The Watch

Drifting Into The Past

"Julius!"

"Payne, stay where you are!" I yelled as I grabbed Nisha. She clamped her mouth shut, probably hoping I wouldn't really hurt her. "Stay or Nisha gets what she deserves."

"Like I care," Payne growled.

I felt Nisha freeze as those words left his mouth. I almost felt bad for her. Almost. She's getting what she deserves. She doesn't have to worry, because Payne is getting it, too. They can spend the entirety of their afterlife together.

"Why do you want to be ahead of me so badly?" I asked. "Why did you have to steal it?"

"I didn't steal anything. It was your father who stole it from me."

Lies!

"My father was an honest man. Why would he need to steal from anyone else? Why would he need to steal from you?"

Payne seemed to change his mind about tossing the watch off the bridge and turned to me. Our eyes met and his seemed to say a lot I didn't want to know about.

The day was stifling and Josué couldn't take it anymore. His parents had been telling him that this was something he needed to do. He needed to get out of the house every once in a while. Or that's what they always told him, because he tended to spend hours on end playing video games.

His father was by the lake, fishing for dinner. His mother was sitting by her tent, looking through her bags. Her eyebrows were furrowed as if she was thinking hard about something. Josué wasn't the least bit worried about her concern. He just wanted to get home.

"Mijo, stay here. I need to talk to your father." His mother suddenly stood up, knocking the papers she had been reading off her lap. "Stay here. Don't take off that watch."

"Where are you going?" Josué asked, fingering the watch his father had given him earlier.

"The lake." She said it like it was obvious. And it was. Josué just wanted to hear her say it herself. He didn't like being alone. Especially in the woods. There were a lot of crazy people out there, and even though the lake wasn't too far, it was far enough where they would be too late to save their son. It was getting darker by the minute.

Josué watched his mother walk off for the last time. He never thought he would never see her again. Actually see her face and tell her that he loved her. He followed her out to the lake, staying as far back as he needed to. She kept stopping along the way, looking around like she knew someone was following her.

Once Josué's mother reached the lake, she called out to her husband. He was sitting at the edge of the dock, not paying attention to his pole. Josué knew his father didn't really like fishing. Just the silence that came with it.

"Cariño, has estado aquí por un tiempo."

"...Just thinking, mi corazón."

"¿Sólo de pensar?" she mocked. "You never think unless you're troubled by something."

"I'm not troubled. Look, I've caught some fish. We will be eating good tonight."

"Los peces no importan ahora mismo. Dime lo que estás pensando, amor."

It was getting harder for Josué to hear their conversation. He wanted to move closer, but it was a huge risk. If they saw him, he didn't know what they would do. Privacy was something they didn't have at home, and if they were going to act so secretively, Josué wanted to find out what they were talking about. That's when he spotted a large pile of rocks closer to the dock, but far enough to keep him from being found out.