But he had to make this stop!
When he was just getting little, questioning notes and cryptic poetry and bits of art, he could ignore it. But now there were several hundred other students walking by and giving him weird looks. Now there were witnesses.
Okay, Jamie thought, picking up one rose and twirling it idly for a moment. Lets see if there's a note this time.
And so he started digging. The admirer must have paid a fortune for these, he knew. Working at a florist's didn't exactly get him dates, but it meant he knew his flowers and their prices. Long-stem, red roses like these were a massive dip in most people's wallets. But the scent was enough to intoxicate Jamie and he had a few moments of befuddlement. But a sharp p***k on the finger was enough to bring him back to reality.
The deep red of the roses concealed the little black note card expertly, but Jamie caught sight of the silver writing and snatched it up quickly, sweeping the roses into a pile to prevent them from being trampled.
Dear Jamie
Sweet Jamie, stop playing games with me. Am I truly such a nuisance that you don't write back? Are you too bashful to meet me? I've offered blind dates frequently; why
not take me up on my offers? And yet you don't tell anyone.
Well, now everyone knows. You can't hide my infatuation so easily.There was no signature, but then again, Jamie had the feeling his secret admirer was beyond such lame cliches as 'From Your Secret Admirer' even though that was exactly what they were.
And the voice behind the words... Jamie could only imagine the teasing and smugness in this person's voice. He could vaguely see the smirk in place, but the rest of the face was obscured by lack of knowledge.
"Excuse me, do you want me to get the janitors to clean this up?"
Jamie looked up, shook out of his thoughts by the security guard keeping the few remaining kids in the halls from running wildly through the pile of flowers in front of his locker. "Oh, no thanks," he said, flashing one of his hundred-watt smiles in the hopes that it would get the guard off his case. "I'm going to find a way to get them all home, I think."
"Oh, okay," the guard said, giving him a funny look and walking away down the hall.
Jamie sighed and pulled his phone out of his pocket. He was going to need his brother's help with these.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
"So, are you gunna tell me who they're from?"
Jamie closed his eyes, teeth clenching. He had really hoped Cale was going to leave it alone, but luck wasn't with him. He thought it would be a long shot, the situation being what it was, but Cale had never been the nosy type of brother, even when Jamie went off the charts for a few months after their parents died. It was why Jamie didn't mind having his older brother as his father figure and best friend, all at the same time.
"I don't know who their from," he said as calmly as possible, almost passing for casual if not for the hard set to his jaw and the harder edge to his words.
"Okay, now I want the whole story," Cale said, glancing towards the passenger seat with a gentle smile before paying attention to the road again.
"I've been getting letters from someone for a couple months now," Jamie said, heaving a sigh and deciding to just get it over with. "They never sign in any way, the letters are all typed and there's no camera in the hall; I checked."
Cale laughed at Jamie's dead-pan. "So you have no idea who it could be?"
"No!" Jamie moaned, giving up his calm pretense and throwing his hands above his head angrily. "No one's paying extra attention to me and you know I'd notice if they were!"
"Can you even narrow it down by gender?"
"No, there's no clues, no hints at all," Jamie said, over-emphasizing his points. "They keep asking for blind dates to the movies, meeting at the mall for lunch, coffee down the street for Christ's sake! They're not backing off and it's starting to bug me."
"Well, then," Cale said, expertly pulling into their driveway, "The only thing to do is take them up on one of these blind dates."
"You're kidding!" Jamie shouted, jumping out of the car and storming threw the garage. "Aren't you the one who always says blind dates are dangerous and they're stupid ideas that get people killed?"
"Well, I'm not saying you go alone," Cale said exasperatedly, following Jamie into the house and tossing his keys onto the washing machine. "I'll go and tail you where ever you go. You get a date, I satisfy my curiosity, and this kid will back off."
Jamie paused; Cale was right, as usual. "Are you sure you're not just looking for a little plot bunny for your next book?" he asked suspiciously, pushing their Rotwieler out of the way so he could get into the kitchen.
