Where We Begin

Chapter 36 - Keep Me Updated

Nov 9th, 2002 - Taylor

My phone finally lit up on the nightstand. Busta had slipped out the window over a half hour ago and I had been laying awake since, hoping he got home without incident. I opened the text:

Are you still awake?

That didn't seem like a good sign. I decided to call.

"What's up?" I asked, after he picked up on the first ring.

"I can't talk long, but my mom caught me coming home. I tried to cover but it wasn't worth it. She knows I was at your house and I'm grounded for, I don't know, I think a couple days. She wasn't extremely clear." 

My heart skipped a beat. "Does she know we..."

"I don't know that either," Busta said. "She was kind of cool about it, but kind of weird. She was all like, I don't want to know what happened, but she was also like don't fuck up again, then she took off for a run. I think she's just as confused as we are."

"Well, keep me updated, I guess? On whatever your grounding situation is, whatever else she says about it?" I was hit by a hefty realization. "Busta, is your mom going to call my parents?"

There was a pause. "She said she had to think about it. Hey, I think I hear her, I have to go. I promise, I'll take care of it... I'll try to."

He hung up hastily, before I could say anything else.

* * * * *

I never did fall back asleep, but instead got up to do laundry. I had the girls coming over tonight, so I obviously had to wash the bed linens. Better to get it over with now.

A couple hours later, before dad woke up, Kristen came home. I reminded her of the simple story we were sticking to and that her piggy bank got a little bit fatter overnight for it. My dad came downstairs soon after, and made us all a late breakfast. He didn't suspect a thing. 

I reminded him that I was having the girls sleep over and he nodded from behind the sports page. Dad always spent those nights locked in his office with a cigar, a scotch and some old cowboy movies to drown out our noise. He acted like he hated when my sister and I threw slumber parties, but I knew he really loved the excuse to go into full man cave mode.

In the afternoon, I decided to  make cookies for my friends. Kristen actually offered to help too. I think she was really loving the extra "drama" that she got to take part in over the past couple months, even though she knew about 5% of the real stories. 

"So what happened last night? What's the big secret?" Kristen pried, when we were alone in the kitchen.

"Nothing interesting," I mumbled, concentrating on measuring out sugar.

My sister folded her arms. "Busta came over, didn't he? Did he stay all night?"

"Maybe." I shot her a look. She raised an eyebrow. "He didn't stay all night. We just had to talk about some things... I thought I paid you to not ask questions."

"I bet you were having sex."

"Excuse me?" I nearly dropped the cup of sugar in my hand. Where was this sassy, know-it-all attitude coming from? Well, I guess I could have something to do with that, but not the point...

I took a good look at my sister, who had turned 12 and grown about a foot this past year. Kristen had gone through a bit of a tomboy phase a while back, but her curves and her sense of style were slowly becoming more apparent. I actually caught her trying on my old homecoming dresses over the summer. There was still a baby face under those strawberry blonde waves and pillowy pout (a signature among the ladies in our family), but who knows how much longer that would last.