“Dad? Pfft, no,” Sheck scoffed. “The only affair he’s had is with his job. Mom says he’s never home and that he’d rather be at work than spend time with her. He says she nags him too much, so of course he’d rather spend time at work than at home. Whenever he is home, all they do is argue. It’s exhausting to be around.”
“So you...blame him, then?” Rory asked carefully.
Sheck’s shoulders slumped. “I don’t know.” He looked so tired. “I just wish he hadn’t moved out. Until he left I just thought okay, they’re fighting a lot but they’ll get over it sooner or later. Him moving out just made the whole thing real, you know?”
Rory nodded even though she didn’t actually know. Her parents’ occasional arguments had never gone that far, thank God.
Abruptly, Sheck started singing along with the radio and playing air guitar, signalling that the conversation was over. Then he reached into his pocket and pulled out a tiny little plastic bag full of brightly covered pills.
“I shouldn’t even offer you any, right?” he asked. “I mean, you can have some if you want but it’s your call…no pressure.”
Rory eyed the bag warily. “What are they?”
Sheck grinned and downed a couple, chasing them with a swig of warm soda from the can sitting in his car’s cup holder. “Happy pills!” he informed her.
Pushing her long blonde hair out of her face, Rory eyed her best friend with concern. She wasn’t a goody two shoes like her sister and didn’t really care if people messed around with drugs. She figured it was a personal decision and if someone wanted to get high, as long as they weren’t hurting anyone else in the process, who cared? Hell, maybe under the right circumstances Rory would even be up for a little experimentation.
But despite her liberal attitude, she was beginning to wonder if Sheck was getting carried away. It was one thing to indulge a bit at a party but skipping school day after day to spend hours alone shitfaced in a car was something else entirely. Rory didn’t like it.
“So you’re pretty into getting high these days,” she observed, feeling like she was walking on eggshells. She didn’t want to make him angry – after all, he was going through an excruciatingly bad time these days and on top of everything else, certainly didn’t need to feel like she was attacking him. But he was her best friend. She had to say something. She at least had to try.
Sheck’s eyes were shut. “I know what you’re thinking,” he mumbled, his words beginning to slur a bit. “Maybe I’ve been overdoing it a little lately, but I’m not an addict or anything like that. I just like to distract myself from what’s going on in real life every so often. This is my escape from reality because I don’t know if you got the memo but reality sucks.”
He cracked his neck abruptly and his eyes popped open, looking slightly out of focus. “Hey, I feel like going for a walk. Wanna come with?”
Was he serious? It was cold and windy and miserable outside – hard to believe spring was supposed to be well underway. So no, Rory did not particularly want to go for a walk. But without waiting for answer, Sheck bolted from the car and ran down to the deserted beach at full speed, arms above his head like a racer crossing the finish line.
Rolling her eyes, Rory reluctantly exited the shelter of the nice warm heated car and made her way down to the water. She walked slowly, her hands in her pockets and her hair swirling around her face in the wind.
“This is so beautiful!” Sheck yelled at the top of his lungs, looking perfectly content as the wind whipped at him viciously.
Rory begged to differ. She was getting cold already and wanted to go back to the car. The last thing she wanted to do was be out on a freezing deserted beach with her high friend. In fact, she was beginning to think coming to Cricket Lake had been a bad idea all around.
“Maybe we should come back here another day when it’s warmer,” Rory suggested as she stuffed her hands deeper into the pockets of her jeans in a futile attempt to keep them warm. She never thought she’d see the day, but she kind of wished she was back at Belleview High, bored to death in class.
“No way,” Sheck disagreed, his voice louder than it needed to be. “Then oth people will be hrr...not private anmore...noway.” His speech was not only slurring but now he was mispronouncing words and leaving out entire syllables.
Not knowing what it was he had taken, Rory was beginning to get worried.
“Well maybe we can at least go somewhere more sheltered. It’s cold down here by the water. Why don’t we climb down that hill over there and sit under a tree? It will be more sheltered in the forest, I think.” Her main objective was to get him away from the water. He was acting so unpredictable that she didn’t like his close proximity to the lake.
