Mocha & Mysteries
If I Could Save Just One, Chapter 3
Terrance Silver
Jealousy is one of the most curious emotions. One moment you can wish someone the best or feel relief that you aren't required for them to achieve that best, the next you can be eaten up with jealousy for whoever takes your place in that role.
That reality made itself known that morning when Jack visibly relaxed within seconds of meeting my sister, and by the time we each had a cup of coffee in front of us as we sat—or in Jack’s case, stood—I was simmering with jealousy. Avery saw it, of course, and wasted no time in announcing it.
“Are you jealous, T.?”
I was also suddenly jealous of Jack’s seeming inability to blush as blood infused my cheeks. “I don't know what you're doing differently.”
Avery laughed—because Avery laughed at everything, especially her oblivious baby brother, me—and Jack half turned toward me, a confused, pensive look on his face, as though he had just realized I was speaking a different language and was trying to determine what I said and why.
“I'm just being friendly. You should try it sometime.”
“He didn't talk enough for me to try.”
Jack cleared his throat. “First, you're talking about me in front of me, which is weird.”
Actually, it was rude, and we knew better. And he didn't look like he thought it was weird, he looked kind of upset about it.
“Second,” he continued, “I’ve said almost nothing. ‘I prefer my coffee black.’ That's about it.”
“And she asked why, and you said it went with your outfit.”
Avery grinned again, and what might have been the ghost of a smile crossed Jack’s face, then a second later it twisted up into a real smirk as he said, “I may not be the brightest . . . but I have a decent stock of black humor.”
I looked between the two. They were teasing me again, testing to see if I would catch on, but that was too blatant not to get.
I scowled at Avery, because she deserved it, and mumbled from behind my coffee mug, “I got the joke.”
“Whew! I was worried!” She wiped a hand across her brow in mock relief. She looked back at Jack with a wink. “We bug each other, but we love each other. Do you have siblings?”
Gone was the ease of a moment before, and back again was the tension. Jack’s eyes flicked to the floor, then up to mine, not Avery’s. Oddly, I knew why.
“Avery, that’s personal.”
She wrinkled her nose. “It's not that personal.”
Jack cleared his throat. “I had friends like siblings.”
Avery and I both caught the past tense, and her mouth made a perfect O. “I'm sorry.”
Jack’s eyes flicked down again and a light crease appeared on his brow. “I don't like to talk about it— about myself.” The crease disappeared as he seemed to find new direction. “It's my first day; I’d rather get to know you, and my work here.”
Nice save. I watched Avery, waiting for whatever creative answer she had for that, but she just shrugged. “Fair.”
He relaxed a smidge again. Boy, was he uptight. I hadn't seen someone so nervous about talking to people since . . . Well, since me. I was the only person I knew who clammed up like that. The thought made me grin.
Avery lifted an eyebrow. “Running your own mental comedy show there, T.?”
I flushed. “I was just thinking.”
“About?”
“I prefer people watching to talking.”
She sniggered. “You mean you’re an antisocial nerd I have to force to say anything to anyone, even if it's someone you know and like?”
“People are overrated,” I said under my breath.
A small smile cracked Jack’s serious facade. “Come to think of it, we might get along pretty well.”
Avery snorted. “Introverts.”
“At least I don’t waste my energy talking to everyone I see,” I shot back, but I was grinning again. This was a fun topic. “Extroverts.”
“What?” Jack looked confused again.
“Avery talks to everyone,” I explained. “It’s crazy. Sometimes I think she’s crazy.”
She smirked. “You’re missing out on one of the greatest parts of being alive: human connection. It’s actually essential to life—not that you would know, hiding in your little cocoon of solitude, reading about people interacting and communicating.”
“Humans are best observed from a distance,” I countered. “You get in over your head because you’re too entrenched in . . . connecting.”
“That sounds exhausting,” Jack commented.
Avery winked. “I’m a mathematics major, so I have plenty of time to keep to myself. I like to burn off the swirl of numbers with my friends.”
“Or in debate.”
“I do not debate,” she argued, pinking. “I reason with people. Adamantly. Because I’m right.”
“Yeah . . . You debate.”
Interest flickered in Jack’s eyes. “What do you debate about?”
I cut in before she could answer, saying, “Avery is the leader of her campus pro-life organization and runs a bible study group, besides organizing all sorts of other events. But pro-life is probably the hottest topic on campus.”
“I don’t know about the ‘hottest topic,’ T., but it does get intense sometimes. I just wish that they could see what they’re doing to themselves, to their babies, but they’re so blind. Some days I can’t even decide between being angry and curling up in a ball to cry.”
“That’s being a bit dramatic, don’t you think?” I asked.
Her mouth pulled tight into a surprisingly grim line. “No.”
Okay then. She had changed since she started college. All her high school projects were set on the back burner now as she turned her focus on her pro-life group. She didn’t talk about it much with me, but that was probably because I always had my nose in a book.
Jack was looking between us again, forehead creased. “What’s pro-life?”
Avery blinked at him. I might have, too, because he looked down again. ”Try to be nice, Terrance,” I could hear my dad saying it again in my mind.
“Pro-life is another way of saying we’re against abortion,” Avery explained, in less detail than she usually did in the pamphlets she passed out to people. “We believe every individual is designed in the image of God for a purpose. Every life is precious and priceless, in or out of the womb. We do our level best to save them and educate people, because every child deserves to live.”
He didn’t blanch—he was already too pale for that—but Jack took a step back, his posture rigid. I thought I heard him suck in a sharp breath, too, but couldn’t be sure.
“I see,” he said tightly. “That’s . . . nice.”
Was it? Because he looked either very scared or very angry. And suddenly I wanted to know why. Too many mystery novels catching up to me.
~~~
“I want him back.”
Paul winced as the voice rumbled furiously through the phone speaker, aggravating his headache, and held the device a little further from his head.
“I’ll get him back, don’t worry.” He glanced at the trays of vials he had left. “I need him here more than you do.”
“You don’t know anything about it,” the other growled. “He says anything to anyone and we’re busted. If we’re busted, we go to jail. If we go to jail, you die . . . and I don’t mean from natural causes.”
“I would die anyway,” he hissed. “I’m not going to let him say anything before I get him back here.”
“See that you don’t.”
The phone beeped thrice, indicating the other man had hung up, and Paul set down the device. His jaw tightened as he looked at the three pictures taped to his computer screen. I’ll get him back. I’ll get all of them back.
Chapter End Credits
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~Lexi