"What wrong? Is everything okay?" Clare asked Justus who was entering the cafe after talking to Kaylee. Everyone who was now seated at a table far end of the cafe looked at him as he was sitting down.
"Yeah, everything is fine. But who's that girl? Is she mentally okay?" Justus replied while pointing towards the door.
"Why do you ask? Is it about the nerdy guy you have a problem with?"
"No, she just told me that I am about to get into an accident. I mean how do you even think of things like that. Forget her man. Let's continue with our conversation how have things been guys?"
Justus remembered her words very clearly while the conversation was going on. He seemed to be deep in his thoughts and did not notice anybody talking.
He woke up that morning very early, which was unusual of him. He texted his friends to make sure that they still had their plans on but nobody replied. He threw his phone on his fluffy velvety circular bed and wore his gym clothes. He then opened his closet and chose the perfect sketchers to go jogging with. They were black with a white outline and small spots on them.
He went down the tiled stairs as gently as he could and left his modern house to go running in the huge field they had just outside their house. He ran for about half an hour before stopping to look for water. He looked around and saw a metallic bench, he walked towards it and sat down forgetting about how thirsty he was. He took a deep breath of the morning dew and sighed at the beautiful scenery around him.
He looked at his watch and saw that it was six am in the morning. He then stood up and jogged backed to his house. He never jogged unless he had a lot on his mind. But in this particular case, his father had been the one to blame for his distress. He reached back home and as he went to the kitchen he saw his father talking to a man on the phone.
He was standing facing the glass on the front of his extravagant house while wearing his black pyjamas and seemed to be exchanging threats to the person on the phone. Justus looked at his father in a very curious manner as he stared at the lush green field. "You better watch out, one mistake and am going to cut you out. I do not care that you've been with us for the past fifteen years. What I say goes, whether you like it or not," Justus's father said sternly.
Justus immediately knew it was about his illegal drug business and slowly walked to the kitchen to get some water. He never wanted to be involved in his father business. He knew that his father was the type of man who was capable of killing his own son. The only reason he hadn't yet was because of his wife. Justus's mother Samantha always seemed to save Justus when his father was brutally smashing him with a golf club, or hitting him with a belt, or even his hands.
Justus finished drinking his water and walked towards the living room where he found his father buried on his laptop seated on a wooden chair. He faced the ground and walked towards the stairs. Just then his father saw him and started saying," where do you think you're going? You can't even greet people these days? Forget it. Just go to your room and stay there."
Justus stopped for a moment before he continued walking as he felt a huge lump of bitterness stuck in his throat. He wished he could say something to his father about the evil way he treated him. But when he tried to talk his mouth closed up and no sound came from it. He reached his room and freshened up before checking his messages one more time. His friends agreed on the fact that they still had their plans for that day.
He watched a movie and when breakfast was ready, he went to have breakfast with his parents which were what he hated the most. He sat down and silently ate his breakfast. His mother tried to make conversation by talking about where they would go on vacation. But her husband, Tyler and Justus were all engrossed in just finishing their food.
After breakfast, Justus informed his mother of his plans that day and went back to his room. He changed his clothes to better designer clothing and asked the driver to drive him to the mall. He spent a few hours at the mall window shopping and decided to walk to cafe Mocha. He told the driver to return back home and started his short journey.
He reached the cafe and opened the door only to see the first thing that caught his attention. There he was, with his tawny hair and brown eyes. He wore the same type of pink clothing he had liked. Clothes with anime characters drawn on them. He looked at Ricardo who was busy seated with two other girls (which he did not know) with a wide smile on his face. As soon as he started walking their eyes met and Ricardo stopped smiling.
Justus thought about their encounter at the library, the time he was kneeling down covered in milk as he felt really bad about it. He did not try to do it because he hated him, he just wanted to see what it was like to be on the bullying side rather than being bullied on. But what he felt was plain oppression in his heart, he wondered how his father could keep living with the guilt in his heart.
He walked towards him and started talking to him, but Ricardo looked scared and was shaking. he wanted to tell him that was not his intentions but Clare started listening in on them and he had to act masculine one more time. Their conversation was interrupted by the staff of the cafe and Justus went to sit down with Clare and Sarah.
