Jamie Nellems
Appearances
Bone Valley
Jeremy | Chapter 1 - You Told Me No
OK. I can remember weekends at my grandmother's house. She had 13 kids. And there would be like 30 of us, all as cousins. We'd go over on Friday. We'd stay there till Sunday. The parents would all be in the house playing canasta all weekend. They'd have their weekend marathon. The kids were outside playing.
Bone Valley
Jeremy | Chapter 1 - You Told Me No
She worked 12-hour shifts, so we were pretty much on our own.
Bone Valley
Jeremy | Chapter 1 - You Told Me No
Well, we found that club's secrets. Picture a rave club with no alcohol. It was a safe place for teenagers. They didn't let people over 18 in. And it was a dance club. It had the flashing lights and the neon lights. And we would wear the white shirts with the black lights. You know, it would kind of glow.
Bone Valley
Jeremy | Chapter 1 - You Told Me No
Well, when I first met him, the first thing I thought was his eyes. He had the most piercing eyes. They would just, like, look into you. And I can remember sitting in the chairs, and he was wearing all black. So you couldn't really see him, but you could see his eyes, and he was just staring at me.
Bone Valley
Jeremy | Chapter 1 - You Told Me No
And I can remember being nervous, you know, because I'd never had a boyfriend before, never really talked, but I was so shy, so shy, mad. And I remember him kicking my chair and saying, you want to dance? And we danced, and that was it.
Bone Valley
Jeremy | Chapter 1 - You Told Me No
And we just kind of stood there awkwardly for a few minutes. And he asked if next Friday I'd meet him at the mall. Well, I was kind of iffy because the ones that went to the mall were the type of kids that didn't go to secrets. You know, these were the smokers and the drinkers. And that's where the cops would always show up was at the mall. But I said, yeah, I'd meet him at the mall. And I did.
Bone Valley
Jeremy | Chapter 1 - You Told Me No
Now, when I met him at the mall, I asked him where he was staying at, and he said he was staying downtown. He did ask me for a ride home, and I had dropped him off at this house, and I remember looking at this house and thinking, it looked abandoned. Like, nobody... lived there like it was falling apart. But there was lights on upstairs. There was people staying there. It was all kids like him.
Bone Valley
Jeremy | Chapter 1 - You Told Me No
They were hijacking electricity off the apartment complex behind it with cords. So that's how they had lights on. So come to find out, that's where he stayed out a lot. And that's where he would take me a lot of times was to abandoned houses. And that's where, you know, he'd be like, you're staying with me tonight.
Bone Valley
Jeremy | Chapter 1 - You Told Me No
And we'd go downtown and find an abandoned building and we'd climb in and go to sleep. And here I got a nice townhouse and bed waiting for me at home. Yeah. And I'm in love, you know, and honestly, if I want to be honest, it was kind of exciting.
Bone Valley
Jeremy | Chapter 1 - You Told Me No
He talked a lot about his grandmother. He talked a lot about his grandfather and how they used to call him Jeremiah and that Jeremiah was a bullfrog. That was his grandfather's favorite song and they called him Bam Bam and they thought it was so cute because he'd beat everything up with sticks and stuff and thought it was funny.
Bone Valley
Jeremy | Chapter 1 - You Told Me No
Jeremy had that good side and he had that funny side and he could be sweet and caring and, you know, he had that good in him. I saw it.
Bone Valley
Jeremy | Chapter 1 - You Told Me No
I had money, you know, all I had to do was ask. But he would take me and we'd go donate plasma, and we'd do that three times a week.
Bone Valley
Jeremy | Chapter 1 - You Told Me No
And I know the first time he took me, it was like $100 for being a first-time donor. They pay you a large amount. But then after that, I think it was like 25 the first time, 15 the second time, and 10 the third time. So it was what, like 50 bucks, something like that. And then as soon as we get done, I'd give him the money.
Bone Valley
Jeremy | Chapter 1 - You Told Me No
We'd been together a while. And we weren't together all the time. I mean, this is the thing you've got to understand. I would see him for two or three days and then I wouldn't see him for three or four months. And then I'd see him for two or three days and then I wouldn't see him for six weeks. He didn't have a house phone. He didn't have a house.
Bone Valley
Jeremy | Chapter 1 - You Told Me No
So he'd either call me from a pay phone or I wouldn't hear from him. And When he would show up, he'd call from a pay phone, hey, meet me down the road. Then when I would see him, it was constant. He was right there in my face, constant, and I couldn't go anywhere or do anything without him right there.
Bone Valley
Jeremy | Chapter 1 - You Told Me No
He was wanting me to meet his mom. I hadn't met his mom yet.
Bone Valley
Jeremy | Chapter 1 - You Told Me No
It was the only gas station in the whole town. And I can remember us pulling up to the HES station and her coming out and her exact words were, what the F are you doing here? And I just kind of sat there in shock. I'm like, oh my God, this is his mom.
Bone Valley
Jeremy | Chapter 1 - You Told Me No
And he turned around and he got back in the car and we drove down the road and he pulled off the side of the road and I looked at him and I said, are you okay? And I guess I shouldn't have said that. And as soon as I said, are you okay, he punched me as hard as he could. And he kicked me out of the car.
