Eternal

Distraction

Chapter 5: Distraction

I refused to sit around wallowing in my own self-pity. Locking myself in my room and crying into my teddies was not going to bring Keegan back, if anything it would have him severely pissed with me. So I didn’t do it. I went to bed that night and cried my eyes out with my mom by my side, softly stroking my hair as tears dripped down her cheeks but when I woke up I refused to shed another tear. 

I went through the motions of showering, getting changed, brushing my hair and teeth and going downstairs to eat breakfast. By the looks on my parents’ faces they didn’t expect me to come out of my room at all for at least the next week. What would wallowing achieve? If anything it would give me too much time to think about him and make the pain that much worse. No, distraction was what I needed and school was the only thing I could think of. 

Miles seemed to sense that something wasn’t right and had refrained from repainting the walls with Sweet Potato puree, choosing to paint himself with it instead. When I entered the room he set his big doe eyes on my and gurgled through a mouthful of baby food, obviously very pleased with himself when it dribbled down his chin. 

I smiled and ruffled his thick mop of brown curls as I passed. “Hey there, Giggles. Enjoying your food huh?”

He let out a string of incomprehensible baby talk that I took as a yes. 

Not sure I could stomach too much food – though mom had cooked up a storm with plates piled high with pancakes, bacon, eggs and just about every other breakfast imaginable – I plucked a cereal bar from the cupboard which I quickly munched down. Ugh, there was a reason I hated the things, they always left a cardboard taste in my mouth. I gulped down a glass of milk and had picked up my mussed up backpack before my dad spoke. 

“Honey, I are you sure you want to go in today? It’s perfectly alright if you want to stay home and go back on Monday.” 

I scowled at the hesitant tone that he used even though I knew why; they all thought I was going to go catatonic. “And do what? Stew over it? Come up with a thousand other things I could have done to save him? Or how about picturing it happening?” my tone was acidic enough to have Miles halt his potato rampage to look from mom to dad to me before his bottom lip started wobbling.

Mom winced at my words and I momentarily felt bad about it, after all she was the one to identify him and had to do the full autopsy on the boy who was like a son to her. 

And that my friends, is why it is a very bad idea to work in a small town morgue – 90% of the time you’ll know the person. “I’m going to school, I need something to do.”

With that I left the house, slamming the door behind me to get rid of some of my anger. I almost paused at the end of the driveway to wait for Keegan to pick me up only to remember that he wouldn’t be. I all but ran down the path, not caring in the slightest that it would take me a good half an hour to get to school and I’d be late. 

xXx

I was half an hour late for English not that Mr Parsons said a word about it, he just gave me this look that pretty much said I could get away with handing out joint to the class at that point. It angered me even more, adding to what had been building over the last 24 hours so that my hands started shaking. I stuffed them into my jacket pockets and made a beeline for the empty desk, the chair legs screeching against the tiles as I pulled out my chair. 

The class was dead silent, ever pair of eyes was on me, some curious, others filled with pity. It was hard to separate the people who had been close to Keegan with those that had merely chatted to him on occasion. Almost every pair of eyes was puffy or just slightly red. That was the thing about Keegan; he oozed an energy that drew people do him like moths to a flame. Everyone wanted to know him and even those he couldn’t stand he didn’t treat any differently. The idiot had more friends than he knew what to do with. 

I sunk low in my chair, glad for the first time in recorded history that we weren’t in the same grade. At least now I didn’t have to sit next to a perpetually empty chair where he would have been had I been a year older or him younger. Michaela didn’t say a word the entire lesson after Mr Parsons finally partially regained everyone’s attention but I didn’t expect her to, in fact I hoped that no one mentioned it. A vain hope, I know but a girl could dream. 

Everyone, of course flocked towards me to find out the cause of Keegan’s death. Not only because I was his best friend but because – huzzah – my mom was in charge of that. None of them outright asked me but I could see it simmering just behind the fake smiles. I ignored it and jumped head first into immersing myself in work and meaningless chatter. Everyone appeared shocked at my sudden shift in character considering I never talked that much but they went with it. 

I was so busy not thinking about him or anything but my work that I didn’t notice the kids slipping in and out of class for most of the day. That is, until Ms Ellis called my name about ten times before I realised she was talking to me. My head snapped up from my Essay on the Napoleonic wars to find the pint-sized teacher peering at me through her thick-rimmed glasses. She really was ancient. Dad said he’d taught her history when he’d been at school and even then she wasn’t a new staff member. 

My thoughts were wrenched from that fact when she gestured towards a lanky man standing beside her. My eyes slid over to him and a chill swept through me.

Hehe, now things pick up!

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AndUCallMeWeird