Page 26 of Lost & Found

“I ride my motorcycle most of the time, but I have a Ferrari 375 America that I bought off the dealership a few years ago.”For a cool few million, I decide to keep that part out. I’ve never been one to boast. It's the only thing besides the house that I'm in now, that I've dropped any kind of major coin on. And I only bought it because I remembered from when I was a kid, I used to have a toy car that looked exactly like it. Whenever I’d play Barbies with Hollis, I’d bring over some of my toy cars to have parked in the garage of her fake dollhouses to make it seem somewhat real. I laugh at the thought, but that one car specifically was Hollis’ favorite. Safe to say I missed her when I bought it. I don't take it out much, which I know defeats the purpose but it's a fucking gorgeous car.

A waitress comes by to break up the conversation by asking for my drink order, but Jeff wants to keep talking.

“What was the most expensive car you sold?” He's asking questions like he wants to be me when he grows up and I try my hardest not to roll my eyes. I don’t like talking about myself too much. Especially not to people who haven’t really been any kind of true support system for me.

Regardless, I go into minor details about my old position at the dealership as the restaurant buzzes around us with noise. The place hasn’t aged a bit since the last time I saw it, but it definitely is a lot busier than I remember.

It still gives me a familiar feeling and it’s only then when I see the old Pac-Man arcade game sitting in the corner that my mind goes back to all the times Hollis and I would spend hours at the machine while our families sat around at the table and talked nonsense. Kylan would also join us from time to time, but it was only the most fun when it was just me and her.

Growing up, people never really understood our friendship. When I hit high school, it was the worst. I remember one of my friends at the time, a guy I soon unfriended, made fun of me because I told him I couldn’t hang out with him because I had made plans with Hollis. We never really got to see each other as much so I blew off my friends when I could to hang out with her.

I was fourteen at the time, a freshman in high school, which meant Hollis was still in elementary school, but no one really knew that we’d practically grown up together. It sounds complicated when you try to think of the situation as a math problem instead of as a connection between two people, but being friends with Hollis just made sense and I wasn’t going to give that up for anyone else.

But when my old friend laughed at me and said,“Dude, you’re really gonna go hang out with a little girl instead of walking around the mall with me? She’s like a baby.”It really made me realize that not a lot of people were going to understand why a friendship like ours meant something to me.

I tried not to let it bother me, deciding to unfriend anyone who dared to talk badly about her, but high school was brutal, and it took a lot out of us because we both were doing different things with different crowds.

Finally, I’d found a couple of guys who didn’t give fuck who my friends were or who I decided to spend my time with. And those are the guys I decided to hang out with the rest of my school years; the same guys who welcomed me back to town as if I never left.

I zone out in the memories as my mom’s husband chats with my brother about his deployment and future plans, but my eyes wander from the Pac-Man game, trying to hide the smile I know is growing on my face, to see a familiar face close by. Not one that I like, but I recognize him, nonetheless.

Liam.

I shift in my seat uncomfortably, really despising the mother fucker and thinking back to how ruthless he was. He was one of the worst in high school. Constantly picked on me for hanging out with Hollis or doing anything really and called me and my friends names. He was one of those kids that bullied others for no real reason other than to make himself feel better.

He didn’t live far down the street from us at the time. One time when he saw Hollis and I out in the street riding our bikes, he decided to throw a rock at my wheel and it skipped through the wires, causing me to crash into a bush. I had a huge, busted lip that he made fun of me for days, and when Hollis tried to stand up for me, he called her a thumb-sucker because I was her only friend. His insults were really lame, but a person can only take so much. I hated that he bullied her more than anything, which is why I can’t seem to ever understand why she’d be dating a guy like him.

I did try several times to stand up to him, but he shut me down almost every time, usually by punching me in the face.

I give his smug ass a onceover, hoping he’ll catch me watching him. I know he didn’t really seem to recognize me at the bar the other night, but his ass was so wasted I’m not even sure he knew where he was. He doesn't see me though; he just looks towards the person walking in his direction. And I nearly choke when I see long dark hair come into view.

Except, there’s no blue stripe. But he wraps his hands around her waist and squeezes her ass just before pulling her in for a kiss. My heart drops to my stomach. I get a small glimpse of her face as she giggles and pushes him away playfully.

That’s not Hollis.

“Jaxon?” I hear my mother's voice bring me back to the table and I have to force my gaze away from the betrayal taking place before me.

“Yeah, sorry,” I say, trying to regain composure but I can’t help but feel the anger boil in my blood.

“We were just asking if maybe you’d want to help us out?” My mom seems very unsure in what she says, but I am also very unsure because I didn’t hear anything she said prior, so I don’t even know what she’s asking.

“I’m sorry, what did you say?” I seek clarification.

“We were just talking about how your mom’s work cut back her hours and it’s been hard for her to find anything else with her back problems, and paying the mortgage has been a bit tough.” Jeff speaks up in place of my mom, her discomfort is very apparent and so is Kylan's. He pretends to not even be a part of the conversation, but Jeff is looking at me in desperation.

Back problems? Her job?I haven’t heard anything about these things before. Then again, we don’t ever talk.

“Okay…” I waver with anticipation. I’m failing to understand why they’re bringing this up but as soon as Jeff speaks up again, it hits me.

“We were just wondering if we could borrow…” his voice stops short, and I know exactly where this is going.

I take the brief moment of silence to drag the beer that was dropped off who knows when to my lips and I chug the entire bottle. I set it down as gently as I can, feeling the utter audacity of what I believe I just heard creep into my fingers in an act of gripping the bottle so tight, it might shatter.

Still gripping the bottle, I lean forward onto the table and rest my opposite elbow on the surface, forming a fist and bringing it just below my bottom lip.

“You invited me here, as afamily, for dinner, to ask me if you could borrow money from me after only being back in town for less than a few weeks?” I ask, steadying my tone so that it doesn’t display the anger laced in it, but rather the chaos that is about to unleash if they answer me the way I think they will.

“Well, that’s not why we brought you here, son.” My mom tried to reassure me, but I can see on her face that she’s only trying to rectify the situation though the desperation is now painting her expression as well. I look over to Kylan who looks just as shocked as I do.