"Maybe," Cale said with a massive grin. He stooped down to scratch Tammy behind the ear. "Tammy girl thinks you should, doesn't she?" he said, holding the dogs face so she looked up at Jamie and using baby-talk.
"That's really annoying, you know," Jamie said, popping the top of a soda can. He smiled and shook his head; sometimes his brother was more of a kid than he was.
"Come on, we need to go back out and grab those roses before the heat kills 'em." Cale tuned and walked right back into the laundry room, holding the door open so that Tammy could run out into the front yard. Jamie set the can down, sighing as the situation was brought back to the fore-front of his mind.
Could he really meet some stranger in a coffee shot? What if it turned out to be Shucks or Smalls? Meeting the person would totally destroy the mystery of the entire thing and Jamie had no idea if he would be getting something better in return.
And what if it was all a joke?
Jame shuddered, suppressing the tug he felt in his heart strings that was there when ever he thought of that possibility. He wasn't going to admit it to anyone, but he was starting to fall for whoever was writing the little notes he kept getting. Falling hard, harder than he thought possible. It was almost a physical pain he felt every time he thought of walking into The Coffee Shoppe and seeing haft of his year waiting for him, video cameras ready.
God, but how else am I going to get this to stop? he thought an hour later, carrying three vases up the stairs to his room. Cale had just exploded at one of them, complaining that he had no room to make dinner.
There were still nine glass bottles and vases on the dining room table; they had counted the roses as they were loading them into the car and found that there were a hundred and twenty three. Jamie was flattered to know that some had spent that much money on him and even more flattered when Cale had pointed out that those were the digits of his birthday... and slightly creeped out, but that was really over shadowed.
Jamie pushed his door open slowly, set the vases on his dresser and closed the door again. There was an hour left to kill before he had to be back downstairs to greet Lindsey, Cale's girlfriend. He spent a moment chewing his lip, trying to fight the urge to reexamine all the other notes. Then he walked over to his desk, knelt on the floor and opened the bottom drawer.
It was full to bursting with black and fluorescent note cards, folded sheets of paper, huge pages from a sketchbook covered in wonderful pictures: all of the things his secret admirer had given him.
Do I really want to know? he asked himself. Part of the fun of having a secret admirer was not knowing who it was, entertaining fantasies about the random people who caught his attention. Once e knew who it was, would it still be as much fun?
"No," Jamie said aloud to his room, sighing disappointedly. "But steps need to be taken."
Slowly, as if savouring the moment, Jamie started pulling out all the little scraps of paper, arranging them in groups on the floor around him. Black notecards here, fluorescent there, sketches to the right, notebook paper to the left. He had done this numerous times before, always trying to keep everything in order for himself, but the drawer always seemed more mixed up than the last time he had opened it.
After everything was in it's respective pile, Jamie brushed aside everything but the black notecards, shuffling them in his hands, slowly flipping through them to find the first one, the second one, and so on, reading each on as he stacked them in order on the floor.
Jamie always started with the black notecards. They were the most cryptic and therefor the most interesting. Little sentences like 'hidden companion of faiths not understood' and 'genius of misunderstood backgrounds with a knack for getting on some one's bad side' written about him sounded like heaven in the deep baritone voice of a boy on the soccer team and sweet little phrases like 'Sweet Jamie' and 'holder of my heart' sound so beyond beautiful in the sweet, smooth satin voice of a girl in his geometry class. A million voices trailed through his consciousness, whispering his favorite phrases and he growled in frustration as not one of them seemed right for this person who would leave him a hundred roses.
But it was the lack of signature that intrigued him most. The anonymity of it reminded him of someone, made him sure he knew who was writing these little love notes, but it was a person standing just beyond his range of vision on a dark night, a memory just out of reach in the fog of the past.
Jamie sighed again and began flipping through the sketches, some of him standing still in a blurred crowd of thousands, some of him staring dreamily up at the sky, some of nothing at all, just trees and stars and fields. All wonderful. Looking at the pictures always made Jamie want to scour the fundamentals of design classroom for a trace of the artist who loved him from a distance, but something told him this was a natural talent, something his secret admirer need to help honing.
