The Rain | Part 1 | The Beginning

by Standlee, Marietta

  I enter the small examination room quietly. Colin is tied down to the examination table, which is way too small for him, his legs dangle uncomfortably over the sides, but he seems to be asleep.

  Blake sits in a corner on one of the chairs; his head leaned against the wall. He looks asleep too. I’m just about to go back out when he asks quietly: “Everything okay?”

  It only takes me a couple of steps to get to his side. I sink in the chair next to him.

  “Yes. Your dad is outside. But it’s raining, so he’s staying in the car.”

  He smiles. “I know. He texted me.”

  Of course, he did. I should have thought of that, but any sentiment of self-deprecation vanishes when Blake takes my hand. “Thanks for letting me know. How’s the mood outside?”

  I shrug. “They’re discussing where the rain might have come from; aliens is the winning argument at the moment.” I try a wry smile. “Jason and Ryan are still set on killing Colin, I think.”

  Bellowing laughter escapes Blake, but he stops it before it can wake his brother. “It takes more than those two losers to do that. Plus, they’ll have to go through me first, and my dad.” he grins.

  “Don’t underestimate them,” I warn; his arrogance irritates me; it is so un-Blake-like, more like Colin, which infuriates me.

  My gaze turns towards Colin. He looks peaceful in his sleep. For the first time, I can study his face without him smirking at me. His black hair is cut in a short buzzcut, just like Blake’s. The two of them look a lot alike, although Blake is five years younger and where his face is still a little rounded, Colin’s is all hard, sharp angles.

  The silence stretches on between Blake and me. Unless I have a book to read, I have never been good at silences, so I try to make conversation.

  “So, how’d you end up on this trip anyway?”

  He smiles ruefully. “It was a punishment of sorts from my mom.”

  I give him an encouraging smile, and he continues. “I handed out the answers to her math test to the juniors of her classes.”

  “What? Why would you do that? You had to have known that she’d catch you.”

  He looks down at the tips of his fingers and mumbles something that sounds like, “That was the plan.”

  “Why would you do that? Did you want to come on this trip?”

  His eyes meet mine; they are serious, and I sense instinctively that what he is going to tell me next, he didn’t want me to know.

  “I overheard Ryan and Jason talk.” He hesitates for a second before he makes up his mind to tell me everything. “Ryan said that he would have you, one way or another on this trip.”

  It takes my brain a second to catch up with everything he is saying and implying.

  I almost laugh. “So, you thought you’d get yourself punished and come, just to protect me?”

  “Somebody has to.”

  I think about Ryan for a second and shake my head. “He’s not the type. He might’ve tried to…. take advantage of me…. or something, but he wouldn’t have forced himself on me.”

  I know what I’m saying is true. Ryan might be a lot of things, but he wouldn’t do that. I wouldn’t have had a crush on him if I had suspected this kind of behavior even for a second. But then again, whoever thought their rapist would rape them? No, I shake my head harder in denial.

  “He wouldn’t have.”

  “I couldn’t really take that risk, though, knowing what I knew.” Blake asserts.

  I squeeze his hand in gratitude. “Thank you anyway.”

  “No problem.” He smiles.

  I feel responsible, although I had nothing to do with his decision, well, not intentionally anyway. If it hadn’t been for Ryan saying those words, Blake wouldn’t have been on the trip, which means Colin wouldn’t have been either. He would still be sound and safe with his army buddies. Or Marine buddies, or Special Forces, or whatever the hell he is, buddies.

  And Martin would be safe and sound at home with my mom.

  My mom.

  Tears prickle in my eyes. I have been so angry with her these last two years. Whenever I saw her, I wasn’t even trying to be civil to her or Martin. I blamed them for splitting our families apart. And now she might be dead.

  The sinking feeling in my stomach confirms that I’m pretty much convinced she is dead. There is no other explanation for her not to answer her phone. I think about the years wasted on anger. I thought there was time. Always time. Well, no. Not exactly. I never thought about it in those terms. I never thought of her dying. After all, she could have died every day. If I had really thought about it, I wouldn’t have been so mean to her.