Sheck agreed and allowed Rory to lead him to the edge of the woods, where it was, in fact, less windy and therefore slightly warmer. It was actually kind of breathtaking out there in the stillness. She couldn’t help but imagine herself there with Carson, the two of them wrapped in a blanket enjoying a romantic picnic…if only.
Rory chose a large, thick-trunked tree and sat down under it gratefully. She patted the ground beside her, gesturing for Sheck to join her, but it was no use. He’d spotted something in a nearby tree and had unsteadily lurched over to investigate.
“Checkitout!” he slurred excitedly, pointing to something way up in the tree. “It’s a birrrrr nest! For birrrrrrs! I wond if any eggs innit!” His pupils were dilated and wild-looking. He seemed manic. Rory didn’t like it one bit.
“Uh huh,” she acknowledged, not bothering to hide her disinterest. “Come sit with me.”
“Nooooo, I haft go geddit!” Sheck straddled the tree and began shimmying up the trunk toward the bird nest. Rory heard his jeans rip as they caught on the rough bark, but if he noticed he didn’t seem to care. He was fixated on the bird nest to the point where it appeared he was unaware of everything else.
Sheck had been climbing the tree outside Rory’s window since they were kids, so conquering this tree wasn’t exactly a daunting task for him. He reached the branch housing the empty nest in a matter of seconds. “I goddit!” he shouted down to his irritated friend.
“Sheck, I’m freezing,” Rory complained, her annoyance evident. “Come down now, okay? I want to go now.”
“Okay I comin’ downow. Godda bring tha birrrr nest wifmee!” He reached over with one hand and plucked the nest off of the branch. Part of it cracked and fell away. “Shi!” He gingerly set the remains of the old nest on his head and then called down triumphantly, “I goddit! Comin’ downow!”
As Sheck started to climb down, Rory breathed a sigh of relief. She didn’t like how erratic his behaviour was, so it would be good to get him back in his car before he did something stupid. She decided she was going to have to say something to him about his recreational drug use even if it did end up making him angry. This was insane.
“Roooory!” Sheck paused and adjusted the bird nest on his head. “Lookit me I’ma birrrrr!” he leaned his head back and made cawing noises. Then, before Rory could shout at him to be careful, he let go of the tree trunk and started flapping his arms like a bird. It only took a moment for him to lose his balance and crash to the ground.
Rory felt like she was watching in slow motion. She saw him slip, saw him start to fall. She wanted to help but couldn’t. She watched helplessly as her best friend fell from about six feet up, broke several small tree branches on his way down and landed hard in a pile of dirt, leaves and moss.
“Sheck!” Rory jumped up and ran over to where he’d landed.
He raised his head slightly and laughed, still high as a kite. “Whoops!” His voice was still inappropriately loud. “I fell!” He picked himself up slowly, then collapsed in pain when he tried putting weight on his right foot. “I thin I bro myfoot,” he muttered grumpily. “Help.”
“Hold still.” Rory leaned forward, lifted the bottom of his right pant leg out of the way and examined Sheck’s ankle. She had no idea what she was supposed to be looking for
– a bone sticking out or a fountain of blood gushing everywhere or something grotesque like that?
Thankfully, she didn’t find anything of the sort. Sheck’s ankle looked normal, albeit a bit swollen. She could tell from the way he was wincing, though, that he was hurting despite the mind altering pills he’d swallowed.
“Give me your car keys,” Rory demanded, holding out her hand. Much to her relief, he didn’t argue, instead obediently fishing them out of his pocket and handing them over.
Once she had them, she quickly moved his car as close to Sheck as she could in light of the rough, uneven beach terrain. Then, leaving the station wagon running, she hopped back out and returned to Sheck.
“Can you stand?” Rory asked him, squatting down to help hoist him up. With some effort, Rory awkwardly got Sheck up on his left foot. With Rory supporting him on the right side, he managed to hop the short distance back to where his car was parked. When Rory led him to the passenger side, he got in without protest.
