What Happened After

Chapter 15

"You gonna let me in, or are you gonna take me to the hospital when I pass out from hypothermia?"

Chapter 15.

          “Come on, Rayn! Rise and shine, love! We’re heading out in an hour and a half—call that friend of yours!”

          My mom was entirely too happy for the particular time of day it was. I glanced over at the clock near my bed—6:57 AM. She seemed to be skipping about the house, packing a few last-minute items with, no doubt, a smile on her face. I wondered if I would be like this when I got older. If so, I would have to do something about that real soon.

          “He knows what time to come over, mom,” I grumbled, my head still in my pillow. “He’s not stupid.”

          “Well,” she called from down the hall, somehow hearing my answer. “Call him anyway. Maybe his alarm didn’t go off! Maybe he forgot!”

          “Of course his alarm didn’t go off,” I answered, sitting up now. “It probably isn’t set to go off for another hour. He’s a boy; it doesn’t take him an hour and a half to get ready to drive up to the snow.”

          My mom couldn’t argue with that one, seeing as my dad was still fast asleep in his room, completely oblivious to our conversation. “Oh, alright,” she relented. “But if that boy’s not at our front door by 8:25, we’re leaving without him!”

          Good, I thought to myself. Then I won’t have to deal with this horrible mistake I’ve made all weekend.

          It wasn’t that I didn’t want Ruesso to come with us—I did. Kind of. It’s just that I had recently realized how unbelievably strange this was for everyone involved. Ruesso Van Avery and I, heading up to the mountains to spend a weekend skiing together. If anyone at my high school knew about this, they would never believe it, and if Kale and Lo were still alive, the both of them would laugh in my face at the thought alone. Ruesso and I didn’t hang out. We never had before and we never would. Of course, that was before my two best friends died and Ruesso didn’t. We had no choice but to depend on each other, really, if we didn’t want to be depressed loners for the rest of our miserable lives.

          Finally, at around 7:15, I somehow found the energy to get up out of bed and head to the shower. I stood under the hot water for ten minutes and then remembered what showers were for. I quickly washed, then stepped out to dry off, looking in the mirror as I did. I didn’t dry my hair—it was 7:30 in the morning and I was not looking to impress anyone at that point in the day—just scrunched it with my fingers and then applied a light dusting of makeup across my cheeks. Just enough to even out my skin tone thoroughly.

          Back in my room, I had my bag already packed, so I didn’t have anything else to do for the morning. I would have used the time to fix myself some breakfast, but my dad had mentioned the night before that we would be stopping for doughnuts before we got on the freeway this morning—the same as we did every year. So instead of eating, I wandered out to the living room, where my dad was now sitting in his chair, reading the paper, and flipped on the TV.

          “Morning, Rainbow. You all set to go?” He asked, setting the paper down on his lap.

          “Yep, just about. I forgot that I already packed my bag last night, so now I just have to dig my skis out of the garage and load everything into the car, and I’m good to go.”

          “Good, good. You call your friend yet to see if he’s ready?”

          “Nah, but he’ll be here, don’t worry about it.”