Linger

It was nine thirty-three when the door awoke her the next day. She opened one eye and stared groggily at her alarm clock before pulling the covers over her head and laying in silence. After a few quiet moments, she felt the covers slip away from her face and her eyes opened in curiosity. The sheets stopped as they slid past her neck, and she sighed as she pulled them back over her head.

Jayden was near sleep again when the covers blew clean off her with a sharp, cold blast of air. They landed on the floor in a heap and she sat up and shivered, looking over at the alarm clock once more. It was eleven twenty-six, but quickly turned to nine fifty-two before flickering to seven oh-eight. Finally it landed on three twenty-nine. She stared at it with narrowed eyes before standing slowly and picking her sheets up. She made the bed and looked over at the alarm clock again.

It was stuck on 03:29AM.

She huffed impatiently and manoeuvred to her wardrobe. Peering out of the window, the sky was its usual cloudless expanse and Jayden wondered to herself if it ever rained here as she rummaged through her dresser, picking out her attire for the day. She quickly chose a black shirt but grumbled as she poured through the rest of her clothes, sighing when she couldn’t find the jeans she wanted. Spotting the ones she’d worn the day before laying discarded on the floor, she picked them up and slung them over her arm.

Jayden turned on her heel and began walking towards the door when something out of the window caught her eye. She stood and gazed through the glass, a slight frown on her lips. Near the garden fence, a boy stood casually. His hands were in the pockets of a pair of dark jeans, which were ripped and torn at the knees. A black wifebeater adorned his chest and showed off his strongly muscled arms that were decorated in rich, eye-capturing colours. Dark hair fell about his face, the light giving it a soft sheen. From what she could see, he had dark eyes and a nose piercing that glinted in the morning rays. He stood with a confident yet casual frame with his weight primarily on his left leg, jutting his right hip out slightly. All in all, he had a glowing aura about him.

As if he had sensed her observing him, he looked up and smiled, holding a hand up and slowly flexing his wrist from side to side; waving. Not knowing what else to do, she smiled slightly and waved back. He must be a friend of Jimmy’s, she concluded as she slipped him a final smile, making her way out of her room and to the bathroom before heading down the stairs.

Just as she was about to sit at the kitchen table, there was a knock on the door. David poked his tongue out at her as she headed out of the room and down the hallway. She was greeted with a long pair of arms wrapping themselves around her as she opened the front door, her own arms bound tightly to her sides. She heard different sets of laughter and a deep voice say, “Let her breathe dude.”

The arms were gone seconds later, and she smiled as Jimmy grinned down at her. Looking past him, three other boys were stood on her porch. She looked at Jimmy curiously before he nodded, “Oh right, you don’t know the guys!”

A short boy with a black mohawk rolled his eyes as the other two chuckled amongst themselves. Jimmy continued grinning wildly as he pointed at his friends, “This is Matt.”

Matt smiled and Jayden almost chuckled. Although he was tall, well built and clearly very muscular, dimples adorned his baby face as he beamed at her. His large arms were partly covered in colourful tattoos and his eyes were shielded from the sun by sunglasses.

Jayden’s eyes travelled to a smaller boy next to Matt, who Jimmy identified as Zacky. His arms were also brightly coloured like all of his friends and his hair was black, cut in a similar style to Jimmy’s. He had a rounded face, but his eyes were the feature that captured her attention instantly. They were a stunning shade of blue green turquoise, and looked as though they held fathomless hidden depths that anyone could get lost in.

Finally her eyes landed on the shortest boy, the one with the black mohawk. He wore a smile that reached his dark eyes, but it was almost instantly replaced with a frown as Jimmy introduced him, “This is Johnny, but we just call him short shit.”

The others laughed and Jayden successfully hid her own chuckle under a cough before looking back at Jimmy expectantly. He looked somewhat baffled before grinning as realisation dawned, “Oh, you’re wondering why we’re here, aren’t you?”

She nodded and chuckled at a sarcastic comment made by Johnny, who promptly gained a punch in the arm before Jimmy continued, “We were going to head to the mall, catch a movie. I just wondered if you wanted to hang out?”