Good. The last thing she needed right now was him putting up a fight about letting her drive. True, she didn’t really know how to drive considering she’d refused to practice much, but she’d played her fair share of video games so how hard could it be?
* * * * *
Whether the drive back from Cricket Lake was more nerve-racking for Rory or for Sheck was difficult to say. Rory gripped the wheel so tightly that her knuckles started to turn white. She was thankful that there wasn’t much traffic on the road. Sheck shouted in pain every time she hit a pothole or took a turn too fast. He looked frightened for his life the one time she, against her better judgment, attempted to pass a tractor that was traveling down the highway at a snail’s pace.
If anything could ruin Sheck’s high, it was Rory’s terrible driving!
“I think my ankle is broken.” Sheck’s eyes were starting to look more normal, Rory noted with relief, and his speech was becoming clearer. “It really hurts to move it.”
“Well then stop moving it,” was Rory’s terse response.
“You’re mad,” Sheck observed, swiveling in the passenger seat to look at her. She stared straight ahead, her jaw clenched. “You should be. I’m sorry. I was being stupid. I shouldn’t have taken those pills.”
Rory unclenched her jaw and the expression on her face softened. The truth was, Sheck had scared her badly, and she was mostly reacting to that. When all was said and done, she was just glad that he was - relatively speaking - okay.
“Maybe it’s not broken,” she offered hopefully. “Maybe it’s just a really bad twist. Maybe you just need to put some ice on it when we get back. But you’d better get it checked out just to be on the safe side.”
The two friends made a pact not to tell anyone what had really happened. There was no point in admitting they’d skipped school and Sheck certainly wasn’t going to fess up to taking drugs. That was just asking for trouble.
They decided their story would be that Sheck fell off his skateboard outside the mall and landed hard on his ankle, injuring himself. It was a good cover, Rory had to admit. As they pulled up to the local walk-in clinic and Rory helped Sheck out of the car, she felt a strange sense of calm.
* * * * *
When she arrived home after her exhausting excursion with Sheck, Rory was greeted by her sister’s hacking cough. Rebecca was curled up on the couch in the living room underneath a colorful afghan looking miserable.
“I think I codd a code whed we were out in da rain da odder day,” she gurgled, obviously congested. “I feel like shid.” She rolled onto her side, sneezed four times in a row and then added, “oh yeah, Mom wands to dalk do you. She’s in da kidjin.”
In the kitchen, Rory found her mother chopping walnuts with fury. A look of anger was on Nancy’s face and it only intensified when she looked up and saw her daughter standing there.
“Was it worth it?” she asked curtly, the vein on her forehead that only made an appearance when she was super angry standing out boldly.
Rory blinked. “Was what worth it?”
“Wherever you were this afternoon when you should have been in school – was it worth it? You’re not going to that party tomorrow night now. Not after the stunt you pulled today. You’re grounded for a week, starting tonight!”
Rory was stunned. How had her mother found out about her skipping school? Then Rory remembered: her drama class and Rebecca’s art class had been doing some dumb collaborative group project that afternoon. That meant that Rebecca would have noticed Rory’s absence from class…and she must have told their mother.
Seething, Rory raced back to the living room. “Did you rat me out to Mom?!” Rory demanded angrily, startling Rebecca out of a light slumber.
“Whad?” Rebecca replied before another coughing fit overtook her. Under normal circumstances, Rory would have felt sorry for her sister after witnessing that horrible display. Not this time, though. This time, she was too furious for sympathy.
Nancy poked her head out of the kitchen and glared at Rory. “Let Rebecca rest. You’d better get upstairs and do your homework,” she informed her daughter icily. “I expect you to catch up on all the schoolwork you missed this afternoon. I have to head out to a book club meeting in a few minutes, but you haven’t heard the end of this, Aurora.”
Rory winced. Nancy reserved “Aurora” for the really bad transgressions. Her mom was seriously pissed.
