Page 51 of Valentine Dare

21

Prent

We’d spentthe last few weeks just thinking of ways to serenade Jenny to piss Kurt off, and it had worked. He’d stormed off when I started my dance routine with the guys in the parking lot. I loved watching his face as he noticed that Jenny wasn’t just dating one of us, but all three of us.

Now, as the days rolled by, it was as if Jenny being part of our lives was becoming a distant memory. No more did I wake up and think about what breakfast to serve her in the morning. There was a hole in our lives. I knew, in time, we would move on, but so far it had been so fucking hard pretending that Jenny wasn’t part of our reality anymore.

Christmas was quiet. We’d spent it together, just us and mom. Usually, we would play games and crap, but this year none of us were in the mood. Even mom said she missed having another woman in the house. Tracey came over. As usual, her parents were working. I couldn’t believe I was thinking this, but I was happy when it was time to go back to school. Even though it was the final year, and we had exams, it became a welcome distraction.

Steve asked, “You got another exam today, or that’s it?”

He was like me, dyslexic, and we spent a lot of time studying together and trying to encourage each other that we could achieve anything if we stuck together.

“You’re feeling down right. About Jenny?”

His revelation surprised me. I wondered if I had it written all over my face.

I replied, “How do you know?”

He shrugged. “I just noticed you were on a high when she as here, and now it’s as if you’re distracted all the time. She’s been gone over a couple weeks now. I thought you would even call me during the holiday to meet up. You never bothered.”

I dismissed his observation as we started to leave the hallway. I looked at the time and realized I was leaving, but I had nowhere to be.

“Do you have class?”

Steve adjusted his glasses as if he’d seen a ghost.

“I asked if you had any more classes, and you ignored me.”

“Shit, I did? Sorry man. My bad. I’m just all over the place.”

He chuckled as he adjusted his pants, with his skinny frame.He reminded me of when Jenny first came to live with us. She would say things like her clothes just hung on her. When she left, she felt different, there was more meat on her, and not only that, but she was more confident. Maybe it was losing my virginity to her which made me feel this way; Brent said this to me when I confessed to him about losing it to Jenny. He said he knew, that they both knew. I didn’t know if I felt relieved or embarrassed about the confession, but something changed between my brothers and I, and it was clear it was all down to her.

“Steve...” I didn’t finish my sentence as my phone rang. He signaled for me to pick it up. I took it out of my back pocket and was shocked to see Jenny calling me. I tried her a few times the first few days, and even left a message on her phone a few times. She never called back, so I assumed she never wanted to hear from us again.

“Jenny? Is that you? You Okay?”

I was shooting out the questions. I didn’t give her a chance to speak. There was silence on the other end of the phone. I started to panic. Maybe she didn’t return our calls, not because she didn’t want to, but because she couldn’t.

“Jenny?”

She said nothing, but the sobbing on the other side of the phone said it all. “Prent! Prent, is that you?”

“Yes!” I said, heading outside, ready to rescue her from wherever she was as Trent had done that day in the country club.

“It’s just, I don’t know what to do. They’ve left me. Mom. Dad. I woke up and they’re gone.”

“Calm down. Maybe they’ve gone to get something to eat or a meeting or something.”

“No!”

She was breathing so fast and hard, I couldn’t tell if she was only frightened or angry too.

“They’ve left me. We spent Christmas and New Year together. I felt things were going well. They wanted the code. I gave it to them, and now, now I’m here, and I have nothing. Just the money your mom gave me, and I need to leave here. Do you think your mom will let me stay again with you?”

I dismissed the idea that she thought mom wouldn’t let her stay with us.

“Jenny, I don’t have much money. Are you still in New York?”

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