Chapter 11
Chapter eleven
It’s easy to forgive,
It’s impossible to forget.
Images of Anne Hathaway and Julie Andrews twirling in tiaras and ball gowns flashed across the screen, slapping my retinas like some royal fever dream.
Lucas, Kayla, and I were sprawled out in the living room watching the first Princess Diaries—because isn’t watching a movie what everybody does after an emotional breakdown after five years of not speaking to each other?
“I can't believe you two talked me into watching this,” Lucas complained from the couch in front of the TV.
I lifted my head off the ground, which I had draped with various pillows and blankets. “Hey, it’s your fault for not convincing Mom and Dad to get Netflix.” My parents had an aversion to technology and refused to convert their DVD collection to anything stored on a server.
I staggered to the TV and bent down to the console, which held a vast collection of movies and VHS tapes. My parents also had not upgraded half of their collection from its original publication format.
“No!” Lucas bellowed with a cry, “I beg you, don’t make me watch the next one.” He flipped his head to Kayla, trying to appeal to the more reasonable one of us.
Kayla pouted at him. “But the next movie has Prince Nicholas! His witty banter with Mia launched an entire generation of girls’ unhealthy obsession with enemies-to-lovers!”
Lucas crooked his head back at her. “Is that supposed to be your sales pitch?” He turned back to me. “Come on, Alex. There has to be something else we can do.”
“Well, your hair isn’t long enough to braid, so I don’t know.” I shrugged, only to be met with a stern glare. “Dude, it’s 11:30 p.m. in Nowheresville, Massachusetts. The only thing open is the movie theater, which reeks of thirty-year-old burnt butter.”
Kayla stretched her arms in the air and let out a deep yawn before placing her palms on the armchair’s edge. “We could play truth or dare...”
“No!” I bellowed.
“Why not?” Kayla protested. “Not like we have anything else to do, and if I have to sit through any more awkward silences, I’m going to start painting Lucas’s nails like we used to do.”
Lucas leaped up from the couch and crossed his big arms over his puffed-out chest. “That was one time.”
The corner of Kayla’s mouth rose with way too much joy. “Three times, actually. I vividly remember a purple, pink, and red incident.”
“It was green, not red. And I second Alex. Last time you made me play truth or dare, I ended up naked in Lovers’ Lake, floating on an inflatable yellow duck wearing sunglasses.”
Kayla pushed herself off the armchair and matched Lucas’s stance; fighting was foreplay to those two.
“First of all, that was the best night of your life.” She poked him in the bicep, driving her point forward while simultaneously making me gag as I was forced to watch yet another rerun episode of their flirtation.
“And second, I only dared you to take your shirt off. You were the one who went to second base butt naked with a duck.”
Lucas stepped forward, no doubt close enough for Kayla to feel his breath on her cheeks. “After you dared me to shoot seven shots of tequila off your stomach!”
Kayla slid her teeth along her lip. “You didn’t exactly complain about it at the moment, did you?”
“No … I mean … I …” Lucas stumbled over words.
Kayla padded the edge of Lucas’s shoulder. “That’s what I thought, big guy.”
I leaped from the floor to interrupt the scene before me. “I still think it’s hilarious that a six-foot-four giant can’t hold his liquor.”
Lucas gasped as he looked back at me. “Excuse me, but I was an athlete. I didn’t pollute my body with toxins like you two alchys and stoners.”
“Hey, watch your facts.” Kayla shifted her weight to her back foot. “I was simply a social delight at parties, who occasionally indulged in a few margaritas. Alex and Jamie were the stoners.”
Okay, so that was technically true ... but I was not going to give anyone the satisfaction of being right. “Hey, don’t bring me into this. Jamie was a stoner; I merely took advantage of the stash he hid in my bedroom.”
Kayla’s face lit up with a blanket of mischief that sent a shiver of caution down my legs.
I swear, between her and Jamie, I’m not sure how we lived past high school.
That look meant a plan, and not just any plan, a Kayla plan, which typically involved breaking the law and waking up dressed in somebody else’s clothes in the middle of a park.
Lucas jabbed his finger at Kayla like a parent scolding a child. “Stop that.”
