The Aftermath

-Striped Sweater-

Chapter Four

‘Striped Sweater’

 

The Monday morning after we’d interviewed Birdie was no different than any other, Bree met me halfway between my house and hers and then we started our trudge on to school. The road was clear just like the sky other than the handful of leaves skewed here and there with the winter not getting too bad the spring was a warm welcome to see the trees start to regain their strength even though I had not. The winter always made me far groggier than need be and the time between spring and winter was no different on good days I was good and then I had others where it seemed everything and anything could set me off. Lost in thought I’d forgotten all about Bree standing next to me and decided to tune into what she was saying so I didn’t seem like an absolutely terrible friend.

“I don’t know how you didn’t cry Gia, it was so sad.” Bree pressed on. “I mean I can’t imagine the thought of someone I’m supposed to be marrying dying to save my family that has got to be one of the craziest things I’d ever heard of.” She paused and put a hand through her ginger hair.

“It’s sad but it’s life that’s just the way things go you know, I can’t wait for my Mom and Dad to get home, they’ve been gone so long.” I pulled my backpack on my shoulder trying to change the subject to anything but Birdie’s story.

Bree stayed quiet a long while before she decided to say anything,” We need to find our next person to interview.” Bree informed. “Next time I’ll ask the questions, since someone isn’t so good at knowing when to back off.”

“What I just asked her the questions, she was the one that was contradicting herself. Bree you saw her, she’s sad and miserable in this town and someone needs to let her know that.”

“Yeah, someone who knows her as more than just the happy go lucky waitress.” I stopped and took a breather for some reason this was making me a lot madder than it needed to. “We could go to the old folk’s home they’ve always lost someone.”

“Yeah but that’s too predictable it’ll be hard to top that Birdie story. How about we try Davis, there was that thing with his sister last year.” Bree quickly replied.

“You know we probably sound like morticians sniffing around to see if someone is dead or not.” I quipped trying out something to lighten her mood. She’d always been so serious when it came to school stuff it was getting to be a tad annoying.

“That’s not what they do but I get what you mean Gia.” She added sounding just as stand offish as our relationship could go at this point.

I’d missed the simplicity in our friendship the way we just understood each other ever since we started this project it seemed like there was something wrong. Something was deeply wrong between the two of us, especially after the first interview with Birdie. I knew Bree wasn’t going to be too keen on the idea of doing death it flat out freaked her out but anything that she thought would stand out to a college she was all on board for. Then again we’d had our rough patches before and maybe this two like every other time would pass just as easy.

Catching the sight of the very boy we’d decided to interview I ran straight up to him with Bree trailing behind me. “Hey! Davis,” I called midstride trying to get his attention.

 

“Yeah,” he said not dare looking up to meet my eyes. Another side effect after what happened to his sister; he never looked anyone in the eye. Davis didn’t always used to be this quiet or even this unhappy sounding, acting, looking.

He used to be just as happy and giddy as his twin sister, she was a runner-up for the top of our class next to Bree of course and she’d always seemed to be a happy person. As if the entire world worked in her favor like the rest of the world just floated along and all she did was shit rainbows and cough chocolate syrup. I’d only seen her in passing and she’d never failed to be the happy go-lucky girl I’d always known her to be. No one ever talked about what happened to her, according to rumors it had something to do with her little brother but looking at him now I’d questioned if he even would do the interview if it meant he’d end up just stating I plead the fifth on half of the questions. It was yet another moment in town like with Charlie and Birdie purely coincidence that anyone actually knew anything than the nothing the families had shared. Sure for Charlie there was a big hero article about his death and the service was filled to the brim, even my Aunt dragged me to it. But for Taylor Norman, there wasn’t even anything anywhere, not a mention of her in the paper even in the obituary section. Her family still stayed and instead of mentioning how she died her family held a special candle lighting at the school one night, but aside from that nothing. We all knew she was gone just not how or even exactly when.  

“I was wondering if you’d be up to do an interview?” I asked trying to sound more considerate so Bree wouldn’t jump down my throat again.

He tugged at his sweater and kept his eyes on my feet. “Interview for what?”

“School project, it’ll only take a little while I promise.”

He continued fidgeting with his sweater and scratched his head as he thought it over. “Well, as long as it’s for school I guess next week on Monday after school four o’clock; I don’t have swim practice then.” He offered.

I quickly agreed and wrote down on a scrap of paper Bree’s address. Bree gave thanks for him even deciding to do the interview. Of course I hadn’t mentioned exactly what it was about but if he knew that he probably wouldn’t want to do it and the last thing we needed was another Birdie episode. He turned and walked into school no longer tugging at his sweater.

“You think it was wise not to mention what it was about?” Bree asked sounding a tad worried.

“You worry too much, it’ll be fine and if it’s not maybe one of us could fake an interview.” I assured her. Bree quickly went rigid and she just looked at me a horrified look on her face if only for a second and only after seeing the smirk I’d managed to make right as she was giving me the look, did she join in and laugh a little too eagerly it was clearly forced and lacked the warmness Bree normally had about her.

“Is there something you’re not telling me?” I asked looking her right in the eyes.

Not so much as a flinch before she told me, “No, not at all.”

Maybe it was just something up with Bree, something was wrong with her and this whole project but the sooner we finished it the sooner we could go back to having normal conversations about colleges and what types of things we could volunteer over for the summer. It was mindless dribble mostly but it was better than talking about death all the time at least then maybe Bree wouldn’t be so on edge the whole time when we were talking to each other.