My Hero?

Ian smiled as Jenny put her arms around him,

‘How’s my hero?’ she asked. She always addressed him as 'my hero' because it was Ian who had organised the great fundraiser for the cancer charity days after Jenny had been diagnosed. Now 15 years later Jenny, fully recovered, was just about to get married and had all of her old university friends around her for a big final meal on the eve of her big day.

Jenny’s uni friends were special to her. Falling ill with that big disease in the middle of what was meant to be one of the happiest time of her life was difficult. But her friends rallied round, Ian, Beth, Charlie and Greg all shaved their heads in solidarity after she started the cancer treatement, they kept her in the loop even when the treatment tried its hardest to kick her out of it, one of them would volunteer for an early night when they could see their housemate couldn’t stay out any longer, and there was always someone to take her to the hospital and sit holding hands when the test results came in. And of course then there was Ian, who put on the huge pub quiz to raise money for the cancer hospital where the care was second to none.

1000 students, each paying a fiver to play the quiz, local businesses donated prizes and money, with the raffle and everything, Ian raised close to 10000 pounds. A lot of money now, a fortune back then.

Ian nodded and blushed a little like he always did.

‘I just did what anyone would have done,’ he mumbled, but deep down he knew that he didn’t, he did do something special and he didn’t do what everyone would have done. That is mostly because most people would have paid the money straight into the bank, given it to the charity that it was intended for not spent it all on booze. He hadn’t meant to keep it, it just kind of happened. It sat in his room for a few weeks and then he started borrowing from it; putting in IOUs each time he took out a fiver here or a tenner there. He told himself it was to tide him over until he got to the cash machine and he could take out some cash to replace the money hed borrowed, but he never seemed to get to the ATM, and soon there were more IOUs than money and he certainly didn’t have the money in his bank to replace what he’d taken. So, he did what anyone would have done. He lied; he covered his tracks, spent the rest of the money and hoped he could forget about it. And he would have as well if bloody Jenny didn’t remind him about it every time she saw him.