  The thing is, people always say: Don’t take the other for granted. I heard things like: It happened so suddenly. It came out of the blue. But I never gave much thought to how true these statements really are. Nobody sets out thinking: I’m going grocery shopping, and on the way, I’ll die. Or: I’ll die after dropping the kids off at school. Nobody anticipates his or her last hours.

  Nobody starts out frying pancakes knowing they’re going to have a heart attack in the middle of mixing the freaking batter. Not many people get to say good-bye, prepared never to see their loved one again. Yes, there is always the possibility, but frankly, the possibility is so abstract we hardly ever acknowledge it until it’s too late. I guess what I’m trying to say is, I took my mom for granted to be around so that I could keep being mad at her. And now she is most likely gone, and I don’t get to say, I’m sorry. I won’t get another hug.

  Blake’s mind seems to have gone the same way. “I’ve been so mad at my dad for so long; I don’t even know how to say Hi to him when he finally comes in.”

  I sigh. “Me too. But at least you’ll get the chance.” I squeeze his hand tighter. “I don’t think my mom is still alive; I think something happened to her. But you’ll get to see your dad in a little while. Forgive him.”

  He squeezes my hand back. “I guess so. But why do you think your mom is dead?”

  I pull my hand back and rake it through my stiff, salty hair that is pasted to my scalp from our sea journey. “She won’t answer her phone. I tried her cell and the landline. And neither is Lexy. Something happened. I can just feel it.”

  He takes my chin in his hand and forces me to look into his eyes. “You don’t know that. Your mom is strong and capable. There’s going to be a perfectly rational explanation, you’ll see.”

  “Yeah, or she might be rolling in the hay with her gun instructor this time.” I try to laugh but fail when I see the stricken expression on Blake’s face because if she did, it would mean she was cheating on his dad this time. Well, welcome to the club.

  “I just don’t understand why they had to do that….” Blake trails off, but I know exactly what he means.

  I shrug my shoulders. “Yeah, it was pretty abrupt, at least….”

  Colin interrupts us with one of his Colin sneers. “Well, boo hoo hoo. My daddy and her mommy had an affair. Really, you guys? You never saw it coming?”

  He sits up on the table, his eyes perusing us contemptuously.

  “Oh, so you knew then?” I challenge.

  “I had my suspicions.” His arrogance is just soooo exasperating.

  “Be honest; those two are a lot better matched than they were to their original spouses.”

  I want to say something. Something to dispel his theory, something to wipe that arrogant smirk off his face, but fail. My mouth works like a fish gulping for air for a few seconds before I close it again. Every cell of my body wants to deny it, but he is right. My mom and his dad make a much better couple. My mom and their dad love guns; my dad and their mom despise them.

  Whenever we went anywhere, it was my mom and Martin who led the hike into the forest, or mountain, or wherever we went. While my dad and Cynthia would stay at the hotel/cabin/campground and play cards, read or check each other’s lesson plans for the upcoming school year.

  My mom and Martin were completely into this whole survivalist/prepp
er thing. Martin was a Marine before he retired, and my mom just picked it up from him. I admit I’ve never seen my mom’s eyes light up the way they do now when she sees Martin, not when she was with my dad. I guess I was a pretty selfish, self-absorbed teenager who didn’t really get that her parents needed and deserved love too.

  But I think most of all; it made me angry because it thwarted my plans: plans where Lexy and Colin got married and me and Blake. When our parents got together, it kinda made that plan…. gross? And if I’m completely honest, at this point, nothing if any of this really matters anymore.

  I give Colin another one of my famous glares, to which he just laughs, and Blake rolls his eyes before I leave the room to preserve some of my dignity.

  “…. just saying, Fenton. He’s a ticking time bomb.” I hear Jason argue.

  I sigh before I smile. Well, at least now, I have an outlet for my pent-up anger. Which I turn up full force as I unload on Jason.

  “Are you still on that?” I ask scathingly.