Bone Valley
Jeremy | Chapter 1 - You Told Me No
And I can remember him kicking me out of the car and me looking down this road and there's nothing but palmetto trees and big old pine trees and nothing. There's no building, you know. And I started crying and I'm thinking he's going to leave me here. I don't know anybody. I'm not going to talk to that lady. I'm not talking to her. She talks to her son that way. What's she going to say to me?
Bone Valley
Jeremy | Chapter 1 - You Told Me No
And about 10 minutes later, he came back. He came back and he picked me back up.
Bone Valley
Jeremy | Chapter 1 - You Told Me No
I was burying him from me. Does that make sense? So it wasn't that I was trying to protect Justin. It wasn't that I was trying to keep him from Justin. I didn't talk about it to anybody.
Bone Valley
Jeremy | Chapter 1 - You Told Me No
I still don't know what he went to prison for. I remember asking him several times and he never answered me. I know Jeremy used to like to wait outside the Green Parrot and wait for the gay people to leave and he'd beat them up with baseball bats and stuff.
Bone Valley
Jeremy | Chapter 1 - You Told Me No
As a matter of fact, that's how he ended up with stitches that one night. He ended up with stitches in his knee and in his head because he waited outside Green Parrot and they knew he was there and jumped him. And he got some of his own medicine.
Bone Valley
Jeremy | Chapter 1 - You Told Me No
I mean, everybody knew what Lake Morton was and that that was the gay hangout. And a lot of them got robbed. A lot of them got beat up. A lot of them got hurt. And it was just never reported. It was never in the newspapers. But everybody knew about it.
Bone Valley
Jeremy | Chapter 1 - You Told Me No
When he got out from that was when he was really different. And I don't know if... Something happened while he was in prison or I don't know what it was, but he was a total different person. And that's when his eyes were empty and there was nothing. I mean, he never smiled. There was nothing. There was nothing there. And I can remember looking at him and just not even really recognizing him.
Bone Valley
Jeremy | Chapter 1 - You Told Me No
He shows up that morning. I hadn't seen him in like three weeks. My mom was nice enough to offer to pay for him to go to Disney World with us. And he said no. But then he told me I couldn't go. And my mom put her foot down. No, she's going. We've already bought tickets. It's family day. We're going. That was the first time I'd ever told him no. I had never told him no before, ever, for anything.
Bone Valley
Jeremy | Chapter 1 - You Told Me No
He was in the backyard waiting, and I'm pretty sure he sat there all day.
Bone Valley
Jeremy | Chapter 1 - You Told Me No
He bent over and he stood up and he turned around and he said, you told me no. And that's the last thing I remember. And that's when it really got bad because I think that's when it was ingrained in me to never again tell him no. And I never did.
Bone Valley
Jeremy | Chapter 1 - You Told Me No
I think there was a part of me that thought I could help him, that I could make it better, make him feel loved, and he'd be okay, and maybe he wouldn't do the things that he was doing. You know what I'm saying? But I know that by the end, it was all fear. There was no... There was no love there. It was all fear. Jeremy was in jail when I found out I was pregnant.
Bone Valley
Jeremy | Chapter 1 - You Told Me No
I was having to stay with my grandmother because my mom found out I was pregnant and she kicked me out. So I was living at my grandmother's house and Jeremy showed up and I was showing. I was scared to death. And I can remember him calling me a couple weeks later and telling me some bull-ass story about he was dying of some disease and I needed to find somebody else.
Bone Valley
Jeremy | Chapter 1 - You Told Me No
And I can remember thinking in the back of my mind, he's breaking up with me because I'm pregnant. And the sick part of me was angry. How dare you break up with me because I'm pregnant with your kid? You know? And I can remember I started crying and my Aunt Mary walked in. She's like, what's wrong with you? And I said, he just broke up with me because I'm pregnant.
Bone Valley
Jeremy | Chapter 1 - You Told Me No
And then all of a sudden I caught myself and I stopped and I smiled and I said, he just broke up with me because I'm pregnant.
Bone Valley
Jeremy | Chapter 1 - You Told Me No
I knew I wasn't coming back. I knew if they didn't catch him, I was going to die.
Bone Valley
Jeremy | Chapter 1 - You Told Me No
Because I did love him. I did love Jeremy. You knew him a little bit, right?
Bone Valley
Jeremy | Chapter 1 - You Told Me No
When y'all wanted to talk to me before, I tried. I couldn't do it. I never talked to anybody about any of this. I couldn't sit here a year ago. I couldn't do it.
Bone Valley
Jeremy | Chapter 1 - You Told Me No
It's okay. I'm a little more okay with it now than I was. It's just, you know, when all this first started, I spent so many years Trying not to think about it and not to talk about it.
Bone Valley
Jeremy | Chapter 1 - You Told Me No
It was really rough there for a while because I went through years of nightmares and the paranoia.
Bone Valley
Jeremy | Chapter 1 - You Told Me No
Justin finally reached a point where he wanted to start asking questions.
Bone Valley
Jeremy | Chapter 1 - You Told Me No
If me dealing with my crap can help him, it's worth it. It's worth it. I can deal with this to help him. If it's just for me, I wouldn't be doing this. I'm just being real. If it was just to do your book or just to do a podcast or whatever, I wouldn't be sitting here. I'm doing this for Justin. I really am.