The Cascading Waves of Caden Lee

30

CADEN LEE

When the Locker Project ends; disappointment brews in my gut. I guess I had built it up in my head, that it would be the key to Scarletts soul or the start to some epic lifelong friendship or something.

Maybe it is, I just don't know it yet.

Either way, we do our final interviews and get told there will be a final production put together of all the interviews conducted; ordering from the first to last. To see the progress, I guess.

They estimated we'd see the video sometime during the last week of school.

When I was asked the questions—the same ones as before—it was the first time I had found myself unable to answer. When I was asked what my relationship with Scarlett consisted of, the word friends was on the tip of my tongue. But then I remembered her actions from Saturday and had second thoughts.

'Do you think any significant progress was made between the two of you, due to the Locker Project?'

I had sat and stared at the floor for a few minutes after this one. And still, even now, im not really sure. Would we be friends if we weren't paired for this project together? Did coming to the same locker twice a school day, every school day, do anything to impact our relationship?

Thinking about it, nothing memorable came to mind when I tried to recall moments spent together; side-by-side, digging into our locker. Sure, we had decorated it and laughed when our hands would bump together when grabbing our notebooks; stuff our binders in our book-bags and wave as we parted ways.

But all I could think about was the way she would snort when laughter hit her too hard, how she loves the color pink but hates to wear it, how her top two teeth would subtly dig into the skin of her lower lip when she concentrated.

I want to say that it changed nothing, that we would still be friends even without it. That it was just a perk to our blooming relationship. But somewhere deep inside me knows that we wouldn't have talked at all if it weren't for this.

The next day, we clean out our lockers and move back to our original ones. It's slightly bittersweet, and me and Scarlett laughed as we argued over who got the polaroids we had taken at the park that one night.

Three days later, Friday, Scarlett comes over after school and I teach her how to make Teriyaki Chicken with White Rice. She had said she was really craving it.

She had cheered when she tried the finished product; it really was good.

_._._._._._._._

Weeks after I had originally found—and stolen—the Hydrocodone, is when the bottle finally empties. I had tried not to think about the rapidly-deteriorating collection of pills in the bottle. But the past week, when I noticed the bottle was hollow of its usual contents, was when I could feel the stutter and drop of my heart in my chest.

Sat in my stomach; my once-steadily beating heart had started to erratically pound in my chest.

I wasn't too worried about getting any negative side effects, whatever that means. I was worried I would be left stranded; standing, watching my reality crumble from afar. Helpless to do anything but watch the pieces fall, unable to do anything at all.

The next morning marks 2 days sober—the longest in a week—and I woke up with a lump in my throat and an itch in my brain. Going downstairs, I had found my dad lounged on the leather couch and mindlessly watching a football game on the television. There had been a voice in my head; whispering, he's drunk, he's drunk, he's drunk.