Rory spun on her heel and ran upstairs, seething. She just knew that her stupid tattletale of a sister had ratted her out to their mother. She wanted – no, demanded – an apology but before she confronted her sister again she wanted proof. She didn’t know why Rebecca seemed so intent on ruining her life, but Rory was going to put an end to it once and for all.
Instead of going to her own room, she tore into Rebecca’s room and pulled her sister’s well used mauve leather bound journal off her bookshelf. Taking it back to her room, she threw herself down on her bed and opened it to see Rebecca’s small, perfectly neat handwriting.
“You backstabbing bitch,” Rory muttered under her breath. “You’re gonna be sorry.”
Not only was she going to prove that her sister was a snitch – she was also going to make sure she dug up enough dirt on her to blackmail her into silence for the rest of their lives.
Rory flipped the journal open to a random page near the start and began to read. She quickly realized it was a journal entry from ages ago, the summer before the girls had started high school. It wasn’t what she was looking for but once she read the first few words on the page she felt compelled to continue.
August 7
Today Justin, Rory and I went swimming at Cricket Lake. It was almost unbearably hot out, but it made getting in the water that much nicer. The three of us hung out for a while before Justin ran into some guys he knows and forgot we existed. Typical brother…we’re good company until his friends come along and then suddenly we’re his bratty kid sisters and he can’t wait to get away from us. Oh well, at least Rory would never do that to me.
After Justin ditched us, Rory and I decided the beach was too crowded, so we wandered away, down to the rocky part of the shore that’s usually deserted. I can’t remember what we talked about while we walked but I know I won’t forget how much we giggled as we made our way to the seldom used part of the beach.
Sure enough, it was just the two of us down there. We played in the water for a bit – it’s not so bad as long as you wear your flip flops - otherwise the rocks are kind of jagged and hurt the soles of your feet.
Rory found some weird looking little sea creatures. I don’t know what they were – maybe some kind of crab – but they kind of freaked me out with their claws and whiskers. Rory was as fearless as ever, though, and picked one up. I have to admit, it was pretty cool to see up close. Or at least it was until she started chasing after me with it. But I got her back by shoving a handful of sand down the back of her shorts.
At dusk when it finally started to cool off, we sat on the shore, s
kipped rocks on the water and talked about what high school will be like. I can’t believe it’s already August – we’ll be freshmen at Belleview High before we know it.
Rory seemed nervous about the whole thing. I told her it would be fine because I think that’s what she needed to hear, but I’m secretly worried too. I don’t know what to expect and there are going to be so many new people. For someone as shy as me, that’s a big deal.
It will be strange not having Mya there. She’s been my best friend (not counting Rory) since we met in the third grade. I hate that her dad got transferred and she had to move away. It’s even worse that it had to happen right before high school. I know it would be easier with her there.
Meeting new people makes me so nervous. I’m glad Rory will be there with me. At least I’ll have someone to sit with at lunch. Besides, Rory’s so outgoing that it will probably be easy to meet new friends through her. Maybe high school won’t be so bad after all. Having my sister there with me will make it all seem less scary.
Her anger temporarily forgotten, Rory sighed wistfully. She remembered that day at Cricket Lake. Had it really been nine months? So much had changed since then, especially between Rory and Rebecca. It felt like that day had been a million years ago but the details stood out in Rory’s mind so vividly that it may as well have been yesterday.
It had probably been one of the best days of the entire summer even though it hadn’t been anything particularly special. It was one of those lazy, hot, perfect days that felt as though it would last forever. It was one of those days you don’t know is special until you look back on it later with nostalgia.
Every last unremarkable detail from August 7 had been burned into Rory’s brain. If she closed her eyes, she could almost feel the tepid water lapping at her ankles and the hot sun beating down on her skin. It had been one of those rare times she knew she’d still remember fondly for years to come.
Above all else, Rory had felt so close to her sister that day. They’d playfully teased their older brother mercilessly as he’d driven them out there that several times he’d threatened to make them get out of the car and walk. So then they’d teased him some more. They’d talked and laughed and whispered to each other like best friends.
Catalyst (The Best Days #1) Page 7