What if... it had been different?

chapter 2

I'm going to change the formats of each one
Marc: italics
Steven: italics underlined
Jake: bold italics

.......

"She is going to help us"

Marc stares into her eyes, she looked like a tired social worker who didn't get paid enough, at 16, Marc has seen his fair share of them.

"Lawyer? Or... social worker?

"Both, but for the moment I am your father's lawyer, Marc."

He didn't like the way she said his name at all, it made his hair stand on end, he didn't like the way she looked at him, he didn't like her cheap looking lipstick, and he especially didn't like the way she looked at his father.

"Marc, Miss Smith, we have to go out again to get the paperwork going, I just have to grab some co-."

"If you allow me, I think it would be more convenient if Marc went out exploring, maybe..."

Jake didn't let him hear the rest and Steven didn't help.

"No, I don't allow it."

"shush, but Jake is right, I won't allow it."

Marc didn't want to go out, but from the way his father looked at Mrs. Smith he knew he wouldn't have a choice, and she wasn't even nice.

"I don't know, maybe Marc wants to sta-"

Kate, managed to interrupt twice in one conversation

"I'm sure some fresh air will help him."

"Well, yes, you are right."

They cursed Elijah's weak will for what must have been a thousandth

"Much more than a thousandth hermanito"

"shut up Jake."

Marc did not wait for them to take him out, he left and walked until he was one block from the hotel.

"We shouldn't go any further"

"I wasn't going to"

He turned to both sides, he didn't want anyone to see him talking "alone".

He walked back and sat on the sidewalk in front of the hotel.

"I'm getting bored" this time a woman passing by gave him a worried look, but he passed by

"Uhm, what do I suppose I can do about that?"

"Shut up Jake" "Steven? What was that book you found in the library about?

"The one on Tuesday? Or Thursday's"

Marc thought for a moment, he didn't know what either of them were about, but in his opinion Tuesday is better than Thursday, it was more time away from home.

"On Tuesday"

"Well, it's about the ennead and...."

Marc stopped listening after the second time Steven mentioned a certain Osiris, simply focused on his litle voice, and calmly looked at the half-rotted bush across the street.

When he saw Smith leave the building, he walked in and Steven waved smiling at the assistant behind the counter, she waved back bewildered.

This time Jake took the wheel and hurried to the bedroom, preparing for what he hoped he wouldn't have to see.

When he arrived he knocked on the door, and Elías opened it. He looked groomed and with his kippah in place he looked normal.

"What were you afraid to see, Jake?"

*Nothing"

"Yea Steven, nothing."

Jake laid down on the bed, ignoring Elias.

"Good night"

"Good night son"

Jake bit back the urge to tell him that he wasn't talking to him.

.

They were at the hotel for three days, and Marc kept the wheel for most of it, as much as he didn't like Kate, he could admit that she was fast at her job.
His father kept his word, he did not have to see his mother during the entire process, he had to speak with what he believes to be a judge, and with a psychologist specialized in domestic abuse, but no trace of his mother,

Her father rented an apartment for a few month, in which the jury decided, apparently the many calls for attention that Wendy received, her short stays in AA as well as Marc's psychological profile, allowed that in a little more than a month, the custody of her mother was taken away and passed to her father, but not before going through a disastrous divorce, Wendy heard her kicking and screaming before she was practically forced to sign the papers.

The scene only made the jury rush its decision to approve Elías's divorce and that they will grant him full custody of Marc, his mother

His mother spent all the money on alcohol, she couldn't bribe anyone, so Marc was out of his clutches in a short time.

There were some who wanted to give Wendy custody, something about needing his mother. Although no god ever lifted a finger for him, it seemed like they interceded for him now.

His father said he put a restraining order on her. Against his better judgment and Jake. Marc believed him, Steven encouraged him by talking about a new school and neighborhood, where no one knew them, a house that didn't bring back memories he would beg to erase, and a house far from the damn psychiatric ward.

Far from all that, a new beginning, Jake did not allow any of them to dream too much, he did not want them to get their hopes up, he kept their feet on the ground, and it was not until in some miraculous way that they did not know about, Elías got a nice house, in jersey city, in less than two months, that Jake started to get just as excited.

They could finally fully believe that perhaps they would never have to see their mother again, in their entire lives.

The only thing he didn't really miss was school, Steven missed the books, but they are worried that the new school will be the same as the previous one, the teachers didn't give him the chance, they had marked him as problematic from the first week, and god He knows that teenagers can be cruel.

He expected it to be different, but he knows that people don't change much from one end of the country to the other.

Kate and her father got a house, in New Jersey in the United States, in less than two months, and as far as he knew, his father had not been in debt, plus he had a list of possible schools in the area willing to accept him at midyear.
Or his father achieved enlightenment and was now working miracles.
Or it could be a deal with the devil...

Jake and Steven were still debating an explanation, babbling about real estate costs and... selling souls.? or something like it.

...

im so sorry for the late, i promise i will write more often

googbye pokkies