Jordan woke up with a start, his eyes shot open, and he couldn't remember why; he stared at the ceiling, and his sleepy brain could only register the fact that it was different from usual, something was wrong. As soon as his instincts kick in and he was ready and alert, he remembered why it looked different. It wasn't his room. Jordan sighed and ran a hand over his tired face, he turned his head and stared at the bed right next to him, a small hand was hanging limply from it.
Jordan was currently sleeping on the floor, next to Karen's bed; he had been for the past couple of days. Karen had been afflicted with a bad cold during the night that Jordan had visited her, and since then he had slept on her floor, because, as Jordan discovered, a sick Karen was a needy Karen; she absolutely disliked being by herself while feeling so bad physically and, if Jordan was completely honest with himself, he pretty much loved those nights and sleeping while holding her hand in his.
But as he stared at her hand that night, the feeling that something was wrong was lingering at the back of his head, Jordan knew something was amiss, but he could not remember or understand what it was. As he strained his memory a little bit his brain forcefully entered in gear, and slowly but surely, the memories of his nightmare came back like a monster trudging through thick mud. Jordan felt goosebumps breaking all over his body, the nightmare was too real and too close to home for him to remain indifferent. He closed his eyes and turned to his side, wanting his brain to stop pouring such detestable remembrances.
His gesture did nothing much to reduce the outpour of bad memories around his mind, so Jordan sighed and decided to get up, maybe a quick walk around the house would take his mind off of it, maybe a glass of milk or some warm tea; as he reached for the door he felt the hairs on the back of his neck standing up and a cold feeling pit itself at the base of his belly. Instantly alarmed, Jordan stopped, his breath stuck inside his throat like a tennis ball. He felt he was being observed and that feeling was so intense and real that Jordan was nauseated. What could be going on, he thought, and who could be watching him, them, on the second floor of the house? Jordan took a deep breath, for sure it was just his imagination, no one would be able to spy on them, the curtains were closed and...
Slowly Jordan turned his head, his heart beating like a drum in his ears, his palms sweaty; he swallowed dry and felt a single drop of sweat running down his cheek.
The curtains were open and so was the window.
His brain kicked violently into high gear. How could that have happened? It was the second floor, after all, and no human could simply climb up the side of a house and reach the second floor and on top of that open a window; he racked his memory to get a clear picture of Karen's window and whatever surrounded it. Jordan took a deep breath, he had to calm down and think straight, panicking never helped; with his mind sharper and more focused, a clear picture of Karen's window from outside formed inside his mind. He scrunched up his face, there was indeed a foothold, someplace one could climb to reach her window, but if he was right, the foothold was a small canopy right under her window, but it was too tall for even him to reach with ease and the distance from it to the window was, again, considerable enough to make things very hard. Jordan proceeded to list the possible means that could have been used to reach that height. If, and that was a big if, the person was as tall as him, all it would take was one powerful jump, but would that surface offer a good enough grip? Jordan assumed that whoever had done it would most definitely not want to destroy the house, an open window could pass as nothing strange, but a trail of fallen shingles not so much. A stair would be way too bothersome to carry, especially if the culprit lived a long way from here and if the person wasn't careful enough, it could make noise once it hit the canopy; What could be silent enough that no one would hear? Was there really a fail-proof method? Jordan felt the need of climbing up the small canopy himself and put to test the theory he had come up with.
He sighed. What was he doing? Jordan knew that panicking never helped, and the fact that his brain was overexcited and drowning on adrenaline, sure enough, was not a sign of perfect and reasonable reasoning. Jordan took a deep breath, he calmed his racing heart and subdued the fear that was strangling his mind, calmly he recounted the events of the night inside his mind, and despite trying he could not remember clearly if they had left the window open. There was of course the possibility that one of the adults had come during the night and opened it up for some reason. Either way, there was no motive for panicking of fear, Jordan sighed again; he was certain that all of that was the result of his nightmare, and as he could do nothing about it while standing frozen in front of a door, he decided to close the window and get himself a warm cup of tea.
