Page 47 of The Eleventh Hour
“What happened?”
“They cornered me, wanted me to strip. One of the girls had a fancy camera she was dying to try out. That’s how I found out my friend wasn’t my friend.”
Dane paces with me as I slowly move through to the spot, pausing only a moment, as if the spot still contained the living memory of my teenage terror.
“He came from here.” I point to a thin gap between the shelves. “His face was in shadow, but he was tall, and his hands were clenched. He said, ‘I can beat your faces in now or I can come and visit you one by one and make you regret this. It’s your choice’. One of the guys spat at him, and he spun out with a kick so quick it was a blur. Though that could be because I was crying.” I shrug and give Dane a lopsided smile.
“Crying,” Dane repeats, which gets my back up, but I continue speaking anyway.
“I don’t really remember what else was said. Shit was shouted. He leaned over Sally and whispered in her ear. She bailed. They ended up leaving, tails between their legs. He came up to me.” I move to the spot and click my fingers at Dane.
He gives me a dirty look but moves to stand opposite me.
“He stands there, and he looks down at me, and he says, ‘Don’t let the shining stars hide your worth, Jojo, you’re the everything in between. You are so much more than their puny minds will ever imagine. Hold your chin up. Your time is coming’. And then he walks back through that gap and disappears.”
It was the single most powerful thing anyone had ever said to me. Even now, thinking about that moment leaves me in awe. I think I fell a little in love with him on the spot.
“Jojo?”
I blink in surprise, startled to find myself in the library. I’d forgotten about Dane.
“He always called me Jojo, even in that first meeting. I did ask later why and where it came from. He never could give me an answer that made sense.”
I squeeze through the space between the shelves and lead Dane to his place. It’s exactly the same. The tiny desk set up against the wall. The wall on one side and a bookshelf on another.
“This was his place.”
Dane’s eyes flicker around, taking everything in. “I had a similar space when I was a kid.”
“You did?”
“Yeah, it was a tree that I used to climb up and hide in.”
I pause a moment and cock my head to the side. “Hide?”
He turns to me. “I didn’t always look this good.” He flashes me a grin that transforms him back into the man I met in the hallway of my apartment building. He’s stunning, and it leaves me tongue tied. “I was tall and thin, and a bit of a nerd. Kids gave me a hard time, home was…” he pauses and clucks his tongue, “well, let’s just say my parents had no idea what to do with me.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. If I hadn’t been the lone wolf I was, I never would have met Terrance.”
Every time they speak his name, it’s with so much feeling.
“You guys really love him, don’t you?”
Dane looks over at me and pulls out the chair from the desk and straddles it. “I was almost gone from this world when he found me. Everyone had given up on me. He walked in, and he just knew what I needed. Terry was my best friend, my brother. He saved me.”
I swallow hard. “And with Rafael?”
Dane pushes back and looks at the shelves. “That’s not my story to tell.”
It’s so weird, this moment, and I don’t trust it. Descario and Sparrow’s lying faces flash through my mind. Deception in words, trust the wrong person and fall. I lean back and cross my arms over my chest.
“Why are you telling me this?” My voice comes out colder and harsher than I intended.
“So you know where I’m coming from when I say that if he was here all the time, after school, weekends, then it’s experience talking when I say there was no better place to be. His home life was shit. He couldn’t identify with the petty shit of other teens because his shoulders were weighed down with questions like, how do I get food? Where do I go from here? How do I survive the next time she comes home sloshed and breathing fumes that would strip paint?”
He swings off the chair and advances towards me.