Dark Room

Back home for a while

When I got back home I was met by my dad and my grandparents but also an envelope in the mail box. I walked in the house through the front door after locking my car and checking the mailbox. My dog ran up to the door and pounced on me before I could stop him. My dad met me and hugged me at the door same with my grandparents.
"Ey Cal, how's life been? You're the same height as me now!" My grandfather says.
"I was as tall as you months ago Grandpa." I say confused as to why he said that.
"Dementia hit him hard I guess." My grandmother says. We all walk into the living room and I open up the envelope addressed to me from the mailbox. My face must've brightened up when I saw it
because my grandmother commented.
"What's it say?" she said. It was my first paycheck for the military it was the smallest but back then for a teenager it was a massive amount of money. It was 80,000 dollars for a hit and run job.
"Nothing, just a letter my old friend sent me telling me he got with his crush." I say as my dad swipes the envelope right out of my hands.
"Lies. this is your first military- HOLY SH#T!!!!! 80,000!!!!" He gives me the envelope back and swings his arms in the air a little bit.
"You can fix the engine in the 3 Series and still have plenty of money left! That's great." he says. My grandmother and grandfather all look at me bewildered.
"You joined the military?" My grandmother says.
"Son, you didn't think to console us before letting him join?" my grandfather says to my dad. Knowing this was going to start another massive family fight I stayed to listen.
"I thought it would be good for him. Also why should you care? He's my son anyways." My dad says as my grandfather shakes his head.
"There's also some other things you don't know that happened recently. Like I got a girlfriend!" I say. My grandparents look at my dad as he shrugs his shoulders. They then look at me and my grandfather face palms.
"You are too young for a relationship!" He says as he gets up.
"Come on dad. You and mom got together before you ended your second year of highschool." My dad says to him. My grandfather sits down and nods his head. I look at my watch and see it is 4 am.
"Okay, I need to go to bed so I can get some sleep before school tomorrow." I say as I get up and walk up to my bedroom. I sit down and then lay down on my bed. I didn't really think about much before I  went to sleep.
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I woke up to my alarm which went off at 6:30 in the morning. Which was painful but doable. I woke up, grabbed an apple and then did everything else to get ready for school. I grabbed my bag and walked out the door. I went to my car and noticed the front bumper had fallen down again.
"D#mn this thing does not want to stay on does it?" I say as I push the bumper back into place. I thought the tool guy at the program had fixed the front bumper. I guess it broke again then. Anyways I get back into the car and drive off to school. The nice winding roads make it a really nice drive to swing around the corners. When I pull into the school lot I see that the buses aren't even there. I see a white Cadillac Escalade pull into the lot as well. Its Claire's mom's car dropping everybody off Joan, Natalee, Aiden, And Claire all get out of the SUV then it drives off. I see one bus pull into the lot and drop off a ton of 9th graders. I get out of my car and grab my bag from the back seat. I see Aiden wave at me being overly friendly from across the parking lot. He hated me the other day. I walk up to the friend group.
"Hey, I heard you're famous now. You, Dash, and Jeremy. You were all over the news this morning." He says. I was so shocked I stopped walking for a moment.
"Wait how? What'd we do?" I ask. He pulls out his phone and shows me the news. It has pictures of the club from Washington DC Jezen in handcuffs outside. I hear Dash's loud Mustang pull into the school lot. Dash gets out of his car and looks at me shocked beyond belief.
"Dash. Have you checked the news?" I ask him. He looks at Aiden who is holding his phone up to him.
"No, WAIT WHAT!!!!" He says he looks back at me with Wide eyes
"How'd they get our information????" I ask.
"It shows we live here in LA." He says. Claire looks at me.
"Cal, what's going on?" She asks. I look at her in her eyes.
"The thing you saw in DC went public." I say quickly.
"Holy shit man. We are in danger." Dash says. I calm down a bit and think of the positives.
"Dash, I think we'll be okay. Just lay low and this news should pass over everyones head!" I say trying not to be a pessimist.
"Ok, I guess you're right." he says. Not happily but in a doubtful way. Claire looks at me with a confused look.
