𝑺 𝑬 𝑹 𝑬 𝑵 𝑰 𝑻 𝒀 (18+)

Forty-six

S E R E N I T Y

♥

Noah had been acting strange. Not necessarily moody but different. Quiet, irritable, distracted. I could say the same for Andrew. He appeared on edge, I often caught him and Noah having whispered conversations that ended in screaming matches. The screams rarely ever came from Andrew. I couldn't make out what they were saying but I could tell their voices apart. It was Noah and the sounds of his screams were agonizing.

I hadn't been to his house in weeks but I knew Bev was home. She'd texted me and told me she'd gotten in but it was best I didn't come by the house. She would come to see me. It wasn't a holiday and it wasn't her birthday so I questioned her arrival. That and with Noah and Andrew acting so strangely my mind was doing cartwheels.

Trying to get information out of Drew proved to be pointless. He wasn't budging, no matter what I said or offered. "I think he just has a lot going on, you should wait for him to talk to you about it," he'd said.

The only problem was I had waited. I didn't push and I didn't pry. I asked if he was okay and he told me he was. I didn't question his distance at least not to his face and I didn't beg him for answers. This was something different, something delicate and if I pushed too hard I might've lost him for good.

"The success report sheet, the numbers are up and the manager called to say the patio is finished. They'd like you to come by and give the go ahead." I handed him the file and he took it from my hand. He thanked me and promptly dismissed me afterward. That's how it was. That was how it had been for a little over two weeks.

We had a good Valentine's Day but it was like a switch went off a few days later. It was eerie, I had no idea what to expect from him. It was as if he was a completely different person. Not even resembling the Noah I once knew little about.

I was always a believer in defining moments. A moment so important in one's life it set the course for the events that followed. March 13th was my defining moment. March 13th, a tragic day for several reasons. It brought death, it brought heartache. A heartache so fierce not even time could heal.

It all started when Bev came by my house. It was around six. I had just finished pretending to work out and was in serious need of a cocktail. She rang my doorbell in a frenzy, and I rushed to open it. She looked like she'd been crying. Her eyes were puffy and red and she wore a hood over her head. She had on sweats and a pair of dirty sneakers and I knew something was off. She liked to dress down but never like this.

"Hey, is everything okay?" I asked inviting her in. She smiled, that familiar Harrington smile that never reached their eyes. She took a seat on my couch and she wiped her eyes before asking if I had anything to drink. It was a stupid question. I had anything and everything to drink. I poured her a glass of something strong and sat beside her on my couch.

"I've tried to call Noah but he hasn't returned any of my calls, what's going on?"

She looked at me, confusion and sadness both present on her face, "oh God, you still don't know do you?"

"Know what?"

Every family had their secrets. Mine included. I'd often spent nights speculating the Harrington family secret but never came up with anything reasonable. It was a fun game, attempting to guess the skeletons they had hidden deep in their closet. The reality of it was dark, far from a joke. Nothing I could've ever anticipated.

"We used to go camping, a lot. It was our favorite thing to do as a family." She pulled a picture out of her pocket and handed it to me. It was the same picture I saw at Noah's house in Lynnwood. The one he snatched away from me when he'd noticed me looking.