The Summer that Changed Everything

Chapter 13: A Twist of Fate

       Chris was tired. It was 9:30 at night. He just got done cleaning up the hallways. His muscles ached all over from pushing the vacuum and mop all over the floor. The only thing nice was the breeze in the air. It softly caressed his face. He walked on with his bag lugged over one shoulder and saw a distant figure standing by a cemetery gate. He walked past and noticed that it was Lennie. She opened the gate and walked in holding a flashlight, beaming it down a path. He decided to follow.

"Hey." Chris called out after her.

She turned around to face him.
"What are you doing?" He asked. "You can get in trouble for being here this late."
"Yeah? What does it matter though anyway? I get in trouble for everything. I can't do anything right! "Oh, Lennie you are soo thoughtless. Oh Lennie you lost your head again." She mocked whoever was making her so miserable. "Vern, doesn't think there is anything wrong with her as long as he gets his share of cookies."
"What are you talking about?" Chris asked.
"My stepmother. My new extended family. Who else?" Lennie stated.
She climbed a hill—he followed. She sat next to a tombstone and held her arms under her legs. She pressed her knees to her chest. Chris looked at the name. It read: Louise Miller. Loving Mother, sister—friend.
"Is this your mom?" He asked her.
"No. They just share the first name. My mom was laid to rest in my town. I stumbled onto this by accident one day while passing through. I come here to talk to her sometimes to ask her to pass on messages to my mom, until I am old enough to travel there by myself. But I plan on going there sooner than you think, because I'm running away."
Chris looked at her with a concerned expression on his face.
"Lennie, I know you don't like the situation here, but you can't run away." He told her.
"Why not?" She asked.
"Because you are just a kid." He told her.
"Thanks, Dad." She said back.
"I wish I were your dad you wouldn't be talking about running away if I were." Chris told her.
"I'll manage." Lennie told him.
"Yeah how?" He asked.
"I've been planning it for months. I have enough money saved up. I can take a train there to my old town first to pay my respects to my mother, and then I'll be on my way to California where I am going to live." Lennie said.
"Whose gonna look after you?" Chris asked.
"I can take care of myself." She told him.
"Maybe when you are 18. But you're only 12 years old." Chris told her.
"I'm 13." She reminded him.
"Yeah ok, that makes a big difference." Chris said.
"Well, if you are so concerned about me going there by myself, then why don't you come along? I mean you hate your family too. Eyeball is an idiot and you father always beats you. This town has no respect for you at all."
"Believe me Lennie, I'd love to go to California. But I'm just a kid too. And we'd both need a job there which we won't get." Chris said.
"I don't care if I have one or not. I'd rather be homeless than to live with them." Lennie said.
"You are talking crap now." Chris told her.
"So what, it's not like anyone would care when I'm gone." Lennie said.
"That's not true. The guys would care! You think I would bother to follow you here if I wasn't your friend or I didn't care about you?" Chris asked her.
Lennie started to wipe tears from her eyes.