  “Yes, I’m. Somebody has to be concerned about our safety.”

  “Jason does have a point, what if….” Ryan adds.

  I shake my head in disbelieve over their idiocy. “And the small fact that Colin saved all our lives doesn’t even matter?”

  “One thing has nothing to do with the other, and you know that.” Jason pouts. “This is for all our safety.”

  “It’s nothing personal,” Ryan adds.

  I turn at Ryan. “Nothing personal, eh? And what exactly is this? What are you two planning on doing?”

  Ryan hedges, while Jason completely avoids my eyes. “Well, you know… we’ll have to…. take him out.”

  “Oh, okay. Well, here then.” I pull the gun out from behind me and offer it to Ryan, butt first.

  “Take it and go take care of it, as you call it. Go on. Take it.” I challenge and press the gun into his resistant hand.

  I picked Ryan from between the two boys because I knew he would be more averse to killing than Jason, and I want to make a point. There’s always been something dark about Jason. I can’t quite put my finger on it. But of the two of them, I know Jason would have been the more likely to follow through. I almost shove the gun into Ryan’s hand before pushing him towards Colin’s room.

  “Go in there, shoot him. He’s tied up; he won’t be able to fight back. Just make sure you shoot him in the head.” I raise my eyebrow expectantly at him.

  He urges the gun back at me. “You know, we can’t just shoot him.”

  “Oh, no? Wasn’t this exactly what you two have been discussing for the last….” I make a big show of looking at my watchless wrist. “What, two hours or so?”

  “No, we….” Ryan stutters.

  Jason jumps in to help his friend. “It’s all good, McCarthy. He’s tied up, right? We’ll just wait and see.”

  But I'm not quite done with this conversation just yet. “Okay, so how long are we going to wait? An hour? Two? A day? Then what?”

  “Jesus, Vivian, will you take it easy?” Cory pipes up from his seat in the back.

  “We don’t know. Okay?” Ryan finally yells.

  I take a step closer to him; sometimes it’s good to be a girl; I’m fully betting on neither Ryan nor Jason to lay a hand on me. I’m certain if anybody else spoke to them the way I have, they would be in a big pile on the ground by now, fighting it out in a different way. I push first Jason and then Ryan in the chest. “You two are acting like cowards. Big with your mouths, but unable to act.”

  “Yeah, we have seen you act.” Ryan suddenly sneers back and steps closer to me; I’m sure he would have pushed me if I had been a guy.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” I ask quietly.

  “How many people have you killed since this started, Vivian? Have you even kept track? Does it even bother you?”

  I push him back, my forefinger in his chest. “You don’t know anything about me, and at least I did what I had to do to save all of us.”

  “You’re still a killer, though, aren’t you?”

  “What’cha gonna do about it?” I challenge. “Call the cops? Go ahead.” I pull my phone out and throw it at him.

  “You bet I will. You shot the guy at the pharmacy in cold blood. I saw the whole thing.” Ryan ignores my phone.

  Something inside of me breaks, and I laugh. Hard. Ryan looks for support from his friends, but nobody is willing to meet his gaze. Angie ran back to Jose once we started screaming. She puts her little head against the boy’s chest. I feel bad for the little girl, but at the same time, I think. ‘You need to toughen up, little girl.’

  Immediately remorse hits me for thinking this. She’s just a little kid, and she lost her parents somewhere and is with a bunch of strangers who yell at each other and shoot. What’s wrong with me?

  But whatever broke inside of me a few seconds ago hardens me as well. The old Vivian is taking a step back, and a new Vivian is taking her place. A Vivian, who kills people and pushes her friends around. I’m not sure I like the new Vivian.

  Chapter 11

  Hours later, we are finally on the road home. It’s quiet in the RV; some boys are sleeping, some tap away on their phones, texting with their friends and family, or checking on the news for any updates.

  Martin, Cory, and Colin take turns driving the massive RV, which has enough room for all of us. There are even bunk beds in the back, across from the bathroom, which Drew and Ryan took. All of us are exhausted at this point. We haven’t slept much in almost twenty-four hours, and it shows.

