Ain't No Mountain High Enough

"Invisible"

Later that night, after Ms. Harlow went to bed, I hung out in the living room with Arjun. He was playing video games again- one that I didn't particularly want to see, let alone at night. He was always one for horror, much to his mother's dismay. I would have just gone to bed, but I wanted the scoop on what exactly went down with Nathan while we were gone.

"Nothing," he muttered when I questioned him about it. His eyes were focused on the dark, creepy hallways on the TV. I honestly wasn't even sure what he was playing. "I did exactly what I said I was going to do while you were gone. School and work."

I raised my eyebrows. "You didn't do anything that had to do with Nathan? Nothing at all?"

He paused to viciously kill some zombies, his brows furrowed in concentration. I tried not to watch. Once he was able to multitask again, he glanced at me. There was this look in his eyes, like he was afraid. I knew he was lying.

I tilted my head. "Something happened, didn't it?"

"Please, don't tell Mom."

Whatever this was, it was serious. He paused his game and left the room for a minute. He tossed something to me when he returned, starting his game again.

It was a rock, but it had a rubber band wrapped around it and a note. I took the note and unfolded it, and my heart skipped a bit as I read it. Nathan threatened to kill not only Ms. Harlow, but Arjun along with her- and he didn't skimp on the awful, sickening way he would do it.

"You need to bring this to the police, Arjun!" I said, gripping the rock in one hand and the note in the other. "This is serious!"

"Hush!" Arjun ordered. "Of course it's serious, but he's taunting me. If I bring it to the police, he'll find out, and might follow through with his threats. I've tried talking to him, but he's beyond reason. He wants me to join them and keep quiet, or else."

"I can see why they'd want you to keep quiet, but why does it matter if you join them or not?"

He paused his game again, tapping the remote on his knee. He was debating with himself. I knew that look well enough.

"Let me guess; don't tell your mom?"

"Definitely not," he said, cringing. "I was...involved with the same things Nathan's doing now, when I was in high school. But only for a year or two. It turns out I'm pretty helpful to him, because I'm good with negotiating the business side of things, and he knows that. I quit, obviously, but...you can't just quit when you're in that situation. It messes things up for the whole gang."

"So he wants you to fix it?" I asked. I could hardly believe he'd been doing this stuff behind all of our backs, but that was a problem for another time. "Is that why he's threatening you?"

"Yeah...he's in trouble with the guy he works for. It's a whole thing." He shook his head and turned back to playing video games. "Just please, don't tell Mom. She'd have my head for this."

I remembered Ms. Harlow telling me how Arjun was a good boy. If she knew about all of this, it would tear her apart. "Fine...," I mumbled. "But for the record, you're making me feel really guilty!"

"Sorry, man, but I'll tell her eventually."

"You keep saying that!"

"And it's true!" He grunted in annoyance when a creepy looking zombie nailed him in the head, and the dreaded Game Over screen popped up. "Great..." Sighing, he stood and moved to turn the Xbox off. "Look, just don't worry about me. I've got everything under control! Let's go to bed and forget about it, okay?"

This was all going to be pretty hard to just forget about, but I nodded and followed him to my room, where he helped me get into bed. I couldn't help but feel bad for Ms. Harlow with all of this going on behind her back.

Not to mention that as soon as I closed my eyes, I could just picture how lonely Valerie must be at her apartment all by herself. The image threatened to break me. I grabbed my phone from nearby and messaged her, and she replied only seconds later.

Me: Hi :)

Her: Hi :) How was the flight?

We talked about the trip, and about graduation, and all kinds of stuff until I couldn't hold my eyes open anymore. We said goodnight to each other, and I turned off my phone and set it on the nightstand. I felt a little better now that I'd talked to her, but I couldn't shake all the guilt off of me.

As I fell asleep, I had this weird feeling, like things were going to change for all of us soon. As for whether it was going to be a good or bad change, I honestly didn't know.

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Thanks for reading!

Listen to Duran Duran's "Invisible"!

Peace ✌️~ A.J.