Road to Someplace

Chapter Seven

         

I spent a few of my nights cussing out Raveena via text. I wasn't especially angry at her. I was really more mildly irritated than anything else. However, I wasn't going to throw an opportunity to insult Raveena using some of the most creative profanity known to man. I got a laugh out of it, and so did she. After a rather lengthy bout of compound obscenities and innovative insults, Raveena invited me out as an "apology", which I figured was just going to be part of her plan. I wasn't mad, and abandoning me in a parking lot was extremely mild for her.

I gave an intricate lie about going to a study group to my parents, which took some serious writing and planning beforehand. Deceiving my parents took great amounts of skill. I had certainly developed an aptitude for it over the years.

I walked a few blocks away from my house. Raveena picked me up, and we began to head out of the suburbs. She wordlessly tossed me one of her many CD cases. I flipped through them. I decided on a blank CD that Raveena had made. She had written on it in permanent marker, "Crappy Music Marcas Likes" the title was accompanied by a stick figure with red hair in the corner.

We drove for about fifteen minutes. Raveena had pulled onto a gravel and dirt road. I felt like I could feel every pebble beneath the car's wheels. She pulled it over into a patch of dying grass, and we hopped out. We trudged across a dirt trail, coming to a chain-link fence. Across the fence were signs reading things like, "Stay out" "No Trespassing" and a few others whose messages had been scratched out and replaced with the words "Asshat" and some other tags. We opened the gate, and stepped past. Who ever had put up the signs had neglected to put a padlock on the fence in the first place, so it was easy to get into the area.

Raveena had brought me to that place when we were in about sixth grade, when we first began to hang out more. She had her braces back then, her mouth filled with shiny silver brackets and neon green rubber bands. She hadn't gotten her contacts yet either, so she wore rainbow-striped glasses. I was still pretty twitchy and nervous back then, so I was extremely apprehensive about lying to my parents, so going into a restricted area was way over the line. I guess back then she had already begun to wield the power of making me do whatever the hell she wanted.

Back then, I had no idea where we were going, and I was surprised to see something as innocent as a lake. It barely constituted as a lake, though. It was a giant dirt hole in the ground, surrounded by trees and rocks, filled up with a shallow level of murky water. There was no vegetation in the water itself. The trees around it had dying leaves, and all the grass around the lake was patchy and yellowed. The middle of the lake went deep, but aside from that, the water was incredibly shallow. It was an ugly hole in the ground

To me, it seemed like a peaceful paradise.

It had first been declared "Lake Raveena" then "R&M Pond" briefly "BS Hole" and then, finally, "Lake Asshat" which ending up sticking. It even had a few of Raveena's CDs named after it.

Raveena was carrying a bundle of blankets in one arm. She laid them down on one of the dirt hills overlooking the pond. We sat on top of them, batting away the occasional bug that whizzed by.

It was getting a little darker out, and it was nearing the end of the afternoon. I turned to Raveena. "So, what did you bring me out here for?" I asked, scratching at my scalp. "Nothing," She replied. I rolled my eyes. "Sure," I said, not believing her for a second. She cracked a grin, which faded. She gazed at the skyline, past the ugly mounds of dirt and rocks surrounding the lake. She turned slightly in my direction, a focused look on her face.

"You know what's weird?" She asked, looking more serious than usual. "What?" I replied, raising an eyebrow. "Technically, right now, I could do whatever I wanted. I could go jump in that lake. I could go hug a random stranger. I could leap off a building. I could scream at the top of my lungs. I could go run for miles without stopping. I could do anything with my life right now," She said, sounding rather sullen. I nodded slowly, pursing my lips. I only had a second to seriously consider what she was saying before I felt hands on my neck, squeezing at my throat.