disappearance | a novel

| five |

I woke up to the sound of the doorbell ringing obnoxiously and Bailey barking angrily at the assaulter, and I yelled at her to shut up. I stood quickly and almost lost my balance as I made my way to the door, making sure to get my keys and whatnot so that I could make it back into the house. 

When I opened the door, Brody was standing there with red cheeks. "Damn, Chris, I've been standing here for like 15 minutes... What were you doing?"

I looked at him with one eyebrow raised as I tapped the doorframe, still struggling to fully wake up. "I was napping. You were taking forever, B." He put his hands up in surrender and laughed as I blinked rapidly and closed the door behind me, making sure to lock it before linking arms with my best friend as we walked to his car. He opened the door for me and I got into the passenger's side, soaking up the heat blowing rapidly from the vents as rap music played softly. After Brody got into the car, we headed off toward Samantha McKinney's party in Breckenridge Forest.

~

Once we arrived, we could see that there were innumerable amounts of cars parked all throughout the trees, so we struggled to find a place to park. Once we did, we got out of the car and were greeted with the sound of loud music, people laughing and talking, and the smell of fire and booze filled my nose; ah, high school. Brody and I walked toward the drink table, him picking up a beer and me a bottle of water. 

He made the decision to split up, so I found a place away from all of the action to sit and watch everyone's interactions at a safe distance. On one side of the clearing there were people doing kegstands, and on the other, there were guys from the football team arm wrestling over which one was going to get to fuck the girls watching. 

I wasn't sitting alone for very long before Samantha caught sight of me, waving and smiling. I returned the greeting kindly before she turned back to her friends. She wasn't a bad person, she was just terribly dumb; she'd fucked every guy on the football team, too. I looked around for a while longer until I felt a tap on my shoulder. I turned around to see Landon Miller, the quarterback. He was smiling warmly with a beer in one hand; he was tipsy.

"Hey, Christina, how's it hangin'?" I could tell that it was becoming difficult for him to stand on his own two feet, so I chuckled and patted the spot next to me on the stump I was occupying, and he sat.

"I'm good, Landon. How are you?" He shrugged and sighed, letting me know that he wasn't all too great. "Is everything okay with you and Sam? Why aren't you with her?"

Landon looked at the ground and fiddled with his shoe in the dirt, tapping his beer bottle with his fingers. "We aren't too good, honestly. Everything was okay until Thursday when I caught her with her tongue down Peter Lamb's throat. When I asked her what she was thinking, she just scoffed at me and did this," he stuck up his middle finger and scrunched his face up to mimic her reaction.

I tried not to laugh as I rubbed his back sympathetically, nodding my head. "I'm sorry, man. It's rough when you date someone who likes everyone else but you, huh?" He nodded his head in a scooping fashion, still looking down at the pine needles and leaves littering the forest floor. "I'll tell you what," I said, slapping him on the knee. "Let's go for a walk, and I'll give you some advice. Let's just set this down," I reached for his beer and gently took it from him, setting it on the stump as I stood up, grabbing his hand and pulling him up.

He smiled and sighed, straightening his body the best he could. "You're a good person, Chris. Thanks for this," Landon smiled with a dazed look on his face as I started walking toward a nearby trail. He followed and we talked, him seeming to become slightly more cognizant of our conversation as we walked further through the calming scenery.