us to keep it going for her sake. She’d kill us if we got it off schedule just for like a day,” I joke. Being as how this wasn’t really a laughing matter, I couldn’t help it. I had to do something or else I was going to burst into tears again, and I’m tired of crying.

Gwen sighs then rakes her eyes up to meet my gaze. “I know, Anna but I’m always sad. Jayde wouldn’t want us to be sad but, I can’t help it. She used to bring light into this office and now that she is gone, I can’t help but feel the darkness again. You know she helped me through my bad break-up I had recently? Talked me off the fucking ledge so many times I never thought I would get over it but she did it. I don’t know how, but she did it.”

I nod at Gwen’s confession. Knowing the depth of what happened really set things into perspective. Sarah and I weren’t the only ones struggling to find a calming grace while our best friend is missing.

Placing a hand on her shoulder, I smile. “I know what you went through was tough, but please don’t lose hope because it’s not lost. Hope is never lost when it comes to this bunch. The office may be a lonely place right now but only god knows when he will bring her back to us.” The whole bless aspect of the conversation was alien to me. This is the kind of mess I am without my best friend.

Gwen nods and without further hesitation, pulls me into a tight embrace that I gladly accept. Normally this kind of contact would make me feel a bit uncomfortable, but in a time like this, I would gladly accept any comfort that didn’t come out of a glass bottle and leave a potent aftertaste.

“Good, now go back out there and be the kick ass reporter Jayde knows you can be. I know she isn’t here, but hopefully her presence keeps the momentum going for all our sakes,” I say turning Gwen around and pushing her out of the office we chatted in. Scanning the office, my nose wrinkles just a tiny bit at the layout of the plush office. You’d think a CEO worked here but no, just the wicked bitch of the south. Brooke really needs to just give up this office because I have a feeling she won’t be working here much longer. This whole “I’m better than everyone else because I have several degrees of bullshit” really is getting old. Walking out of her office, I smile knowing the wicked bitch of the south has a limited time up on her throne. And that’s just what I’m going to tell her when she returns to the office after all this is taken care of. Oh, this will be so much fun.