loudly. “How many times do I have to say it? I. Hate. Football.”
“Do you think Jude would be as good as he is if he slacked off and didn’t put a hundred percent into trying to be the best?”
I couldn’t handle it anymore. I snapped.
“You need to lay off,” I told him. His jaw clenched, his gaze swinging to me now. Ignoring his narrowed eyes and knowing damn well I was skating on some very thin ice, I forged on like the dumb shit I was. “He’s not me. Football is not his thing. He gets straight A’s. He wants to go to an Ivy League college and he’s smart enough to get in.” I only knew this because Jesse told me. “In the real world, that’s just as important if not more important than whether or not he wants to compete in high school sports.”
My father glared at me, outraged that I would dare to question him. I nearly laughed. He looked like one of those cartoon characters with steam coming out of his ears. He opened his mouth to speak but before he got a word out my mom interjected.
“Jude is right, Patrick,” my mom said, sounding weary. She’d been down this road with him many times and already knew that nothing we said would change his mind. “You need to stop comparing the boys. Gideon has different interests and you have to learn to appreciate that and respect it. Not every boy wants to play football.”
My work here was done. I’d said my part. Dug my own grave. Now, my mom had taken up the cause and I left her to verbally spar with my dad. On my way out of the kitchen, I grabbed a green apple from the fruit bowl and glanced at Gideon. He gave me a nod, just a tip of the chin but it was his way of saying thank you. For once, it felt like we were on the same team. And that felt pretty damn good.
But I had something more pressing to take care of right now. Taking the stairs two at a time, I closed my bedroom door behind me, cursing the fact that our bedrooms didn’t have locks on the doors.
I took the wrapped gift down from its hiding place where it had been since I moved it from my truck earlier today and sat on my bed with my back leaning against the headboard, the gift in my lap. I’d had this gift in my possession for three days now and it was a miracle I hadn’t opened it yet.
The wrapping paper was midnight blue with gold stars.
The gift was for me so it wasn’t like I’d stolen something that didn’t belong to me. I turned it over, ran my hand over it, trying to figure out what could be so important that she’d ransacked my room trying to find it.
Fuck it.
I ripped off the paper, crumpled it into a ball and tossed it aside. Then I stared at the book in my hands. A photo album? A scrapbook? Aurora Borealis on a black background graced the cover and in gold marker, it said: The Book of Jude.
I opened it and studied the collage of photos. I recognized most of them. We were nine years old in these photos.
She was so fucking cute back then. Tiny but fierce. In every single photo, we were either laughing or smiling. Jesus, I missed those times.
I turned each page slowly to reveal more memories. It wasn’t just photos either. There were handwritten notes. Ticket stubs from baseball games and movies we’d gone to. Dried wildflowers that I suspected were from the time I’d picked a bunch of them in the field for her. She’d put them in a mason jar on the kitchen windowsill. Fortunes from Chinese fortune cookies that we’d laughed at. The woven friendship bracelets she’d made us that first summer.
She’d kept everything. I didn’t even remember half of these photos being taken nor had I realized that Lila was the sentimental type. Guess you learn something new every day.
After poring over each photo, each memory, I turned the page and was disappointed to see it was the final one. But this, I suspected, was what she’d wanted to take back. I glanced at the door. The house was quiet. I was alone in my room.
Taking a deep breath, I read the letter she’d written me.
Dear Jude,
I’ve tried to write this a hundred times but the words came