They had probably never set foot in an art classroom. They would have private tutors for that sort of thing, and parents rich enough to pay for them. So what would his secret admirer want with an orphaned boy with no place in the world like Jamie?
The Ending
"It's that time you've all been waiting for!"
Jamie perked up in his seat, walking the stage intently. There were no lights, and yet he could see people rushing to find their place.
"Open Mike Night! Starting with Mark Bardos, Dillon Bardos, Pat Stilk and Ryan Market as Hang-Man's Noose!"
The crowd cheered and applauded; apparently the band was popular with the Antwon Private School crowd. No wonder, with the Bardos twins' reputation. Jamie was surprised he hadn't seen more kids from his own school; Pat was pretty popular with everyone.
Just listen to the music, Jamie told himself, sitting back in his chair and waiting.
The lights flared onto the stage all at once as the drummer, Pat, started nothing more than a gentle rhythm and the bass guitarist built up the first few pounding notes. The song was obviously not one of the head-banging ones Jamie had expected and he frowned, watching the boys on stage closely.
Until the lead singer stepped up and every one's head twisted to watch him. You couldn't not watch him; he drew the eye, caught and held your attention in a vice grip. And he was watching Jamie.
"Keep breathing, Dolly Baby, please follow me to the end. Lend me your ears, Dolly. Let me explain it once again."
The singer was one of the Bardos twins with pale blond hair spiked neatly with some kind of glitter and kohl-rimmed green eyes. He was slim and agile, though he wasn't really moving at the moment, just shifting on the stage, setting the mood. Jamie caught sight of the other Bardos twin smiling indulgently from the other side of the stage, where he was shifting his guitar to get a better grip.
"The music lets me speak to you, honesty intoned. I'm begging you, Dolly! This is the truth that you're owed."
The music was a mix of subtle and explosive, possibly contradictory but completely true. The lyrics were brilliant... if they actually meant anything. Jamie had no idea how they had anything to do with him. But something in the back of the mind was whispering I know him very quietly, so quietly, he couldn't hear it yet, just feel it on the edge of his consciousness.
Most people were swaying hypnotically, entranced by the sound. But Jamie was frozen, held in place by the singer's piercing gaze. It pinned him to the chair and swept his breath right out him and he couldn't explain it.
"You were my everything and he took me away. Now I'm back at last but you don't remember me. Glitter in the sky, music on the wind; I beg you to stay with me till the very end."
Jamie frowned; he knew that rhyme. Glitter in the sky, music on the wind; I beg you to stay with me till the very end; We'll write this down and won't forget; Best friends down to every bit. But where had he heard it.
Jamie watched the lead singer closely. He was smiling very softly, seemingly pleased with the thoughtful expression on Jamie's face.
"I see it in your eyes, you're starting to remember; All my hidden messages, each one oh so tender."
Jamie inhaled sharply. That was the line he had been waiting for; his secret admirer. The person who had left him a hundred roses and nothing more than a card to explain them, who had written cryptic poem after cryptic poem, who drew sketches so wonderfully he could only be a natural.
But why would one of the Bardos twins want him? The Bardos' who had everything!
"You're caught up in the now, shunning pain from the past. We promised to remember, please recognize me fast. We wrote it down so we'd never forget... Best friends down to every little bit."
The singer was almost pleading now and Jamie was distracted by the thought that he must be improvising the original song because the rest of the group looked surprised and astonished, barely remembering to keep playing their instruments. Jamie glanced quickly to Cale, possibly for encouragement or a hint. The fear in his face made Jamie turn away quickly.
The song was moving faster now, nearing its end and Jamie was running out of time to figure out who his admirer was and how he knew that rhyme.
"You were my everything and we were separated! I'm back with you at last and you don't remember a thing! Please remember me, remember us! I'm begging you now, recall what I'm saying!"
