SECRET IN THE LAKE (BoyxBoy)

SHADOWS IN THE NIGHT

ANDREW

I kept my school bag on the chair and picked up the bundle of unopened letters lying on the table, hoping for a letter from Dad. Skimming through the letters, I called out.

"Mom? Mom?"

"In here." I heard her voice coming from the makeshift storeroom.

Everything around the place smelled of mold and dust. I scrunched my nose and tried to ignore the smell.

"Mom, how long are we gonna stay here? This place stinks of rat poop and dirt." I shouted.

"We just shifted two days back Drew, we don't really have a choice do we? Try to adjust a little."

"I hate this place. Out of all the places that you have dragged me to, this one is the worst."

I opened the door of the storeroom and saw her standing there in the middle of a pile of junk.

"Who used to live here? Zombies?"
I rolled my eyes and mom gave me that stern look which only mom's specialise in, specially the one trying to discipline their unruly kid.

"Don't just stand there and whine, help me out here." She said showing me a box piled with tubes and pipes of all shapes and sizes.

"Clean that up and then we will sort the other boxes."

So, an entire evening was spent in clearing the crap, other people left behind. 🙄

Exhausted we slumped on the recently mended solitary couch in our living cum dining cum kitchen.

"So how was school?"

"Bleh..."

"Andrew!!! Can you ever give me a proper answer? Is it so difficult to just talk like a human? I told you that you have to adjust to this school. Thanks to Mrs.Smith we managed to put you in that school in the middle of the year. Maybe this job will be better and I can stick around a little longer."

"Mom, you say the same thing every time we land up in a new city. This time it's not even a city! It's like a village!!They don't even have shopping malls here and the school has a uniform 🙄 I hate uniforms. Life sucks." I sighed while my mom glared at me.

"What do you want?"

"I want to go back home at least I can meet dad there. At least the weekends are better😒"

"Drew I don't even know how else to explain this to you .....he has a family of his own and another son. Don't you understand this much? You are not a child anymore. You do understand what a divorce means! Right? He has no time for us anymore."

"Wrong!!! He doesn't have time for you but he loves me!!!"

"Drew!!!"

"I am going out!! I am not talking to you about this anymore..........."

"Drew!!! Come back here right now!!!...it's late...Andrew!!! It's dark outside.........Drew!!!........it's 9 PM where do you think you are going? Drew!!!"

I slammed the door shut and ran outside. I hated my life. I hated the fact that I missed my dad. I hated the fact, that they got divorced. I hated this place and that school.

I remembered what had happened in school today and felt even worse.

Right on the first day of school, I had ended inside a bin because I crossed paths with Jason Sander's, latest obsession. Trust me it wasn't intentional. She just sat down beside me in class and the next thing I knew Cindy Summers, the hottest girl in school, was my lab partner. She even gave me her phone number. At the school canteen she came and sat down next to me. The consequence🙄...... before the next period started I was punched and thrown inside a bin.