"Our families sure suck don't they?" Chris sighed and put his arm over her shoulder. He brought her closer towards him. "Comehere." She started to cry on his arm. "You've been through a lot." He held her tighter. "Listen, things will get better. You have to be stronger than them. What doesn't kill us makes us stronger, right?"
She wiped her eyes again and nodded.
"Yeah." She considered.
"Ok." He smiled her and let her wipe the tears in her eyes on the sleeves of his white shirt.
Chris got up from where he was sitting. He turned towards Lennie. "We should head back. The gatekeeper is probably making his rounds or something."
"Alright." Lennie placed her hands on her thighs and then stood up and stretched. She went to walk towards him, but accidentally tripped over a small white stone and ended up in his arms.
"Ooh!" She said.
Chris caught her just in time before she toppled over.
"You alright?" He asked.
"Um. Yeah. Thanks." She awkwardly took a step back. "Yeah, I'd be wonderful actress in California wouldn't I? I can't even walk straight."
"Well, you're not going, so you won't have to worry about tripping in front of anyone... well not till you are allowed to vote at least." Chris said.
She laughed.
- - -
Down the block, Teddy and Vern were out at night walking. They were discussing Lennie wanting to run away. Vern had told him earlier that she had planned to go to California. "She won't get as far as Virginia I bet." Teddy said. "And you—maybe if you are lucky you'd make it to the Back Harlow Road by yourself. You're too fat to make it another state."
"Jeeze. Lennie must really have it bad over there." Vern said.
"She has her panties in a knot, because of her father marrying Ace's mother, that's all." Teddy explained.
"Well, wouldn't you?" Vern asked.
"I'm not pussy enough to run away, though." Teddy said. "Hey, listen." Teddy smacked Vern against the shoulder. They stood at the section of my fence and yard.
"What?" Vern stopped.
They were just about to reach his fence when they heard muttering and swearing up ahead.
"Dammit!" I flew down the stairs and kicked a metal can across the yard. "Dammit! Dammit!" The can flew past Teddy's head. He ducked.
"Shit, where the hell did that come from?" Teddy asked.
"Gordie, kicked it." Vern pointed.
"Gordie, you alright?" Teddy asked.
I was crying in the nook of my arm. He ran past them. They followed. Vern and Teddy stopped by me by the cemetery gates. My back was away from them. I was shaking.
"Gordie, what happened?" Teddy asked.
"My dad hit me, that's what happened! Jesus, he's never hit me before except for the time I ate bleach under the sink. Everyone got along better when Denny was alive, now my father can barely stand me. I wish I were dead."
"Gordie." Vern said. "Come on, it's gonna be alright."
"Yeah." Teddy told me. "Just come back to my house for a little while so your old man could cool off. Then you can go back home."
"No. I'm running away!" I said.
"Not you too." Vern sighed.
I climbed over the cemetery gate. Teddy went after me. Vern couldn't climb over, so he just took the easy way by opening the gate and closing it.
"Guys wait up!" Vern said
He looked around. He was spooked."Gordie, couldn't you have just ran away to Teddy's house? Cemeteries give me the creeps."
Teddy jumped down from the tree and scared the shit out of him. "Yah!"
Vern flinched.
"Don't do that!" Vern gritted his teeth.
Teddy punched him in the arm twice.
"Two for flinching." Teddy told him.
"Where did Gordie go?" Vern asked him.
"How the hell should I know? I was waiting for your fat ass and then I lost him." Teddy said.
"Well, you better find him. He could fall into a man whole or something and end up into a rotten corpse with maggots crawling out of his eye sockets." Vern said.
"Shut up, Vern." Teddy said.
Lennie and Chris started to head out. When Lennie stopped and looked to her left, Chris asked what was wrong.
"I hear someone crying." Lennie said.
They both walked around a monument and peaked around the corner.
"Gordie?" Lennie looked surprised.
"Gordie, are you alright?" Chris ran over toward him. I wiped my eyes. I was coughing really loud and wiping snot from my nose.
"I'd offer you are handkerchief but the only thing I have is my sleeve." Chris said.
"I already wiped my nose on my own sneeze." I told him. "But thanks anyways."
"What happened?" Chris asked me.
I stood up from the ground.
"I told my father at the dinner table that he cared about Denny more than he did me and he hit me." I explained.
"Damn. That's pretty rough." Chris said.
"It's true though. He'd deny it until he's blue in the face. But it's true. All of it." I said.
"Gordie. You don't need him. He doesn't care about you. We care about you. Your mother cares about you. Don't listen to anything that bastard tells you ever." Chris said.
We could hear Teddy and Vern mumbling in the distance.
"I hear someone. We should go." Vern said.
"Don't be a baby." Teddy told him. "We have to see that Gordie is alright first and then you can go back home to play with your dolls."
They walked around the bend and stop right in front of us.
"See was that so hard?" Terry asked.
"Gordie, are you still running away?" Vern asked. "Because I can't handle having you and Lennie both going away to California."
I looked at my cousin.
"What were you planning on doing in California?" I asked her.
"Nothing." Lennie said. "I don't want to go there anymore. Chris talked me out of it."
"Oh." I said.
Chris leaned up against the monument's wall and folded his arms across his chest.
"I found out which teacher ratted me out for smoking. It was the same bitch that used the milk money I tried to give back for her stupid skirt. God, I hate her." Chris said.
"Maybe you should take your cigarette and burn a hole through it." I told him.
"Yeah." Lennie agreed. "Maybe she is hoping for a raise, so that way she won't have to steal the milk money for new clothes."
Chris laughed. "Good one, Len."
"I had a shitty day too." Teddy said. "I got kicked out of wrestling for hitting Milo's idiotic son for saying my dad was crazy."
"So that's why he had that black eye." Chris understood now. "Good shiner."
"How was your club today?" I asked Vern.
"Not that great, Gordie." Vern started. "I go there to meet up with the moderator and it ended up being canceled."
"Not enough desperate participants?" Chris asked. He and Lennie both chuckled.
"Who knows..." He sighed. "I guess the whole idea of having a club solely dedicated to the wonderment of Pennies is only appealing to me."
"So that means that you were the moderator." Teddy said and laughed at him.
"Well, Vern maybe when you find your pennies under your porch, you'll have enough money to pay for members." I told him.
"I guess." Vern decided.
"So in some sort of twist of fate, you're saying we've all managed to arrive here at the same time, the same place, all having shitty days? Let's say we chill at the tree house, have a few smokes then call it a night?" Teddy offered.
"Not a bad idea." Chris said.

And that was how we all managed to get together. Lennie and I wanted to run away from our lives because they were unsatisfying, Teddy couldn't stand when people ranked on his old man, Chris never had a break at school, and Vern couldn't seem to find clubs that actually stayed together. It didn't really matter all that much though, you see. The only thing that we needed was each other. And it didn't matter if there wasn't enough people to join our club.
It only needed the five of us.