Jamie stared desperately into the singer's green, green eyes, wanting so badly to understand the song. He could feel it on the edge of his mind, just out of reach and he stretched farther than he thought his mind could go, reaching back into his past. Those eyes... Glittering green eyes, sparkling with laughter, always smiling at Jamie even at the worst of times. Blond hair streaked subtly with brown, glittering with water in the middle of a summer heat wave, fluffed up right after a long night of tossing and turning...
Jamie gasped, feeling his mind flooded with insight at long last. David Talite, the boy down the street, the boy who moved when they were eight, the boy who was his best friend for years. The boy the papers had said was dead only a week after he moved. The boy who was hadn't died and was standing on the stage, under a different name, who had sent him love notes and poetry and a hundred and twenty-three roses.
His best friend. The boy who loved him.
"Glitter in the sky, music on the wind; We'll be together until the very end; We wrote it down and didn't forget; My beloved in every bit," David finished quietly, smiling thankfully and relaxing on stage as the lights went out and everyone applauded loudly. The band hurried off the stage, making room for the next group to set up and Jamie sat back in his chair, stunned, as David hurried towards him.
But Cale got there first.
"We're leaving," he said, pulling Jamie to his feet and trying to move towards the door. But those two words had Jamie rooting himself to the spot.
"No! I can't leave David! Not now that I've found him again!"
"I won't let him put you through that pain again! Do you remember what you were like when you found out he was dead? The doctors said it was better that you shut it all out, that you wouldn't have to live with that kind of grief anymore. And he was alive the entire time!" Cale exclaimed as quietly as possible.
"I couldn't tell him!"
Jamie turned swiftly and saw that David was at the table, face anguished and pleading. Jamie pulled away from Cale and hurried around the table, wrapping his arms around David tightly, refusing to let go. David pulled him closer, burying his face in his shoulder and breathing deeply.
"That's complete bullshit! You couldn't tell him you were alive? Why the hell not? I'm sure you knew what he was going through!"
David pulled away from Jamie slightly, turning his sad eyes on Cale once more. "The police didn't know what had happened. They thought someone had come in and killed my family and I was just lucky enough to be well hidden. And when they realized it was all a murder/suicide case, it was too late! Jamie had already blocked me out! I tried!"
David's eyes were glittering with tears and Jamie pulled him close again, throwing a scowl at Cale. "He did. He came to the school; I remember now."
David had never come close; he stayed on the other side of the fence, watching Jamie run around with his third grade friends who knew nothing about David. Jamie remembered being intrigued by the little boy hanging onto the fence like it was the only thing holding him down. But as Jamie had approach, David had turned and run, afraid of injuring him farther.
Cale looked shocked at this new detail. "Why didn't you mention it?" he asked quietly, suddenly conscious of all the ears around them.
"It seemed like nothing, it was nothing at the time," Jamie whispered, stepping away from David slowly and towards his brother. "He tried and stopped to protect me, just like you. But I can handle it now. Can't you let me have what you have, what you and Sheryll have?"
Cale looked between Jamie and David, the anger quickly fading, replaced by wonder. The question was clear in his eyes: How did they manage to have so much when they'd been apart so long. The answer was to complicated to go into and he knew that. The silence lasted a long moment while he marvelled at his little brother, then he sighed and ruffled Jamie's hair, forcing a smile onto his face.
"I guess you can consider it pay back for those first few weeks with Sheryll."
"This could be harder than previously anticipated," Jamie said, brow wrinkling as David pulled him forward again. The thought disappeared when David pressed their lips together, softly exploring the feeling. "I missed you, Dolly," he whispered, not moving so that the words were spoken directly into Jamie's mouth.
Jamie smiled, breathing in David's scent, inhaling the memories accompanied with that nickname as sure as he was inhaling David. He clutched David tightly and kissed him again as the lights in the main sitting area went out again for the next band and Cale backed away from the couple, thankful when Sheryll walked up to comfort him. And to Jamie, it was like there was nothing else in the world.
{ Wahahaha!! I have the ending completely finished! I have none f the middle bits, but wo cares?! The ending is pure poetry. It makes me wanna cry. whee *sigh* I don't think my night could get any better after this. biggrin blaugh 4laugh }
