He's been there

The cold December breeze hit Steven's face as he sat in the back seat with Julie. Joe gazed at the V-mirror and saw how tightly his boss held unto Julie's hand, and he knew this was the hardest thing Steven had gone through since his mother's death. Although Joe started working with Steven after his boss had established himself, he had heard tales about Steven's past, and he understood just how much Jackson meant to his boss.

None of them had said a word to the next person since Joe picked them up from the hospital. Steven kept gazing through the window, but Julie knew that the beauty of nature was not what her boyfriend had on his mind.

Finally, they were at Steven's home. Joe drove the car into the garage. Steven got out of the vehicle and walked ahead, and Julie quickly followed after him. When she reached Steven, he had already unlocked the front door.

A few minutes later, Julie and her boyfriend were in his room and sitting on his bed.

"You should take a shower, and I will whip up something for us to eat." Julie calmly said after she had gazed at Steven, staring at the blank wall for almost three minutes plus.

"Okay," he replied.

Steven stood up and went into the bathroom, and Julie headed to the kitchen to prepare some dishes for them. She stood puzzled for a while on what to cook. However, after searching through all the food stuffs she decided on something simple.

Some minutes later, Julie returned to the room with two bowls full of hot oats. She set the tray on the table and laid two spoons beside the dishes, then took out two bottles of water from the refrigerator and rested it on the table.

Steven stepped out of the bathroom and got changed into a gray sweatsuit then he joins Julie at the table.

They sat down to eat, but Steven continued playing with the food. Julie could not watch any more after she had waited for about two minutes to see him eat one spoonful of oat.

"Babe," Julie whispered, trying to get Steven's attention off what he was thinking about and draw it toward her.

He stopped staring at his food, dropped the spoon in the bowl, and gazed up at Julie.

"Uh?" Steven answered with grief in his tone.

"You are not eating." Julie mumbles.

Steven looked down at his food, then stared back at her. Julie could see his beautiful and wounded soul from the window of his eyes, and her heart ached to see him this miserable.

"Can I skip the food so we can go back to the hospital." Steven calmly asked.

"No, babe!" Julie said with a bossy expression.

After Julie replied, Steven finally started eating the meal. Though it was at a slow pace, Julie felt glad that she didn't have to go through an entire argument to get Steven to eat.

When they got done eating their oats, Julie cleaned up the place and took a shower, then returned to the bedroom wearing Steven's big shirt since she had no clothes at his home.

Julie joined Steven on the bed, and they laid in silence, staring at the angel sketches on his ceiling.

"How did you and Jackson get to know each other?" Julie abruptly asked.

She felt nervous after the words came out. Although Julie did not mean to ask such a question at an awful moment, she still felt a little at peace. These words have been bugging her for some time now.

Steven did not speak at first, and Julie assumed that he had not heard her, so she let go of the subject. However, she felt a movement on his side of the bed, and Julie turned around.

Steven and Julie were now facing each other. He put his hand around her and hugged her tightly.

"Are you curious about our friendship?" He asked as his chin rested on top of her head.

"Yes," Julie replied as her hands hugged firmly around Steven's waist.

It was my second freshman year at Harvey University. At that time, my mother was working at a law firm, and I saw less of her every day.

My family consists of my mom and me, so I did not expect any relatives to visit our humble home, and making friends was not part of my day-to-day goals since I was studying all the time.

However, all of that changed when I walked into my math 108 class. The first two weeks were tense for me. I kept trying to overshadow the class popular boy and genius, which was Jackson, but he seemed to handle all my effort with ease.

A few weeks later, my mother started getting sick. She tried to hide it at first, but then the signs started to show. I asked her so many times, yet she always told me she was well. So I played along with her words, still seeing her in such a poor state had me not focusing on my studies.

One day, I was in math 108 class, and a question got thrown my way. It was an easy question, but I had not opened my book for some time, and I answered it incorrectly.

Some individuals giggled at my failure, and it disturbed me even further. I pressed my head against my desk when I heard the teacher say, "Jackson David, find parameter p so that y = 3x is a tangent line to the curve y = x 2 + p."

When I heard his name, I mumbled, "show off," then shifted my head to the right to find a comfortable position to rest my head and sleep.

"Mr. Willy, the answer is p = 8/ 4." I overheard him say. Since I did not know the real answer, at that instant, I assumed that he was correct and swore at him in my head.

Then Mr. Willy announced in a loud tone, "You are wrong, Jackson. The true answer is p = 9 / 4." I instantly lifted my head after hearing those words out loud. I looked his way, and our eyes met. When Jackson smiled at me before taking his seat, I knew he gave the wrong answer to save my face.

After the class had ended, some mean class fellow kept calling us names like "Dumb geniuses," "Don't know it all fools," and other stuff. It felt like I was not the only want who had an issue with Jackson outshining everyone else, but I also found out that day that people thought we were the same.

When it was only he and I in the classroom, I walked to him and harshly uttered, "I don't need your help. Remember that the next time you decide to play a hero."

Jackson did not show any expression on his face after what I had said and had me wondering if he was mad, sad, or null.

When he finally did respond, it was not the words I expected to hear. "You haven't been studying this past week." He told me in a calm tone.

His words were nothing but one sentence. Yet to me, it meant everything. Knowing that someone cared enough to discern my activities, and not just anyone else, but Jackson David, the king of academia, was one of the most exciting moments of my life.

"You noticed?" I said to him as I strived my best to keep it cool and maintain a calm voice.

"Of course, I did. You are my most influential competition, and I know when you are at your game and when you're not." Jackson stated as he smiled at me.

After his statement, our conversation became more relaxed than before. I held back the information about my mother being sick and told him that I was facing an issue at home. He did not ask any further questions about my internal affairs. Instead, I got an open invitation to study at his house.

Rose welcomed me wholeheartedly the first day I visited their home, and from that day on, Jackson's parents felt like my second family. Our friendship grew bigger from then onward. I was always his plus one to any party, study groups, or event. We were so close that wherever Jackson was, I would be there.

However, two months into our friendship, my mother's illness became very severe. She got diagnosed with stage three cancer. I had to drop out of school to be there for her. Jackson did not know anything about whatever I was going through since I never took him to my house or talked about her sickness with him.

Then one morning, I got up, and Jackson was at my door when I opened it. He figured out that something was wrong from the number of absences I had in math class and me constantly rejecting his calls. We sat down in the living room, and I cried my heart out to him as I explained all the difficulties I had to go through taking care of my sick mother.

"You are not alone now," was all that Jackson said at that moment, and it was all I needed to hear from him.

He kept his word from that day forward. Rose took care of my mother when we had classes, and we took over after our lectures were over.

When she finally passed away a year later, there were no blood family members at her funeral. It was just Jackson, his parents, me, and people from the university.

After every word had been said, and her coffin was six feet in the soil, Jackson told me, "we are no longer friends but brothers from this day forth." Then he dropped his dirt over her coffin as a sign of a promise to my mother.

Her law firm called me a week later, and I got told that she had left a sum of one million dollars for me to claim. It was that money I used to start up Tech and Knowledge. Jackson stood by me after graduation, even though he could get a better job with the grades he had. He did not leave me even when my company was almost bankrupt.

"With all that he has done for me and how he has been there for me, it grieves me to see him in a condition that I can't do anything about and have no control over," Steven said after he had finished telling his story.

Julie squeezes him so tight until her face gets buried in his chest, and there was no distance between him and her.

"I am sorry, babe." She mumbled as the tears rolled down her chin.

They did not say a word after their brief talk, but Steven and Julie remained in each other's arms until they fell asleep with teary eyes.