The Heir (3 page)

"Yes, your right" Lauren looked at Jessica
over her shoulder "I am sorry. This is not the home coming I
intended for you"

Jessica shrugged "It’s alright."

She followed them silently past the high
ceilinged foyer, down the hall way and into their family room where
the son -Riley -and a girl around the same age already awaited
them. The room looked warm and inviting. It looked professionally
decorated with expensive furniture and art pieces, but at the same
time it looked well lived in.

The walls were a light yellow with white
trimming and family pictures hung on all the walls. A window with a
view of the back yard took up most of the wall across from the
entrance and the furniture sat at the center of the room facing the
entertainment center.

It looked like a home. A home she never
had.

Suddenly it was too much for Jessica and she
couldn’t deal with it on top of an injury. She had to get out of
there. She needed to regroup.

“I can’t do this.” Jessica told them, taking
a jerky step back. With everyone staring at her she couldn't help
but feel like the main attraction at the circus. She hated the
feeling because with her freaky abilities she knew she belonged in
one, that or in a secret lab somewhere.

Lauren looked alarmed and tried to reach for
her, “What? Why?”

Jessica raised her hands and took another
step back. “I’m sorry, I thought I could but I can’t. I don’t think
I’m ready for this. Maybe if I could get some rest first?”

At first it seemed like Lauren wanted to
argue but instead she nodded slowly. Stepping away from her
husband, Lauren went to take her daughters hand. Ignoring
Jessica’s’ stiffness, Lauren held on to her hand a little tighter
when she tried to pull away.

“I hope you like your room, I decorated it
myself" She said with an extra dose of cheeriness to cover how
nervous she really was. “I couldn't help but notice that you didn’t
bring much with you. Do you need to go shopping? It would be my
pleasure to take you. We could make it a girl date and I'm sure
Danielle would love to accompany us."

"No thanks" Jessica rushed "I mean, I brought
enough for a couple of days, I can manage" She couldn't tell them
that she didn't plan on staying long. She'd promised her mom that
she would meet them, not...stay with them.

Lauren continued to chatter nervously the
rest of the way but Jessica ignored her only adding an "uh huh"
here and there. In reality she was too busy checking out her new
surroundings and holding back the whimpers of pain that jostling
her feet was causing her.

To keep her mind busy she tried to
concentrate on her surroundings instead and she was amazed.

By the looks of their home, she could tell
they were very well off. Unfortunately it all brought into focus
the ugly fact that while they were living in comfort, she was being
dragged from city to city, one cheap apartment to another; in some
of the poorest areas of the city.

Why? Because rundown apartment owners don't
check credit, they don't do back ground checks. They do month to
month with no contracts instead of leasing. Most important of all,
everyone minds their own business.

The only constant in her life had been her
mom and her honorary uncle Mike. Now she was being taken away from
everything she knew. No more mom or Uncle Mike. Even worse was the
fact that she was going from one side of the tracks to the
other.

Not that she'd ever belonged to the other
side. They'd never stayed in one place long enough to belong. But
that was beside the point; there, she knew the deal. Here, she was
clueless.

She was clueless and scared.

What if she embarrassed herself? What if she
embarrassed her new family and they decided they didn't want her?
What if they decided they couldn't deal with her? That she wasn't
worth the trouble? Just like they'd decided when she was a
baby.

Rejection; it was her biggest fear.

"Here we are" Lauren said, claiming her
attention once again.

Jessica stood back and watched as Lauren
nervously opened the door to the room. Realizing that she hadn't
paid attention to where they were going, Jessica looked back down
the hall and followed Lauren in to the room.

She took one step and froze; her eyes bugging
out of her head. She'd never seen so much pink in her life! It was
like a princess's room on steroids. Light pink walls, pink bed set,
and white furniture with pink accents.

There was pink and white everywhere.

"Wow" She said as she released her breath,
"I'm speechless."