  Gallantly the boys let me have the bed in the back. I tried to decline, but they insisted I take it. I even offered to share it, which, of course, only ended up with some catcalling and dirty jokes. So, I gave up on it and took full advantage of spreading out on the bed like a starfish.

  They finally released Colin from his ties. After the rain stopped, Martin came into the vet clinic and took control. Funny how we went through all this together, but then an adult shows up, and everybody does what they say. Technically, Colin is an adult too, he is five years older than us, but since he was the reason for the discontent, I guess he didn’t count.

  We had another argument about what to do with the two men locked up in the examination rooms. We finally settled on leaving them right where they were and putting notes on the doors to warn anybody who might enter the office. Probably not the most humane solution, because what if nobody will come looking for them? Will they starve to death?

  Hopefully, a loved one will come, who knows. Just in case, we decided we would contact the local sheriff’s office once we get back home and let him deal with this. For now, this solution seemed better than the alternative of either shooting them or letting them go.

  We found the keys for the RV by the office counter and left a note with Martin’s address and phone number on it, briefly describing what happened and asking for the owner to call us. I don’t think anybody ever will. I think the world as we know it is over. Was over the second the first raindrop hit the ground or a person. Whichever came first.

  It makes me sad. Not just because I lost my parents, but because I’m worried, I lost myself too. I think part of me died in California. The new Vivian rising up inside me is trying to mold with the old Vivian but doesn’t quite fit yet.

  That part of me is a survivor, though, and if I’m sure of one thing, it’s that despite everything I saw and did, I want to live. So, the two parts of me will just have to hash it out. Hopefully, they’ll find a way to coexist instead of one canceling out the other. I guess time will tell.

  I recognize the roads long before we slowly make it up the streets to our homes. I sit up on the bed and walk into the main cabin, where I squeeze myself in between Ace and Drew on the couch.

  “Hey!” they protest.

  “Make room,” I demand, and we grin at each other.

  Ryan is sitting in the co-pilot’s seat, nervously jiggling his leg. His house will be our first stop. “Are you sure you don’t want u
s to wait?” Martin asks him, not for the first time.

  “I’m okay, Mr. Thornton. I know my parents aren’t home. I just want a shower and my bed. I will call you later. I promise.”

  Martin gives him a tight nod before he opens the doors to the RV and lets him out. We watch Ryan walk up the circular driveway to his spacious Tudor style home. His shoulders droop a little; I think there is a moment where he hopes, despite everything he knows, his parents will be home, which of course they are not. He waves bravely and looks forlorn as we leave.

  Drew is next. Then Ace, and so on. Cory is the only one who asks us to wait for him to find out if his mom is home. He couldn’t get a hold of anybody. And so, we wait. He doesn’t live in a good part of town, his parents are divorced, and his mom is barely making ends meet. So there is a fairly good chance her phone is just plain dead because of unpaid bills rather than something more sinister.

  And to our utter relief and joy, it doesn’t take long before a smiling Miss Koworski is holding him in a tight embrace, waving at us. I’m sure we will hear the story of why Drew hadn’t been able to get a hold of her later, but it does raise hope in me for my mom.

  My mom’s house is the last one we stop at since Martin lives here too. My mom’s car and Lexy’s are in the driveway. A sight that floods my body with apprehension and hope at the same time. I can barely wait for Martin to stop the RV, and as soon as he does, I’m out the door. Despite Martin’s and his sons’ shouts for me to stop and wait.

  “Mom? Lexy?” I yell into the empty house. And that’s when I know.

  I know before I find the bodies in the kitchen. Lexy’s is sprawled out against the fridge, a large knife embedded into her chest; her sightless eyes stare accusingly at my mother.

  My mom’s body is leaning into the dishwasher. Her right hand is still pressing a now dried, blood-soaked towel against her torn neck. The story seems simple, Lexy attacked my mom, tore open her neck, and my mom defended herself by stabbing her in the chest before bleeding out herself. Quite simple.