They talked for a few minutes before seeing Ricardo and the two girls standing up and walking towards the counter. He wanted to stop them but Clare kept on asking her questions about his well being. Justus answered her questions and forced himself to stop worrying about Ricardo. He then saw the girl seated with Ricardo walking towards him and was interrupted by the school basketball team walking in.
Justus stood up and hugged his friends while screaming about how each of them had been doing. He noticed the girl trying to talk to him and turned to face her. The peculiar girl, Kaylee asked Justus to follow him as he followed. He really wanted her to tell him something about Ricardo. Anything that regarding Ricardo would be of great help to him.
But he got the exact opposite of what he wanted. He got a heart attack instead. She told him he was going to die. He dismissed her with a hearty laugh but his soul was screaming internally as he felt panic-stricken and nervous. He thought about who wanted to kill him as he returned as sat with his friends. 'Is it Ricardo? No way he's too innocent to kill anyone. Is it my dad who is finally fed up with me? Who could it be?
The conversation was interrupted by Clare who had finally gotten their orders. She gave Justus his coffee while Justus stopped thinking about everything and decide to leave. "Hey guys, am gonna have to leave now. Am kind of grounded so I have to go back now before my parents realise am actually gone." He lied to them but he did not know how else to tell them he was scared for his life.
"You mean they don't know you're here? Wow, you really are a badass," one of his friends said.
Justus smiled as they lamented that they would finish their food before going out altogether. A few minutes passed and they bid each other goodbye as they walked out of the cafe. Justus waved goodbye to his friends and walked across the road after staring left and right to make sure no car was passing through. He strode on the road and just then his attention was diverted by the sound of a car at a great speed. And there it was. The black van he was warned about. His mind filled with thoughts as he stopped breathing. He could see the world around him as frozen.
He tried to walk away from the van and even started running towards the pavement. But the van moved at a higher speed than him and finally hit him on his ribs. He soared through the sky as he felt his full body as numb as it could be. The vast sky let him feel alive one more time as he closed his eyes thinking that it would minimise the pain he was about to get.
He fell down with a thud as he saw his friends looking at him with tumult. He thought about his life in a flash of a second as he wished to have apologised to Ricardo. And wished to have cleared the one misunderstanding he had with him. He wished to see his loving and warm mother and hugged her just once and to have kissed her forehead.
As his body gave way he felt his soul squeezing out of his body and all he could see was a bright light. He heard people around him screaming as he breathed in too deeply thinking it was his last breath.
Clare and her friends witnessed the whole thing happening and panicked as Clare screamed on top of her lungs while tears flowed down her eyes. She started running toward the bloody scene as Sarah tried to hold her back. She wailed at the scene she just witnessed as the athletes ran towards Justus to see if he was still alive. They checked his pulse but due to the intensity of the moment, the pulse could not be felt.
Just then an ambulance arrived and carried Justus away. Everyone was shocked as Clare called Justus's mother to tell her about the incident. In tears, she tried to find words to tell her but none could be understood. "Hello... Hello, Samantha... Justus...He ...He got into.....an accident....here....at the road...I don't... know how....it just...it just."
Samantha hung up as she figured out what Clare was trying to say. Her heart froze as she sat in her gazebo doing yoga. Her eyes instantly filled with tears as she started hyperventilating. She cried her heart out as one of her maids came to check up on her. "Are you okay ma'am?" Samantha held her maid on her arms as she tried to stand up but her knees gave up and she fell on the yoga mat.
"Call... Tyler!... Right now!!!" she whimpered in the middle of her desperate crying.
The maid who had been shocked by her boss's reaction tried to hold the phone in her hand with uttermost concentration and called Tyler. "Sir...sir... I think something terrible happened to Justus. Mrs Tyler received a call about something that happened to him..." She barely finished when Tyler hang up on her. His heart shattered into pieces as he was seated on the comfortable leathery chair. He could not think straight and immediately screamed at his driver to get him home. He walked quickly to his car. His mind was filled with thoughts of him hitting his son as he tried to calm himself down but it was futile.
He reached at home and ran to his wife who was still crying. "What happened to him? Is he okay?" he asked.
"No.... He's not okay mi amor, he was in an accident..... A car ran over him I don't even.... know which hospital he's in."
"Find it right now! Find the hospital he's in!!" Tyler screamed at his secretary who had been with him.