It was a good thing too, because nothing nice
was running through her mind at the moment. Not nice at all. By the
way Lauren was looking at her; Jessica knew that if she uttered one
profanity it would break the lady's heart. So she took a deep
breath and smiled.

She turned in a slow circle as Lauren stood
back and smiled back at her. Jessica mentally patted herself on the
back, she'd been right not to voice her dislike. Besides, she
wasn't planning on staying forever, it didn’t matter where she
slept.

I’ve stayed in worse places, she reminded
herself.

"I'm so glad you like it!" Lauren beamed.

"Yeah" was all she could manage with a fake
smile plastered on her face.

Amazed that so much pink could be crammed
into one room, she turned around once more. She was trying, hoping
to find some other splash of color, purple? Green -yellow
even-nothing.

"See mom I told you she would love it!"

Jessica snapped around to see the son
standing by the door with a glimmer of triumph in his eyes.

Lauren clapped her hands together, bursting
with excitement. "You were right. Thanks Ry for keeping me from
redecorating it." She turned to look at Jessica "As years passed I
wanted to re-do the room with maybe something less girlie but Riley
told me that this look was really popular right now. Now I'm sure
this was the right decision and I'm so glad you like it"

"I'm so sorry; you have to excuse my bad
manners, because I didn't stick around for the introductions.
What's your name?" She walked up to him, stuck out her hand and
smiled. It was a fake smile.

He eyed her warily and shook her hand a bit
reluctantly. "I’m Riley"

"Well Riley, my name is Jessica. And you're
right I do love this room.” She went to stand in front of the bed
and dropped her backpack on it. “Is the bed new, I mean has it been
slept on?" She asked Lauren over her shoulder.

"No" Lauren answered a bit confused by the
question.

"Has anything in this room ever been used by
someone else?"

"No"

"Well like I said, I love it" She smiled at
Lauren hoping to lessen the impact of her next comments and then
returned her attention to Riley "You want to know why I love
it?"

Her answer came in the form of two raised
eyebrows and a shrug.

"Because I bet it’s not bed bug infested, no
cockroaches, no rats and no ants. Have you ever felt any of those
crawling on you?-I have" She shivered just remembering the feeling.
"I love it ‘cause the walls are a different color other than yellow
due to the smoke residue some previous renter left behind."

"I love it because I bet if I walk on this
carpet barefoot" She proceeded to toe off her shoes "it will feel
nice, clean and soft. Not grimy, crusty and dirty" she took off her
socks and took a couple of steps around the room and sighed in
bliss "I was right."

She went back to her socks and shoes and
crouched down to put them back on.

Still crouching down she looked up at Riley
as she tied her shoes. "I love it because unless you people are
some sort of freaks I'm sure you won’t be keeping me up at until
the early dawn with your fighting or other extracurricular
activities. A clean bed and room is more than enough for me."

Riley glared at her but Jessica didn't care.
She turned away, effectively dismissing him and went back to pick
up her back pack where she'd set it on the bed. She didn't see him
fist his hands or Lauren raise hers to stop Riley from speaking,
she just heard him turn around and walk out of the room.

"I'm so-"

Jessica turned to look at Lauren and cut her
off "No I'm sorry. Sorry for-" She waved her hand in the general
direction of where Riley had been standing "that and for my
unwillingness to talk right now."

"It’s alright"

"No it's not. But like I said earlier I just
want to be alone. I don't want to talk because I know me. I need
some space to get it all together. Please forgive me and give me
until tomorrow. Tomorrow we can start."

"Alright, whatever you'd like." A new sense
of hope unfurled from within her and it showed in the smile she
bestowed on Jessica. "Will you be joining us for lunch and dinner?"
Jessica shook her head in response but that didn't deter Lauren,
she'd asked for the rest of day. If tomorrow they got to start all
over again then she could have it. "OK well...you know where the
kitchen is at. Is there anything else you need?"

