Now or Never ⇀ John B Routledge [1]

xxiii. true friends

As the Hughes siblings stare at the historic Tannyhill mansion, they couldn't help but reminisce on better days. Ones where two girls, born only a month apart, would happily play in their backyards in Greenville without a care in the world. Days where Rafe Cameron, the so called heartless Kook prince, watched over Sarah and Ashtyn like a hawk; doing everything in his power to ensure the two young girls were safe from harm.

Those days and people were long gone now, personalities altered by vulgar comments and poor parenting.

Ashtyn bit her lower lip, choking back tears that appeared due to her old memories of Rafe. Memories of days where the boy wasn't full of pent up anger toward his father and had so much love to give to everyone around him. He fell into this downward spiral when his mother left, feeling abandoned by the one parent who actually gave a damn.

The day that Lori Cameron left was the day everything started falling apart around the four friends. Claudia's abuse became more consistent and harder for the siblings to hide.

People talked, they knew something was up with the Hughes kids, but due to their family's money, no one had the guts to speak out. To stand up for the two children being mentally, physically, and emotionally abused by the one person who was supposed to love them the most in the world.

For Rafe, things were just as bad, if not worse. Ward took to Sarah immediately after their mother's departure, forcing Wheezie and him to figure out their own way of coping. This ultimately led the eldest Cameron to become the town terror, recruiting Lucas and a handful of other punks from their rising ninth grade class to assist on 'missions'.

Every moral bone in Lucas Hughes' body had been crushed by the impactful blows from his mother, and he decided enough was enough. If he had no choice but to endure such painful interactions for doing nothing, then he may as well give Claudia a reason to beat his ass.

Luke's eyes became cloudy as he wiped sweaty palms on his denim jeans. He and Rafe used to be best friends, inseparable from the time they started walking, but now they were strangers. If he showed his face to the eldest Cameron child, his best friend would no longer stare back at him. Rather, a drug induced haze of the person he once knew.

Whether he liked to admit it or not, Luke knew almost everything that happened on this island. The rumor mill was rather hard to avoid when everyone knew everyone, and there had been several occasions where he heard whispers about Rafe's drug abuse. People spotted the boy leaving Barry's run down trailer with bags of white powder half hanging out of his pockets, and with the guys ever growing list of uncharacteristic violent offenses, it was pretty obvious that his old friend was strutting down a dark path.

"Do you remember the first and only time mom and dad brought us here?" Ashtyn piped up, attempting to hide the heartache from her protective older brother. He couldn't save her from everything and right now, she wanted to deal with how she felt on her own.