As Jordan sipped his tea, he thought about his nightmare. The main characters in it were people Jordan hadn't seen in a long while; when Jordan left the Henning's he got tossed around quite often and to each place he went he found a new kind of hell, there had been indeed a time in his life when he used to think that he had visited at least five of the nine circles of Dante's Inferno. Of course, Mona and Caleb had been one of those main characters owning their own little circle of hell, but in his nightmares, he had seen two completely unrelated people and one that absolutely no one would ever mistrust.
That person was Mrs. Tupper.
Mrs. Tupper was an old lady who owned a house too big for her income and decided that turning it into a foster home would be the best way to keep that house inside hers and her family's clutches, although her family had indeed driven to distant lands, all of them attempting to keep a safe distance from themselves and that sweet old lady. Jordan remembered that when he saw her for the first time he had actually felt happy, she was the picture of an adorable grandma who was simply too loving and needed lots and lots of grandchildren to dote on. How miserably wrong he was. Mrs. Tupper and her key. Constantly hung around her thick neck and constantly being touched. Soon that key and her chubby fingers were the objects of terror of every child inside that house. You see, Mrs. Tupper had the bad habit of locking every single cabinet and kitchen appliance in her home with a big fat locker, a chain was also used when needed, and in that way, she could keep the children away from her precious food.
Jordan couldn't count the many nights he spent consumed by the pain of an empty stomach. And to top it off, in his bad, bad dream, he revisited the ghost of Lola, the legitimate child.
He sighed and took a big gulp from his tea, the warmth spreading like fire through his chest. Jordan's hands were clenching the teacup with the strength of his anger and disgust for Lola; his knuckles white.
Lola was the embodiment of egocentrism, haughtiness, and evilness. Her parents would have been considered as okay people in his book if they were not completely manipulated by that evil banshee that screamed wolf whenever and wherever she could. At school, she had her own parade of minions that followed her around and bullied the kids that she brought from home, the easy, unwanted, discarded by their stupid families pieces of crap that ended up in her house.
Jordan clenched his jaw remembering her hurtful words. No matter how long it had been, her words were always the ones that hurt him the most, even the beatings she orchestrated for them was nothing compared to being called that kind of stuff and being looked down on as less than an animal.
Lola was a she-devil that enjoyed watching others suffer, and she got plenty to watch.
Distracted by his bad memories and anger, Jordan did not see someone descending the stairs with a worried look. To anyone that could see Jordan, alone in the middle of the night, clenching a cup of steaming tea like he wanted it to burst in flames and go to hell, worrying would be the first and most natural reaction, especially if they were talking about someone who hardly ever showed any signs of anger, let alone plain hate. So, when Laura sat in front of him with her eyebrows scrunched upward, he almost spilled his tea in fright.
"Sorry, didn't want to scare you." She said, her hand reaching out to gently squeeze one of his.
"It wasn't your fault," Jordan answered with a sigh using his free hand to run his fingers through his disheveled hair.
"Are you okay, Jordan?"
Jordan sighed again and took a sip of his tea after answering, "Yeah... just a nightmare." But honestly, he felt like a mess at that moment and was exposed in a completely new way to a completely new person. It wasn't his best moment at all.
"Oh... I see... do you want to talk about it?"
He gave Laura a tight-lipped smile, it truly was not a subject that Jordan enjoyed dwelling on even when he was alone, plus he disliked the pitty looks the most.
"Maybe when it's not so fresh."