"Aspirin? I have this killer head ache; I
think it’s from exhaustion. After I call my mom-Layla- I'd like to
take some pain killers and sleep the rest of the day."

"OK that's fine. I'll go get those for you."
She turned to walk away but Jessica stopped her.

"Also, is it OK if I take a shower?"

"Yeah of course, your bathroom is that one
right there" She pointed to one of the closed doors. "I just
stocked so there should be towels and other amenities in there.
When you get out the aspirin will be waiting for you on top of your
dresser."

"Ok thanks" Jessica gave her a real genuine
smile.

Lauren was walking out of the room when she
stopped at the door way. She placed her hand on the door and kept
facing the hallway. "Was it true?" She blurted out before she could
change her mind.

Lauren told herself not to ask, tried to
reassure herself that they could talk tomorrow but the question was
eating her alive and she just had to know. Even so, she was afraid
of the answer and couldn't bring herself to turn around and face
her daughter.

"What?"

"What you said about your living
arrangements."

"Oh that?" Jessica waved her hand as if it
were no big deal. "The bed bugs, rats, and roaches, just once" the
memory made her shiver again.

"I'm so-"

"Don’t be," Jessica sighed, the apologies
were getting old fast, and unfortunately she didn't think she could
forgive any time soon. "I'm going to take a shower."

Jessica went into the bathroom and took her
backpack with her.

Lauren stood there for a couple more seconds,
her head hanging; dejection beating at her door before walking
away.

Half an hour later Jessica stepped out of the
bathroom, feeling clean and refreshed for the first time in days.
In the room she found the bottle of pain killers where she'd been
told they would be. The sight of them made her apprehensive of what
was to come.

Reluctantly she went to the dresser and
picked up the bottle. Slowly she walked back to the bathroom; her
heart picking up the pace with every step. In theory she knew what
she needed to do and what was supposed to happen.

In reality, she'd never done it.

Before, whenever she'd broken a bone; her mom
or Uncle Mike, if he was present, would set it so it would heal
correctly. Now she was berating herself for not paying attention
all those times she'd gotten hurt.

She thought back on everything she knew about
bone fractures and realized that it wasn't much. One thing she was
almost sure of was that it was an un-displaced fracture.

"If it was displaced the bone would be
sticking out of her skin...right?" Jessica thought about that and
worried her bottom lip. "Wrong?"

She walked into the bathroom closing the door
behind her and sat down on the floor, her back against the
door.

When she thought about it, she had three
choices. Leave her ankle the way it was and hope that as time went
by the spasms of pain she had with every step she took would go
away. Break her own ankle again and hope that if she bound it, her
freaky abilities would do the rest of the work; this time
correctly.

Then there was her last choice and what she
considered the most dangerous. She could tell the Robertson’s; they
could take her to a doctor and risk the discovery of her
secret.

Jessica shook her head, discarding the third
choice right out of the bat she opened the pill container and
upended it into her mouth, taking more pills then what was
recommended. She chewed the pills, it tasted disgusting but she
wanted the medication to take effect as soon as possible. She had
no idea how she'd know when that would happen so she’d give it a
couple of minutes.

From her backpack she pulled out her small
first aid kit. There was nothing in there that helped to deal with
broken body parts, but it was better than nothing. Although it did
have an elastic band she could use to keep her bones in place while
they healed.

Her two minutes were up and it was time to
put her plans into action. She still had no idea how to go about
breaking her own bone so she decided to just go for it.

"OK" She took a deep breath "on the count of
three"

"One” she took a breath in.

She couldn’t do it.

"This is going to hurt!" she wailed and
banged her head against the door. She was so scared her hands were
shaking, but she had to do it and that's what she kept telling
herself. "Just do it"

So it went for half an hour. Each time, she
twisted her ankle a little harder until finally she realized that
she was only hurting herself more. No more deep breaths and no more
counting, this last time she just snapped it. And screamed like a
baby. It was a good thing she'd thought about stuffing her T-shirt
into her mouth.