What Happened After

Chapter 5

"You scared me half to death. I thought it was gonna be something terrible." 

Chapter 5.

     Thanksgiving was quickly approaching, and the temperature in Berkeley was finally dropping pretty steadily. People everywhere were hustling and bustling all over town, Christmas shopping and scouting out the best deals becoming available on Black Friday. Classes were pretty relaxed as we approached the upcoming break, and I didn’t have any homework to occupy my time. I spent most of my days riding my bike around town and reading in the lounge of my building.

     “Lo” hadn’t called me at all since that day at the sandwich shop, much to mine and Taryn’s relief. However, neither of us had forgotten the calls. I waited anxiously each day for that boy to call again, so that I could answer it and find out who he was/what he wanted. Taryn waited with the same anxiety to wrestle the phone out of my hands if he needed to. Taryn was scared, and I understood that. But there was no way he was as nervous as I was.

     Because if this guy had Lauren’s phone, then that meant that he was probably near home.

     And I was going home for Thanksgiving break.

~~~~~~~~~~

     I heard my parents before I saw them. But apparently, they had already seen me. “There she iiiiiissss!” I heard my mom cry. “Rayn! Over here, honey!” I turned toward the sound and noticed my mom and dad standing near a vending machine, each holding up half of a “Welcome Home Rainbow” sign. I’m sure that the rest of the airport assumed I was coming back from a year at sea, rather than a few months at college less than twelve hours away, based on my parents’ reactions to seeing me.

     “Hey, guys,” I said, currently in the middle of a group hug. “Good to be back.”

     “Good to have you back!” my dad cheered. Now, I had kept up my side of the bargain and called my parents bi-weekly since I left for school. It wasn’t as if I had cut them out of my life. This was a little over-the-top.

     “What’s up? You guys okay?” I asked, nervously.

     “Why would you think anything was wrong?” my mom responded.

     “Nothing, it’s just—you’re really, really happy to see me. It’s only been a few months, you know? No need to go overboard.” I was being a bitch and I was aware of it. The truth was, I had been seated next to a screaming baby for the entire flight, and I hadn’t slept at all the previous night. Honestly, I was worried about ‘Lo’ finding me. If the guy knew who I was, then he probably knew I would come home for Thanksgiving. After all, why wouldn’t I?

     “Well, we have every reason to be over the moon that our little girl is home,” my mom said, giving my shoulder a squeeze. We were now heading over to baggage claim. “Wait until you see what we’ve done with your room. We’ve turned it into a guest bedroom, painted the walls and everything. It looks absolutely amazing.” Awesome, so I was a guest in my own house now.

     The car ride home was pretty uneventful. My parents asked me questions about college that they already knew the answer to, as I had spoken to them over the phone plenty of times in the last few months, and answered the same questions then. I could tell that they were just trying to make small talk in order to distract me from something. What I had to figure out was what that was.

     All in all, my town looked the same. Of course, it had only been a mere three months. I wasn’t sure what I had expected. Somehow I expected everything around me to be different. I expected my old favorite restaurants to have been knocked down, new ones built in their place. I expected my high school to have shut down, not knowing what to do after their class of 2012 valedictorian and salutatorian failed to show up to graduation. I expected to see neighbors out in their yards, still mourning the loss of the town’s star football player and all-around teen. Instead, I saw that the town was no different than it had been last June. My restaurants were still there, still running just fine. The high school was still standing, functioning like normal, leaving me to wonder if a memorial of Kale and Lauren had even been set up within the school’s walls. The neighbors were out in the cold air, greeting loved ones travelling in for the holidays. Kaleb was forgotten. Lauren was forgotten. And I was forgotten.

     When we finally pulled up to my driveway, I noticed one home improvement already. My mom had been excited to show me what had been done to the house since I left, and here I was looking at our new and improved garage. Well, not so much improved as cleaned. Nothing else had been done really, besides a few pieces of junk being thrown out. Still, for my mom, getting rid of a little clutter was monumental. I knew that it probably took my dad a solid few weeks to get her to give up her crap.

     “What do you think?” my mom asked cheerily once she saw me eyeing the garage. I had to humor her; it was part of the ‘new me.’

     “It looks great, mom. Can’t wait to see what else you’ve done inside.”

     She beamed at me, then called to my dad to grab my bags from the trunk. “Come on, Rainbow, I made you homemade cookies for your arrival. They’re just in the kitchen, and they’re to die for.”

     I followed my mom inside and was immediately slapped in the face with purple. The large wall facing the front door had been painted a deep, dark purple, and a bright red couch sat in front of it, a large mirror placed dead-center. My mom called it an ‘accent wall,’ and she had been talking about having one for years. Noticing my surprise, she whispered, “Don’t you just love that? I saw on the Ellen Show that an accent wall really livens up your living space, and the woman at Ikea said these two colors worked best together. Don’t you agree?”  

     I mean, I didn’t, but it didn’t hurt to lie. “Totally, mom. I think it looks awesome.”

     “Oh, thank you! Here, have a cookie.” She handed me one of the treats. “Now, Rayn, there was something your dad and I wanted to talk to you about. About Thanksgiving. We didn’t want to mention it on the phone, or in the car. We thought this might be best if you were in the comfort of your own home before you heard this.” She was holding onto a dish towel tightly, pulling at the corners like she always did when she was nervous about something.

     “What’s up, mom? Is this about how weird you guys were acting at the airport?”

     She nodded, slightly. “Kind of…”

     “Alright, well how bad can it be? Just lay it on me, mom. I promise I won’t be mad.”

     Right then my dad came into the living room holding my carry-on and dragging my suitcase. “I think the wheel broke on this thing,” he said. “It sounds like it’s scraping up against the ground. I didn’t do it though, I promise,” he added.

     “Scott, I was just about to tell Rayn the news about this Thursday,” my mom solemnly told my dad. Immediately, he dropped the bags and walked over to put a hand on her shoulder. This was serious.

     “Rayn…” my mom started.

     “…What? Is this really that important, because I was going to—“

     “We’re having guests over for Thanksgiving this year.”

     Oh.

     “That’s it? Jeez, you scared me half to death. I thought it was gonna be something terrible. Who is it? Do I know them, or are they just friends from work or something?”

     “It’s two people,” my dad began. “And you know them pretty well, actually. I’m not sure when the last time you spoke to them was, it was probably sometime in June after the funeral…”

     Oh shit. I did not like where this was going.

     “Dad,” I whispered. “Who is it?”

     “The Andersons,” my dad whispered back. My heart dropped and my stomach immediately knotted up.

     Kaleb’s parents.