Strands of Blue

Chapter 6: A turn for the better?

I walked Jeremy over to the box full of drugs and opened it up. Jeremy picked up a few bottles and inspected them.

"Interesting stash you got here," he said.

"Oh, these aren't mine," I said, cutting my eyes at him. He looked at me and laughed.

"You don't have to lie, we all have problems," he said, patting me on the shoulder. I didn't feel like fighting him, so I stayed quiet. Jeremy closed the box and carried it to his car. I walked over to El.

"So that's it? It's all him now?" I asked El.

"Yeah, it's his problem now." She sighed.

We all got back into Jeremy's car and headed back home. Silence had built up in the car, and the feeling of fear boiled up throughout my body. Once we got back to the house, I quickly and quietly climbed back through the window and went to sleep.

"Are you awake, Al?" Beau asked, shaking me in an attempt to get me up. I turned away.

"Go away." I groaned at him. He chuckled and gave me another nudge.

"Did you sleep ok?" He asked.

"No, I didn't go to sleep until three in the morning," I replied in a scratchy morning voice.

"Oh, sorry Al-pal."

"It's fine. You want to know why?"

"Why?" Beau raised an eyebrow.

"I got rid of every single bottle." I smiled and held up a hand to high-five Beau. His jaw dropped and he slapped his hand against mine.

"How in the hell did you do that, Al?" He asked with a huge, goofy smile on his face.

"This random friend of Ella's named Jeremy. He took the whole box and left with it. He's going to sell it," I said, sitting up. Beau leaned his back against the wall and took a sigh of relief. We both smiled at each other and then I got up and headed downstairs. Beau followed me.

"Good morning," Dad said, smiling at me. I smiled back. As I looked at his face, I noticed how similar it was to Jeremy's. I couldn't get that boy's face out of my head. I let it go and continued on with my day.

"Where's Mom?" I asked.

"She's running errands," he said, flipping through his newspaper. I looked at Beau, who looked like he'd been holding his breath.

"Are you ok, Beau?" I asked. He nodded and left to go sit in the living room. I went over to my dad and grabbed a few grapes off of his plate. He gave me the side eye and laughed.

"How's your sister?" Dad asked.

"She's ok. At least I think she is. She hasn't talked to me lately. Where is she, anyway?" I asked as I looked around.

"She's out with a friend. A boy," Dad said, rolling his eyes. I laughed and walked into the living room where Beau was waiting patiently. Was it Jeremy? I thought to myself. I shook my head and sat next to Beau on the couch.

"What do you wanna do today?" I asked. Beau looked at the ceiling and shrugged. I sighed and said, "You're no fun." He laughed. We sat there in silence for a little bit.

"Hey! Let's go look at our old photos!" I suggested. Beau nodded in agreement and we raced upstairs to my room. I pulled out a box from under my bed full of old pictures of Beau and I when we were younger.

"Hold on. I think there's more boxes in my dad's closet," I said. I went into my parent's room and opened up my dad's closet. I moved my dad's camera out of the way to get to the boxes underneath. I walked back into my room where I saw that Beau had already looked at a few photos.

"Hey, you were supposed to wait for me," I said.

"I got excited," he said, laughing. "Do you remember this one?" He showed me a photo of us at my tenth birthday party. My face was covered in cake icing and so was Beau's.

"You go through that box and I'll go through this one," I said. I opened up the box and looked through all our old photos. One of them was a picture of the time Beau and I built a giant pillow fort in the living room. Another one was a picture of when we caught lightning bugs in the backyard. I continued to flip through the pictures and found a letter for my dad. He hadn't opened it yet. It was from someone named Elizabeth. I set it on my night stand and decided to read it later. Beau showed me pictures of us on our first day of high school.

"My hair cut was so bad!" Beau laughed. I laughed with him and looked for more interesting photos. I picked up a picture from about 6 months ago, when we graduated.

"Hey, look at this one," I said, handing Beau the picture. Beau gasped and took it from my hands.

"Oh yea! I love this one, this was before..." Beau stopped. "This was before I pressured you into doing drugs. Sorry again, Al." His happy emotions suddenly disappeared. As if life had shot out of him and left him empty. I gently put my hand on his shoulder to comfort him.

"It doesn't matter what happened after the picture was taken. This picture was taken at a moment where we were happy. The photo is about that moment, not the moments after."

"You're right," he said, smiling. I took the picture from freshmen year and the photo from graduation and pinned them onto my wall.

"Well, that was fun and emotional, but I should go." Beau said. We said our goodbyes and he was gone.

I went downstairs and sat next to my dad, who was still flipping through the newspaper.

"Are you and Mom really getting a divorce?" I asked. He put down the newspaper and turned to me.

"Alex, I will be brutally honest with you. You're an adult and I feel that you can handle this type of stuff better than Ella so please don't discuss this with her. Yes, your mother and I have decided that we are getting a divorce. Both of us are happy with the decision and we hope that you and your sister understand." I was happy, yet torn.

"I support your decision," I said. Ella came home with a big smile on her face. She waved at me and then ran upstairs. I followed her upstairs and into our room.

"Where have you been?" I asked.

"I was out with a few friends," she replied.

"Was Jeremy there?" I asked.

"No, he was probably out selling your drugs. Why are you worried about him, anyway?" she asked.

"I just don't want it to be my fault if he ends up getting caught, or worse," I said. In reality, I couldn't stop thinking about him. He was such a strange character, he freaked me out. There was just something about him that made me uncomfortable.

"Don't worry, he'll be fine." El said.

"Dinner!" Mom yelled from downstairs. El and I rushed downstairs and into the kitchen. We saw a big bowl of spaghetti and a plate of garlic bread on the dining table. Dinner as a family? I thought to myself. It had not happened for a long time. I felt a flutter of joy build up in my stomach.

"The family has been going through some stress, and your father and I put this together to help calm some nerves," Mom said, handing El and I plates. I put my plate together with the steaming hot spaghetti and beautifully toasted bread, and took my seat at the table.

"This tastes amazing!" El said, stuffing her face. We all sit back and enjoy our time together.

"El, I wanted to say a few things now that we are all here together." Dad pauses. "I wanted to apologize to you and let you know that I do love you very much. I do appreciate you and I'm sorry I have been so distant." El started tearing up. She turned away and wiped away her tears.

"Thanks, Dad," she said. Mom smiled and gently placed her hand on Ella's shoulder.

Everything felt like it was finally getting better. At least up until I read Dad's letter.