“What?” Kayla questioned back with a knowing grin.
“That look! Stop with that look!”
“I don’t have a look.” She chuckled through her protest.
“Yes, you do! Your cheeks rise, and your eyes lower. You look like Harley Quinn plotting revenge against the Joker.”
I raised my judging eye at my dork of a brother. “Wow, you can take the boy out of the comic store, but you can’t take the comic store out of the boy.”
A scowl painted Lucas’s face, giving me just enough satisfaction to smile back.
Kayla flipped her head towards me. “Where exactly did Jamie hide his stash?”
“In the clubhouse, why—” Ohhhh, now I get it … “I’m on it!” I ran up the stairs; Kayla followed close behind, with a whining Lucas next to her.
“My clothes are staying on this time!” he notified Kayla as we entered my bedroom.
“We’ll see about that.” She winked.
I wrinkled my nose. “Gross, dude, that’s my brother.”
I crouched to the ground before the clubhouse’s tiny door, dragging my knees forward into the cove of forgotten friends and lost loves.
I stopped once I heard the familiar echo of the high-pitched squeak from beneath my leg.
I plunged my fingernails into the curves where the two pieces of dingy wood met, then pushed them up until the wood popped freely off the ground.
I stabbed my fingers into the dark hole beneath and fumbled my nails over the surface below.
About an inch towards the right, my index finger brushed against the corner of something with a distinct crinkling sound.
“Bingo.” I snatched the bag out of the hole and shuffled my way back out of the tiny room, cracking my neck back and forth as I stood. “Damn, I don’t remember my bones making so many crunching noises coming in and out of that thing.”
Lucas leaned against my desk, his weight making the wood yelp. “Why are you holding a Cheeto bag?”
I placed both of my thumbs on the inside of the bag and opened it dramatically. “Because inside this five-year-old sack of preservatives and orange food coloring is the cure to our night’s boredom.”
“There’s no way that stuff is safe.” His face twisted with a cross of disgust and trepidation.
Kayla rolled her eyes at Lucas. “It’s weed, Grandma, not meth.”
He angled his body toward Kayla’s. “It’s a five-year-old joint that’s been kept in a Cheeto bag under musty floorboards since senior year.”
I hopped on my bed, landing with my legs firmly crisscrossed underneath. “Still not seeing the problem?”
“You do realize we are adults now? Not rebellious teenagers.”
I hacked out a laugh before my brain could devise a witty comeback. “You were never a rebellious teenager. You were an unwilling accomplice to our idiocy but never a rebel.”
I reached my hand into the Cheeto bag, orange dust leaving a residue on my fingertips as I pulled out the horribly rolled joint. “Okay, Boy Scout, toss me the lighter I know you keep in your back pocket.”
The heel of Lucas’s shoe dug into the wood beneath as he placed all his weight on his back leg and crossed his big arms. “I don’t have a lighter.”
“Yes, you do.” I jabbed my voice back. “You haven’t left home without a lighter, pocketknife, and a matchbox since you were thirteen.”
“Why do you carry both a lighter and a match? Isn’t that redundant?” Kayla hopped on the bed next to me, the springs squeaking slightly as she bounced her legs.
Lucas huffed. “Because a lighter can break or run out of fluid. You know what? You two will thank me if we’re ever on a plane together and it crashes, leaving us stranded atop a mountain.”
“Wow …” Kayla glanced at me with shock and a hint of concern.
“Oh, that’s nothing. In sophomore year, he made us practice earthquake drills every weekend after California had that 7.4 scare.”
Her eyes flicked back to Lucas. “You do realize we live in Massachusetts, right?
“Sue me for being prepared.” Lucas let out a frustrated breath.
I shifted my hands back and forth as if they were plates of a scale, “Prepared ... paranoid—”
“Fine!” Lucas cut the end of my word off as he plunged his fingers into his pocket and smacked the warm metal lighter onto the palm of my hand. “Here, you can have it if it will finally shut you up.”
I stretched my smile from ear to ear. “Oh, we both know I can’t make that promise.”
I patted the edge of the bed. “Come on, live a little before you die.”