She looked at the four of them sceptically. Going to see a movie with guys was something she’d never done before, at least not without another girl being present. Then again, she hadn’t socialised with anyone in this new town before, so anything could happen.

Matt, seemingly seeing her hesitation, grinned and spoke up, “Don’t worry. My girlfriend Val will be there. She’s really nice, I promise.”

“You would say that,” Zacky muttered, earning chuckles from Johnny and Jimmy. Matt merely turned his head and scowled at them, silence falling mere seconds later.

Jayden quickly thought about it. Her mother had said to meet new people, and she was tired of spending her days stuck inside the house. Besides, making a girl friend could be a good thing, she thought as she grinned, nodding before grabbing her wallet from the hallway table and calling through to the kitchen, “I’M GOING OUT! SEE YOU LATER!”

---

Still laughing, Jimmy pushed Jayden out of the car and both waved as Zacky drove off. She made her way up her garden path quickly as a scrap of paper fell from her back pocket and fluttered like a feather to the ground. Jimmy picked it up and stared at it with wide eyes before quickly hurrying after her, “Jay?! Jayden?”

Jayden quickly turned around and stared at him curiously. He climbed the porch steps and stood in front of her, peering at her with a mixed expression. She noticed the same look in his eyes that she’d seen when they’d first met properly, the glimmering shot of pain. The grin that had adorned his face mere moments before had well and truly vanished into the humid spring air.

“Why do you have a picture of Brian?”

She looked at him with raised eyebrows, “Who?”

Jimmy thrust the paper towards her. She instantly recognised it as the photograph she’d taken from the attic the day before. His features were still the same as they were, his grin once again making the corners of her own lips tug upwards slightly in contagious contentment.

He took her arm gently and pulled her down, and they sat on the top step. Jayden looked up from the picture and replied, “I found it in the attic yesterday. I was wondering who he was, and I thought you’d know. Honestly, I totally forgot it was in my pocket.”

Jimmy nodded somewhat solemnly, “I knew him.”

Jayden’s eyes flickered across his features as he continued, “Out of thirty of so kids, he was the only person to talk to me in sixth grade. We stuck together after that, got closer after I was adopted by Andy and Dawn, cause then we were neighbours. He was my best friend. I…”

His voice cracked slightly as he gently removed the photograph from her hands, looking down at his friend with a slight smile, “I really miss him.”

“Did he move away or something?“ she asked, noting the look of sadness on his face, despite the small grin.

“Not exactly.”

Jayden looked at him dejectedly, biting her bottom lip before mumbling, “I saw him in the garden earlier.”

Jimmy’s eyes instantly shot up, a somewhat wild look in his stare that made her slightly nervous. He scanned her face quickly, as if checking for the slightest sign of a lie. There was a tone of disbelief in his voice as he uttered quickly, “You saw him in the garden?”

She nodded, her eyebrows knitted together in confusion. She was positive that Brian was the boy who had waved at her from the garden earlier in the day. Her eyes subconsciously skimmed to the patchy area of green near the wooden fence that divided Jimmy’s garden from her own, where he’d stood in the shimmering sunlight that very morning. She knew she hadn’t thought it up, it wasn’t a fabrication of her imagination; Brian had been there.

Jimmy’s vision was still fixed on her as she replied, “Yeah. I just presumed he was visiting you.”

“That’s impossible,” He muttered tonelessly, looking morose and slightly listless.

Jayden was utterly perplexed. Whatever had happened, she was convinced that Brian had visited Jimmy just that morning. She had perfect vision and knew exactly what and who she saw, “Why? Friends visit each other all the tim-”

He cut her off and shook his head slowly, his eyes flicking from her to the picture in his hands, “Not Brian.”

“Why not?” Jayden frowned, not understanding why he was being difficult and denying the truth.

Jimmy‘s eyes were fogged and clouded with unshed tears, whilst one lone trickle escaped and made a pathway down his pale cheek. He quickly brushed it away with the back of his hand, his gaze still focussed on the photograph, “He was in a car accident, about two years ago. They couldn’t save him Jay…”

Jayden’s heart almost stopped as she heard him utter the end of his sentence.

“He‘s dead.”