Laura nodded and got up, she drank a cup of water but said nothing else to Jordan, although on her way back to her room she squeezed his shoulder to let him know he wasn't alone and that he could use her support any time he wanted. He was thankful for that in his heart, but at that time his mind was only revolving around the pains of his past. It was mind-boggling just how much bad luck Jordan had had after his season with the Henning's, sometimes he would regret the fact that they had to stop fostering kids, but at the same time, he understood that nothing else could be done since it was Mrs. Henning's health that was under the line. He roughly ran a hand over his face, up and down, trying to clean his head of those thoughts, Jordan absolutely knew how much they did not help, they just made everything worse; what was he supposed to do with all of that? Throw at other unsuspecting and innocent people that had absolutely nothing to do with his misfortunes? No. He would not do that. He had never done that; maybe he had dealt with it in a bad way and maybe people still ended up getting a bit wet with it too, but it was not even close to how bad it could have been.
Resting his head on his right hand, Jordan continued to sip his tea and trying to grind down the feelings that his past brought him, the regrets over things that were out of his control, and the anger and hate toward people that already had nothing to do with his life and had nothing to do for a long time. He felt a sudden weight falling on top of him, he felt like every little experience he had was being dumped on his back and were weighing him down violently. Jordan was tired now, he gulped down the rest of his tea and climbed up the stairs back to Karen's room, each step seeming to weight a ton. But when he opened the door all of that seemed to evaporate for he encountered something that he was not expecting at all.
Karen was up, the window was open again and the curtains billowed around her with the wind. When she heard him entering she turned around, her face with an expression that Jordan never expected to see on her. It looked like Karen was watching a funeral unfolding in front of her eyes, eyes that were filled with sparkling unshed tears. Jordan felt his heart squeeze.
"What happened?"
"We need Mauve." Answered Karen, her voice quivering just enough to let Jordan know that whatever had happened was bad and bad on a personal level.
"Why?"
Karen briefly glanced at the watch on her bedside table and motioned for Jordan to sit down, with her head. Jordan sat down in silence, but the questions in his eyes were screaming at her, she took a deep breath to steady herself, extended her hand, and in it, Jordan saw her cellphone, he reached out and took it, the screen was black, but with a few touches Karen brought it back to life and in front of his eyes he saw just a few words.
It happened again.
He scrunched up his face in confusion.
"What happened again?"
"That's the girl I told you about."
Jordan remained silent, the terrible realization of just what had happened again coiling around his being like a snake, cold and deadly.
"Well, I slowly approached her and build up a friendship with her, we're on speaking terms, I told her about my abuse story and that I knew it had happened to her, and we decided to keep an eye out for new victims because she honestly wanted to do something about it, but she was scared and we thought that maybe if we could keep an eye out we could discover some older cases..."
"I see... it wasn't a bad idea."
Karen nodded, but inside her eyes, Jordan could see a teensy bit of regret.
"It's not your fault that it happened again."
"I know."
Jordan could not take his eyes off of that small message, he had been so self-involved and now he felt awful, he felt responsible for it, if only he hadn't taken so long to solve his own bs maybe that girl wouldn't have suffered such a horrific thing. Karen reached out and placed one hand on top of the small screen that held his gaze like power glue, blocking his vision and making him look up at her determined eyes.
"Jay... we need Mauve."
Jordan sighed and nodded. He had no idea how to solve it, or how to get her to talk to him, sure he wanted to try to speak to Mauve through his new computer, but he honestly had absolutely no idea if she would even give him the time of day, she was so absolutely furious with him, and he had no idea why.
"You're good?"
Karen shrugged.
"Could be better."
"I need you to go today, I can't get to her by myself."
Karen nodded, her face serious because if she was being honest with herself, she also had no idea if Jordan could get to Mauve with her help. After all, she wasn't sure she could get to Mauve at all except for that little cellphone that was lost between Jordan's long fingers. But she would try her best.
"You should go to your room, it's almost time anyway."
Jordan nodded, kissed her forehead, and left, as far as he could feel Karen had no fever at that moment, and that did give him hope that she could get to school and if she could go to school, then the herculean mission of talking to Mauve seemed a lot less impossible, he even thought it was feasible. So when his head hit the pillow he actually managed to get a few more hours of sleep and lucky to him, no nightmares haunted his head this time.