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After some time, Jean’s mother was able to get her back after she secured a job and gave up drinking. Jean was entirely sure if moving back with her mom was a nice idea, but she went anyway. She wanted to be back at her old school, amidst her friends, so she had no other choice.
She was almost closing to seeing no bright side when she returned to her city and everything sort of went back to as it was. Except, she talked a bit less now. Some of her old friends failed to recognize her. Or, maybe they were pretending. At least, Rachel remembered Jean though and the English teacher too, and that was all that mattered to her.
Jean started to learn new words. She also learned some idioms that she would occasionally use in her conversations with Rachel. Jean also used them in the Essays that she wrote. For some time, that was all that she needed. Until one day, her mom told her that she and Jean had to move to her boyfriend’s place. The divorce had been finalized long ago, and her dad was in some part of the world that Jean didn’t know about.
The only problem was Jean didn’t like her mother’s boyfriend. He had a smelly breath and, sometimes, he did not bothering combing his hair. Something about him was also not right. But, Jean’s mom insisted that they moved. Her boyfriend had a huge apartment and that way her mom wouldn’t have to worry about paying rent either.
But, there was something fishy about mom’s boyfriend, James, that Jean couldn’t put a finger on. Was her mom blind or was she turning an intentional blind eye to the problem? Two days before moving to the new place, Jean told her mother that she couldn’t move with her to the new place. Jean had been insisting the same since her mother proposed the idea. However, her mother didn’t listen to her.
This time around Jean threatened her mother that she would call the authorities and tell them the truth about her mediocre job and alcohol problem that still prevailed albeit it revolved around less frequent overdose. This shook her mother somewhat who didn’t show up at pick Jean up from school.
That day something horrible happened that changed everything. It was fate’s final strike to mold Jean to its mercy. Three shots were fired in the school’s parking lot.