Lucas let out a long exhale as he clenched his teeth and shifted his eyes, looking like a child trying to decide which path to take in a haunted house. No matter which way he went, he knew there would be a zombie with a chainsaw waiting for him behind one of the doors.
“Nope.”
“Your loss.” I shook my head as I twirled the joint in my fingers.
Not that Lucas would ever have admitted it, but that boy was lucky to have me as a sister.
Without my somewhat questionable influence, he would have stayed home every Friday night, playing with his action figures and going to bed by 8:30 p.m.
I turned to Kayla and handed her the key to sweet, sweet bliss. “Want to do the honors?”
She took the rolled-up paper out of my hand. “I thought you’d never ask.”
The flick of the lighter echoed as the flame cast a muted glow over Kayla’s lips.
The sizzle of the crackle accompanied the deep, sour aroma of the weed as wisps of smoke cut the air.
Kayla exhaled in a long, drawn-out breath.
She stared at Lucas, who still refused to sit on the bed.
His towering presence stared down at us like a judgmental parent.
“Okay, Lucas, you’re first, Truth or Dare.”
“Do we have to do this?” he whined.
I leaned my weight on the back of my palms. “Yup.” I showed him my teeth with glee. “Your choice: Truth, Dare, or Smoke?”
“Fine, Truth,” he said, finally admitting defeat. He shuffled over to the side of the bed before sitting down, causing my poor mattress to dip and sway underneath. I could have sworn I heard the bed frame cry for help.
“Of course you picked Truth.” I scoffed.
“Are you Truth or Dare shaming me?”
“Yes. Yes, I am.” Kayla passed the joint back to me.
I pinched the end and brought it to my lips.
The warm inhale of dead plants strangled by white paper filled my lungs like a hot air balloon, lifting me into the sky and parting the clouds.
Just as the musty, skunk-like smell penetrated my nose and scratched at my eyes, the perfect Truth lit up my brain like a dingy lightbulb.
Lucas didn’t have secrets. No, let me rephrase that.
Lucas couldn’t have secrets. They burned a hole in his stomach like acid and physically made him sick.
One time, we had to take him to the hospital with a 104 fever after I begged him not to tell Mom and Dad that Kayla and I skipped school to go to the mall.
My lips curled into a sly grin, the kind that only appeared when I knew I was about to make Lucas squirm. “I got a truth.” I locked my eyes with my brother’s concerned ones. “Why don’t you tell Kayla what happened that Christmas when you made dinner for everyone in our sophomore year?”
Lucas’s eyes widened in pure panic, his pupils dilating like a deer caught in the headlights. His hands clenched my comforter as a nervous quiver danced across his bottom lip. “Alex, please don’t.”
Kayla sat up, curiosity lighting up her face. “Wait, what happened? I think I buried that night in my memory.”
Lucas’s face turned crimson. “It’s not a big deal.”
I shot him a knowing smile. “Oh, it’s a big deal. Go ahead, Lucas. Tell her how you almost set her hair on fire.”
Kayla gasped, her eyes darting between us. “What?!”
Lucas groaned and rubbed his face. “It wasn’t like that—”
“Oh, it was exactly like that.” I cut him off with a laugh.
“Lucas winced. “Jamie put it out before you noticed.”
Kayla threw her hands up. “Unbelievable. Yet another reason that dinner was a disaster.”
I leaned forward with a sly smile at Lucas, holding the blunt in my hand again. “So … Truth, Dare, or Smoke?”
“I answered a Truth! And you realize this is peer pressure, right?” Lucas ran his fingers through his hair, lightly gripping the strands as they reached the nape of his neck.
“That doesn’t count.” I shook him off. What’s it going to be?”
Lucas’s brows knitted together, his eyes fixating on the choice in front of him. A distinct frown formed on his face, and his inner tension was evident in the lines across his forehead. His fingers drummed nervously on the edge of my bed until they finally jetted forward.
“Give me that before my better senses kick me in the brain.”
“Attaboy.” I grinned.
It’s funny. I hadn’t thought about that Christmas Day in years. Though it was funny now, Kayla would never have let Lucas live that incident down if she’d known in the moment. Some secrets are better kept between siblings and friends who casually save you from going up in flames.
Sometimes, it's safer to stay in the dark.