Eighteen

All Too Well

                              CHAPTER SEVEN

"So." I couldn't take the silence anymore. "We're staying in the car?"

If Avery was also affected by the heat, she hid it well.

I half hoped she would wave the white flag on this one so that we could get out before the warmth returned. But I knew that was never going to be the case.

She was going to sit there. Stewing. Until she completed her reign of terror, or at least until the anger finally fizzled out.

And of course, I was going to stay with her.

"No," Her response caught me off guard. But I wasn't going to try to convince her otherwise.

We met on the sidewalk. The air was still like a thick wool blanket that wrapped itself around everything in its path.

"Isn't Lydia's house up the street from here?" Avery asked.

From close up, it was easier to see each chip and crack in the red that painted the building. "Yeah, I pass by this place all the time. I had no idea it was an apartment."

It looked almost industrial. There were the usual homely details: a black mailbox and a worn-down doorbell. It even had a number two nailed to the front door, although it was off-centered.

But I wouldn't go as far as to say that it looked like a place that a family would come home to. "Should we just go in?"

Avery's face looked as clueless as mine. "I don't know. I mean, Aiden did say we could come up." Her tone was unconvincing.

"Right, but this isn't even his house."

It wasn't until then that I noticed the old woman standing at the door of the conjoining apartment, her wrinkled eyes watching us through the mesh screen. "Let's just go."

"You go first," Avery whispered. I parted my lips to speak, annoyed by her obstinance. "Fine," And then I remembered that there was nothing I could say that would change that fact.

She followed closely behind me as I walked up the cement steps. I knew that if I gave myself the time to change my mind, I would. So without thinking, my hand met the metal, and I pushed the door open.

The tension in my chest subsided when we walked inside, and all that was waiting for us was a long staircase. The wood was dated and scuffed. And no matter how gently I climbed, the floorboards creaked beneath me.

"These stairs are really narrow." Avery's voice echoed off the paneling.

I said nothing. The tension had lessened, but it hadn't left me completely.

"That's so crazy. We've been thinking about selling too." I could hear Aiden's voice getting closer as we tiptoed on the checkered kitchen tiles.

I took a breath. It was quiet. I'm sure even Avery missed it. Then I walked towards the threshold.

There was a stand-up fan rotating in the corner, and I could feel the breeze caressing the skin on my legs. "You guys don't have to stand there. You can come in," Aiden said, but my eyes were too concentrated on the turquoise blue that colored the walls.

Besides the fan, there wasn't much furniture in the room. Truthfully, I don't think they could fit anything else into the space, even if they wanted to.

The coffee table took up a suffocating amount of what little room there was to offer, and it was pushed right up to the beige couch.

"Maybe you guys could help me out sometime. I get the stuff from my uncle." Nathan was too preoccupied to acknowledge us as we formulated a path across the room. 

"You know what you need to do?" Aiden placed a joint between his lips. "Start promoting your stuff online. Let people know that you're selling." He puffed out the smoke alongside his words.

"Jack, didn't your cousin sell for a little? What did he do?"

There were four cushions. Nathan sat furthest from us, with Aiden at his side. Avery and I played it safe and huddled together on one. And on the fourth was Jackson.

He was hidden from each ray of sunlight that slipped through the windows and had on a plain white t-shirt that was too big on his arms.

"He sold pills." The voice that left his throat was deep and raspy, almost like a croak.

"Oh," Aiden replied. "You guys wanna hit this?" He motioned to the burning joint as he handed it off to Nathan.

I turned to look at Avery. She was already promptly shaking her head. So I let that be our answer.

"Jack!" Like a deer in headlights, Aiden's eyes widened. "What are you doing? We're gonna be late! Go get your stuff." The words were serious, but his tone was lighthearted enough to dismiss any malice.

Jackson didn't say anything; he just sighed. Then he peeled his body from the cushion and disappeared into the other room.

"Did you guys hear about that party tonight?"Aiden maneuvered his way through the inch of space between the table and couch and followed him through the threshold. "Apparently everyone's gonna be there."

He called from the other room. "Yeah. I was probably gonna go," Nathan replied.

Slowly, Avery turned to me. She didn't need to use words; the crooked expression on her face told me all that I needed to know.

"Anyone want one of these?" Aiden returned from the threshold with a brown paper bag in his hands. "Jack's mom bought us these before she got arrested."

He emptied the contents onto the table; a large collection of shooters now shared the table with snack wrappers and crinkled receipts.

"Why are there so many?" Nathan put out the joint inside the ashtray in front of him and grabbed for the bottle with the tiny green lid.

"I asked Sara to get us whatever she could with a twenty, and she came out with a bag of these," Aiden reached for the red one.

"Faith." He looked at me. "Avery." His eyes danced back and forth between the two of us.

Avery shook her head beside me.

"I'll do one." I didn't even realize the words were coming up my throat until it was too late.

Aiden smiled. "Alright, Faith!" His enthusiasm comforted the part of me that would have to apologize to Avery later.

The vibrant colors were deceiving. They were all going to taste like acid. But I figured that blue was probably going to be my safest bet.

"Jack, you're doing a shot with us."

Jackson returned from the other room with the same white t-shirt and black sweatpants on, except this time there was a red graduation gown thrown over top.

"Are you sure you don't want one?" Aiden persisted.

"We're about to walk the stage," Avery argued.

"So?" The cluelessness in his voice was sincere, as if her morals didn't not match what he believed.

It was silent for a moment, like Aiden was waiting for her to miraculously change her mind. "I guess it's just us," he finally said, and he broke the seal on his tiny liquor bottle.

Everyone followed suit. Nathan and Jackson twisted off their lids, and so did I.

"Cheers to graduation!" Aiden lifted the plastic slightly in the air, his eyes peering over at his friend. "And free Cassie."

It went down my throat in one large gulp. The blue raspberry berry flavoring only sort of took pity on me; for the most part, it tasted like cleaning supplies.

I hated the bitter taste that lingered on my tongue even after the shot was sitting warm in my stomach. But the tingling at my fingertips was a sensation I knew all too well.

Eighteen © Wordstothewise ™ 2024