Chapter Eighteen

How could he not have told me about that? Did he just figure that I already knew? I have no idea what he thought. Maybe he knew I didn’t want to remember, and just wanted to protect me by not telling me what happened. I was sitting in a kitchen chair at the end of the table, with my knees to my chest, my left arm tucked in between my stomach and thighs, holding my right elbow. I had my hand up to my mouth, with my knuckles pressed to my lips, anticipating everyone to walk into the kitchen. I still can’t believe this. I was turned against my own team, with me being the only one on the team not knowing what happened. Well, this is something that I should have expected from Red Skull, with how twisted he was. That scientist must have given him a little too much of that serum, because it went to his head without a doubt. After what seemed like ages, everyone came into the kitchen. They all came in at the same time too. What, were they making a game plan in case something went wrong? Were they afraid that I would go ballistic or something? Dad sat at the other end of the table, and took a deep breath.

“Reuben, what do you remember from that night we got you?”

“I remember almost dying, then that orb went inside of me and gave me enough strength to defeat Skull. Then ripping out the arch reactor from the armor and punching him is the face. I also remember that he killed James, and I brought him back to life.”

“Is that it?” asked Steve.

“That’s it.”

Steve gave Dad a look and nodded at him, as if signaling Dad to tell me something horrible.

Dad took a deep breath and cleared his throat, and tried to say my name, but his voice cracked. He cleared his throat again.

“Reuben, Red Skull didn’t kill James.”

“No. No, no, no…”

“Rue, you killed James.”

“What?” James said, shocked. He obviously knew as much as I did.

My heart sank. I let out a small whimper and put my hand over my mouth and walked out as quickly as I could. I felt the tears running down my cheeks and hand, still covering my mouth. I went into my room, closing and locked the doors behind me. I went into the bathroom, flicked on the light, and turned the shower on. With my clothes still on, I went in and sat on the floor, letting the water rain down on me, soaking me and my clothes. I didn’t even care, I couldn’t. I just found out that I killed James, which is something that I still haven’t fully processed. I wanted my Mom. If there was anything in the world that I could ask for, it would be my Mom. I just missed her so much, and I think the fact that I can’t talk to her or ever feel her touch again was finally catching up me. I didn’t think it possible, but within the past month, my life has fallen to pieces. I knew that the picture would shatter at some point, but I never thought that it would happen so soon or quickly. I just sat in the shower and bawled. I bawled until no my tears would come out, and then just cried out. At least I was in the shower. By the time I got out, two hours passed by. I finally decided to get out and change into dry clothes. I just changed into my bright coral pink Under Armor shorts and black spaghetti strap tank top. I put on my AC/DC Highway to Hell record and crawled into my bed. As I pulled up the cover, one of the presents fell over, and I heard glass break. I got up and picked up the present and read who I was from. Just my luck, it was from James. Just when I thought I was done crying, I felt a tear go down my cheek. I wiped it away, and slowly unwrapped the present. It was a picture frame, with a picture of James and Kyle in it. The glass plate that covered the photo was broken up, and I put the frame on my desk. I proceeded to move all of my present from the end of my bed to the floor by my desk. I then went back to my bed and buried myself under my covers. It was time to go to sleep. Today has been a long day. It was six O’clock when I went to bed, and I was in such a dead sleep, I felt like I was dead.

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