Ten Things

Ch.22-Toxic Angels

Cole

I wanted to vomit. I wanted to bash my head against a stone wall and throw up to get rid of the wretched pains coursing through me. They were uncomfortable and oppressing and especially heavy on my left side.

I was sitting in my car, had been for the past twenty minutes. I was still on the curb of Grace’s house. There was only a single light on, in the kitchen. I could see her father moving around through the window. I didn’t feel angry anymore, not since having it out with Grace. Just exhausted and weary.

“You weren’t supposed to find out.”

That one line kept running circles through my head, like a broken record. Over and over and fucking over again.

Grace had cancer.

Grace didn’t want me to know.

Grace found out about the bet.

I tipped forward, resting my head against the steering wheel for a second. My mind was frazzled and spiraling in all sorts of directions. Who told her? What did she think of me?

Why did I care?

I opened my eyes, staring listlessly at the floor of the car, forehead still against the leather wheel. I could still see her, in my mind’s eye. Like some damn angel who had injected me with her heavenly poison. It was under my skin and no matter what I did I couldn’t get it out.

In the end we tricked each other. I couldn’t help but chuckle humorlessly, in the emptiness of my car. How about that?

I knew, as my time lingering at her house passed the thirty-minute mark, that it was time for me to go home. It sort of didn’t feel right, leaving. I couldn’t explain why, but some part of me was wholly against it.

 I promptly told that side of me to shut the hell up and floored the gas before I could change my mind.

There was something I had to do before anything else.

***

I cut the engine of my bike outside of the immaculate house before me. I was pretty sure it was around midnight, but I didn’t have a great sense of time at the moment. It was safe to say I was still reeling from recent events.

I swung my leg over the side and sauntered up the bricked path, helmet tucked under my arm. When I stopped on his porch I rang the doorbell three times, just to be sure they heard it. It was about five minutes before somebody finally opened the door.

“Jesus, who the hell is it—Cole? What are you doing on my step in the middle of the night?”

I tossed the helmet and the keys on the floor by his feet. “Take it,” I muttered. “It’s yours.”

He blinked. “But we still have another month.”

I shrugged. “Things happen, Jayden. So there, do what you want with it.”

I turned around, shoving my hands in my pockets. I made my way to leave, but Jayden stopped me. “Wait, Cole.”

I stopped on his step, indicating for him to continue.

He sighed. “What did Grace do to you?” he finally asked quietly.

“Too much,” I replied, and started on the long walk home. It might have been late and it might have been cold, but I needed some time to think.

***

When I walked into my house, it was silent and dark. I took that as a well-deserved blessing. Usually one or both of my parents could be found pacing the kitchen or locked in their office, a wedge of light spilling out into the darkness, chatting away on their expensive phones to business associates. It seemed it was a quiet night.