Chapter 11
11
RHYS
“ M an, doesn’t it feel like old times or some shit?” Lane says.
We’re sitting on the edge of his bed, both of us with game controllers in our hands, playing a first-person shooter that we used to spend all night playing back when we were in high school.
“Right?” I agree with a laugh. “Us playing this game. Your sister and her friend basically having a sleepover downstairs. Feels like we’re in tenth grade again.”
“You’re about to really feel like we’re in tenth grade again,” Lane says, an ominous note in his voice.
“Huh?”
A splatter of red appears on my side of the screen, and the character I was controlling collapses to the ground.
“Headshot!” Lane pumps his arm triumphantly. “Third in a row.”
“Fuck you,” I grouse, tossing the controller over my shoulder onto his mattress. Lane always kicked my ass at these shooter games, while I’d wipe the floor with him in sports or racing games.
Honestly, though, getting wrecked in this game by Lane three times in a row does kindle the nostalgic spark even more. Suddenly, memories are bubbling up in my mind.
“Remember how we’d walk to that Papa John’s to get pizzas when I’d stay over?” I reminisce.
Lane chuckles. “Man, that place sucked, didn’t it? But it was the only place close enough that we could walk to.”
I bark a laugh. “You’re not kidding. That pizza was trash. Didn’t even taste like it does at other Papa John’s stores, either.”
But we kept eating there every time I stayed over on a Friday or Saturday night. Even after we got licenses and could drive somewhere better, or got jobs and could afford delivery. I guess sometimes, no matter how bad the food is, if it’s spiced with memories there’s nothing like it to satisfy a craving.
The nostalgia train is really steaming along when Lane says, “Remember that spring break when we took a bus down to Mississippi to visit Justin?”
“Fuck,” I groan with a chuckle. A good friend of ours from the high school hockey team moved during junior year, and we wanted to visit him. The only way we—well, I —could afford to get there was a dirt-cheap bus ticket. “That bus ride was miserable. Thirty-two fucking hours.” My legs and back ache just thinking about it.
Lane shrugs. “It wasn’t that bad.”
“That’s because you slept the whole time, asshole.” I can hardly ever sleep on a bus or a plane, especially when I’m packed into the seat like a fucking sardine. I never envied Lane more for being a couple inches shorter than me than I did for those thirty-two fucking hours—each way.
“Remember all the pranks we used to play on Maddie and Jasmine when they’d stay over like this?” Lane asks.
My mouth ticks up. “Those were the days, man.”
“Hmm,” Lane muses, a conspiratorial tone in his voice.
I look at him and feel a mischievous glimmer in my eye matching his own. “You thinking what I’m thinking?”
I never did get to scare Maddie at the party like I intended to. Right now just might be the perfect time to make up for it.
“It’s still a couple months until Halloween,” I muse, “but what do you say we pull a good old-fashioned psycho trying to break into the house on a dark, windy night on them?”
Lane hoots. “Immature and cruel. I like it.” He goes to his closet and digs out a steel pirate’s hook he used for a Halloween costume years ago. “I think this scraping against the back window from outside will sound creepy enough?”
We silently tiptoe down the stairs. Thanks to the girls being ensconced in their pillow fort, it’s easy to slip out the front door without them noticing us.
We round the side of the house to the back window of the living room, crouching beneath it.
Lane makes three hard rasps with the hook against the windowpane. We try to hold back boyish giggling while straining to listen if there are any signs of movement from the living room. After about ten seconds of hearing nothing, I take the hook from Lane and rasp harder.
This time, as we hold our ears as close to the window as we can without being able to be seen from inside, we hear a stirring.
“Did it come from the window?” I faintly hear Maddie ask from inside.
My and Lane’s eyes light up. I bring my index finger up to my lips to signal for him to stay quiet.
The lightbulb next to the sliding door to the backyard burned out a couple of days ago, and we’ve all been too lazy to replace it. There’s no way they’ll be able to see anything out here in the darkness.
I bring the sharp point of the hook to the bottom of the windowpane and drag it across. A blood-curdling scraping sound pairs sinisterly with the howl of a sudden gust of wind.
The girls’ sharp gasps are audible from here. Lane and I put our fists to our mouths to keep laughter from wheezing out.
We hear them walk tentatively to the back door.
I place the hook on the flat top of the shrub underneath the window, and we scurry to hide behind the corner of the house.
From our hiding place, we hear the back door slowly and cautiously sliding open. Then we hear the girls step even more cautiously onto the small back porch.
“Maybe it was a bird or something?” Maddie says. Apprehension is thick in her voice.
“Maybe,” Jasmine replies skeptically. “Or … wait. What’s that?”
Lane excitedly rasps his fist against my back. I dare a peek around the edge of the wall. Jasmine’s spotted the hook sitting atop the shrub, and she and Maddie are approaching it warily.
These girls would really get killed off fast if they lived in a horror movie. I make a mental note to lecture both of them about the virtues of self-preservation later.
For now, though, I’m content to take advantage of their lack of survival instincts for my own childish amusement.
Maddie’s voice sounds thin and trembly as she pushes out, “Is that a …”
I shoot Lane a wink, holding up three fingers. Down to two. Down to one …
“Hook?” Jasmine finishes on a spooked warble.
We jump from behind the corner with loud screams and wild gesticulations.
Jasmine and Maddie shriek, jumping higher than I ever would have imagined they could. They turn around and race back to the door.
Lane and I, meanwhile, are absolutely cracking up. I’m laughing so hard that my stomach muscles are seizing.
The familiar sound of our laughter must cut through the cloud of terror around the girls. They stop just short of the sliding door and turn around.
“Rhys? Lane?” I can’t tell which of them says our names. I only see them turn toward us through a film of tears in my eyes. Lane and I have to hug each other to keep from falling over from laughing so hard.
“You … you …!” Then they’re chasing after us, flailing their fists, hoping to land a haymaker on us that we surely deserve while we run away.
They chase us around the house, through the front door, up the stairs, and right to the threshold of my room, where I manage to slam the door shut and lock it before they can catch us.
Lane and I are convulsing in laughter while they bang on the door.
“I’ll get you assholes back for this!” Maddie calls. I can only imagine what the rest of the guys are making of the commotion.
“Yeah,” I say to Lane, still wheezing between laughs. “Now it really feels like old times.”
Nights just like this with Lane, all through elementary school, middle school, and high school, are some of my best memories. Times that’ll put a smile on my face for the rest of my life when I look back on them.
As nice as it is to feel thrust back into the good old days of growing up with my best friend, there’s an unpleasant feeling that simmers beneath the laughter and memories.
How much my friendship with Lane means to me, the memories I’ve made with him and Maddie—it’s all a reminder that my one-sided infatuation with her can never be anything but.