We're just going home. Zack doesn't have a backup plan. I can tell by how white his face his right now. We're not heading to Carl's house. I'm not going to camp out in Elliot's van. I just have to go home.
Zack pulls into the driveway and walks me to the door with a miserable look on his face. I take my key out of my backpack and unlock the front door. I close my eyes, not wanting to be screamed at again, but I hear nothing.
I take a blind step. Still, silence. I move again, and kick something. My eyes open. A cardboard box is sitting at my feet, and it's filled with my clothes. I look around to find the room is empty. Not just of people, but of things. There's no furniture, just bare walls and vacuumed carpets,
"Mom?" I call. Nothing but an echo. "Dad? Scott? Jamie? Anyone?" No noise. I run upstairs to find more empty rooms. There's nothing left in my parent's room, or Jamie's. The only thing that remains of Scott's existence is the alarm stuck to his bedroom door.
The door to my room is close. I get little shivers while walking towards it. The knob is turned, and the door slowly creaks open. But it hits something, and stops short. Slipping through the door, I discovered it was another box. This one was full to the brim with my CDs, books, journals, and my backup pair of boots. On top of that stuff there was a sheet of paper with my father's barely legible handwriting scribbled across it. I pick the letter up and read it, even though I know it can't be good.
Dear Darcy,
I'm sorry.
Dad
I fold the note up and put it in the pocket of my jeans, then scoop the rather heavy box up in my arms and lug it downstairs. Zack is waiting in the entryway, giving me yet another apologetic look.
"Can you carry this?" I ask. He nods and holds the clothes box while I take the other one and bump the screen door open. We set the boxes down in the back seat and sit in the front. "What should I do?"
"Now, you don't do anything. Now I go to my dad and beg for him to let you live with him and me and if that doesn't work, I will fucking make Carl take you." Given how pissed his dad was, Zack shouldn't be so confident. Still, it's nice to be around someone who doesn't eminate an aura of doom. Zack drove a little over the speed limit until we reached his driveway, where we discovered Carl was over for his bi-weekly visit.
Maybe Zack's dad will be nicer to him now. Still, Zack took all the necessary precautions one takes when asking their dad to house their best friend. He unlocked the door instead of just showing up with me on the front stoop, and he crept quietly through the main floor of his house. Apparently Zack's dad wasn't there, because the next thing Zack did was sprint upstairs to see if his dad was in his room or his study or even the guest room for some odd reason.
He would never set foot in Carl's room, though. He's a freak about privacy. Zack descended to the foot of the stairs and looked at me confusedly.
"He's not upstairs."
"Do you think he's in your room?"
"No way, he never goes in there..." I gave Zack a look that I feel reminded him of the recent events contrary to that statement. "...Well, he usually doesn't, anyway."
"So he's in the basement?"
"That'd be my best guess. Want to go down together?"
"Sure." When we were heading down the stairs, we heard many different noises that we didn't expect to hear. At the end of the staircase, Zack and I witnessed a rather peculiar situation. Carl and His/Zack's dad were sitting in two antique wing-back chairs, and were passing a blunt back and forth between them.
"Dad?" Zack asked, just to confirm that it was in fact his father smoking a weed cigar before him. Everyone in the room went silent' the only thing moving was the smoke flowing from the mouth of Zack's dad. After a few painful seconds of silence, Zack's father spoke up.
"Hey son." He said with a cough. "Why is Darcy still here? I wasn't going to let you guys see each other, you know? It freaks me out that you two were making out. You used to make mud pies in the backyard n' shit." Mr. Livingston took a drag and passed the blunt in Carl's direction. More awkward silence ensued as Zack tried in vain to comprehend the scene before him.
"Darcy's parents weren't there."
"Oh, so should she like, come back later or something?"
"No, Dad. They were gone. They moved away." Mr. Livingston started hacking violently when he heard the news.
"That really sucks. You know, I didn't know things were so bad between Darcy and her parents, but Carl has been fillin' me in a little bit. It's quite sad. She can stay with us, but only like, in the guest room. It'd be weird if you guys were fucking in the middle of the night or so-"
"Dad, why are you smoking weed with Carl?" Zack asked, clearly not wanting to hear anymore of his father's honestly.
"Oh, yeah... Well, Carl's going to med school, and I'm really proud of him for that. He also sold a lot of weed on campus this week and as both his father and boss, I just had to celebrate." Carl takes a drag and looks at us smugly. I'm a little confused. Zack is still comprehending the fact that his father touched a blunt in front of him. His dad raised an eyebrow at him.
"Well, what are we doing? We're keeping Darcy... Do you want some weed? Or would that be weird? You can bring some of yours from upstairs..." Zack just stared at his father for another few seconds before he took me upstairs to watch Courage the Cowardly Dog and smoke weed, sans father, to celebrate my official residence at his home.
The End
~
Cocoa Butter Kisses-Chance the Rapper