"Cal, Dash, Let's just forget about this for now." She says in a calming tone.
"Ok I'm good with that." I say still a little stressed from that being revealed. I walk into the highschool with Claire holding onto my hand. But I felt weird. Having been the reason someone died didn't sit well with me. Also the fact that the whole mission went public not even a week after the mission. People swarmed me and Dash in the hallways and asked constant questions. Everybody knew my Name Everyone knew Dash and Jeremy too. But there were the few smart ones that shied away from us. Knowing that we were part of the military was one reason to not like us but knowing the awful shit we had done that night was another really bad thing. These people would take no business being near us for long. Aiden resumed himself the next day. He continued saying awful shit about me around the school and had more reason too now. He also had worse stuff to say. Like I had killed a bunch of innocent people. He had continuously talked with Claire and seemed to have drilled it into her mind. That I was a killer and nothing else. This made me hate the job very quickly. A few weeks past over all of this and all the popular kids were trying to become my friends. I didn't want to be friends with them. I wanted to stay friends with the people I became friends with in the beginning. One monday I went to school and all seemed to have been forgiven. Aiden still hated me for it but the popular kids sunk back into their friend groups and stopped trying to be friends with me. When I went to lunch I sat beside Claire like I usually do while she was sitting with her friend group. We talked about the usual school drama and who pissed off who. But then the topic switched quickly.
"Hey I'm hosting a party Friday night do you wanna go?" Claire asked. Aiden looked at her angrily. Joan hits him in the arm and he goes back to normal.
"Sure I'm good with that. Are you parents g#nna b# h#me?" I ask. I didn't mean it in a different way than just asking but I realized what Claire thought a few seconds after I said it.
"Ummm, N- no." She says as she blushes a little. Oh no, that's when my little #ss brain finally caught up with what I said.
"Oh I'm so sorry. Not like that." I say. I don't wanna be the guy that she remembers as a s#x cr#ved dumb#ss.
"Don't worry about it." She says looking at me straight in the eyes, her still blushing a little bit. She seems to wipe the blush off her face in an instant whenever she looks back to Joan, Natalee, Ky, Aiden, and a confused Levi who was very surprised. Claire clears her throat and then speaks some.
"So this is gonna be a massive party where a bunch of people from this school are going so make sure to dress like what you want people to remember." She says. She looks back at me and puts her hand on my shoulder.
"Uhhhhh... Anyways, forgetting about that, what's going to be at the party?" Joan asks.
"B##r and probably some other stuff." She says.
"Okay that's cool. What time is the party." I ask.
"It starts at 7 and ends at 12." She replies. This would be nice. I could finally get my head off of everything that had happened recently And I also had something to look forward to. I texted Claire a bit after school and she asked if we could go hangout somewhere that night and I said sure. I drove to her house and picked her up. We drove in the car for a while just talking about random stuff. Until she told me to turn right on an old road. I drove down the road just a little and it stopped at an old lake.
"How do you know about this place?" I asked her. She gets out the car before I do.
"I used to come here all the time with my parents." She said.
The lake was quiet and went out to the ocean. It was a light clear blue. The setting sun rose over it and reflected onto it.)
"We come here to watch the sunset?" I ask.
"Yeah." She says. I hadn't paid much attention to it since I moved but man was I glad to see it now with her. We walked to a sandy beach area. She sat down in the dry sand and I sat down right next to her. The sky was colored yellow, orange, and pink.
"Have you done this before?" I ask.
"Yes I have." She replies. I wrap my arm around her shoulders.
"We should've done this sooner." I say I look down at her a little bit. I take my arm off her shoulder and lay down on the cold sand. She lays down with me on the sand. I remembered my friends from New York saying repeatedly "w rizz" and stupid sh#t like that when I did something similar with my ex. It made me laugh a bit. I look at her again, her head right next to mine.
"What're you laughing about?" She asks.
"Just my old friends. I remembered something that happened a long time ago." I say. She turns her head and looks at me. She kisses me on the cheek. We watch as the sun goes down.
"Do you think Aiden is gonna try and drug me at the party?" I say. She laughs a bit.
"Maybe." She replies.