by Dakota Lake
“Come on lets get you back,” Seth said.
Seth and I stood on the porch chatting for a little while longer. Micah sat slumped in the truck. We switched numbers and decided it would be the best way to stay in contact because he didn’t have a computer and I didn’t want mom confiscating any more letters.
I spent the rest of the night on my own, mom was still at work and Frank was out, probably at some bar somewhere. I finished my packing and ended up on the couch channel hopping in my pyjamas. There was nothing worth watching not that I would be able to concentrate on anything all I could think about was Micah and that weird phone conversation.
I kept going over and over it in my head. Had he been talking about me, had he felt me in his head? Not that I heard anything it was completely blank. Did he know what I could do, did Seth? There were so many things that didn’t make sense which only left me feeling confused and frustrated. He talked about bringing her back, who? He couldn’t have been talking about me, I hadn’t left with him. Who was on the other end of the phone? Micah had told them to stay away from-who-me? No I was being silly, it probably had nothing to do with me, I was just over thinking it. All I knew for certain was he was talking about a girl. I only hoped Seth hadn’t gotten himself involved in some kind of bad trouble.
I eventually went to bed bored with nothing else to do, I laid there for ages before my brain finally decided to shut down for the night. I fell asleep picturing Micah's face and his icy blue eyes.
I woke up Sunday morning feeling extremely tired from a restless nights sleep, I had been completely unsettled all night tossing and turning I was surprised I hadn’t rolled off the bed. This was going to be my last day in the house I'd grown up in, so many memories mostly of me and Seth as kids.
My daisy clock read 6.10am. I closed my eyes and tried to drift back off but I heard clattering and other random noises down the hallway, mom was up already, she was probably already in packing mode.
I trudged along the landing feeling rubbish and pushed the handle to the bathroom door down, it was locked.
“Ruby is that you?” mom asked from behind the door.
“Yeah it's me, I’ll just wait downstairs,” I said not bothering to hide my sullen tone, I was still mad at her for keeping Seth’s letters from me.
“No it's okay I’ve finished in here,” she said as the door swung open. She was freshly showered and dressed but she looked tired from over working. She stepped out to let me pass.
“Have you finished packing yet? I want all boxes moved into the garage today, we're running out of space downstairs,”
“I finished last night,” I said trying to shut the door but she was in the way.
“Ruby I know you don't want to move, we're not going too far you can still come back and visit Carly,”
“It won't be the same I’m still changing schools. I wont be able to see her during the week and I’ll probably get a job that takes up the weekend. I'll most likely never see her again.” “Oh Ruby don't be so dramatic, there will be holidays,”
“Well I might want to spend my holidays with Seth from now on,” I had purposely been waiting for the right time to drop it into the conversion about Seth but this seemed like a good as time as any. “What are you talking about? You know he doesn’t have anything to do with us anymore,” “Really so that wasn’t Seth I bumped into yesterday on the way home from work then?” I said slamming the bathroom door and quickly locking it.
“Why didn’t you tell me you'd seen him?” she said louder from the other side of the door. “Well for a start I haven’t seen you since Friday and if you're going to keep things from me like I don’t know say a bunch of letters addressed to me, then why shouldn’t I keep things from you. I can't believe you tried to keep us apart. You've never liked him or been bothered with him it's no wonder he wanted to get away from you.” I said, regretting the words the moment they had left my mouth, that might of been pushing it a bit too far.
“Ruby I did it for your own good. He’s going nowhere I didn’t want him influencing you. You've got your last year of school coming up, then you'll be off to college, you don’t need to be getting involved with Seth and all his problems.”
“What problems? I talked to him and he said he was doing great, he even looked happy.” Drugs...I couldn’t believe I'd just heard that, it was always the same with her if someone didn’t look right or were acting slightly off she would blame it on drugs. I knew she worked at the hospital and dealt with a lot of drug addicts but I thought by now she would know the difference. I was surprised she hadn’t already accused me of been on drugs for my moody behaviour with her. “Oh Ruby wake up didn’t you see his friend, his eyes weren't normal, obviously high on something,”
Drugs, I heard her a second time. Was she seriously accusing Seth of been on drugs again. Sure Micah had some strange looking eyes but he didn’t look high to me. I don’t think Seth would of let him drive if he'd been using.
He had just looked annoyed to me. That was it he was annoyed that I was holding them up from getting back on the road, that's why he was glaring at me. Wait no that can't be right it was his idea for us to go out and get food in the first place. I realised mom was still on the other side of the door. “Okay well lets agree to disagree on this one, you've obviously made you mind up about Seth,” I said turning the shower on.
“Ruby.” Mom called louder.
“I'm getting in the shower now. So I can't hear you.” I shouted back.
I stood in the shower letting the water spray over my face. I was annoyed with mom but I knew no good would come from getting mad at her or trying to reason with her she was the sort of person that always thought they were right and no one else knew what they were talking about. It was best to ignore her plus I knew that would aggravate her more.
She'd mentioned Micah's eyes and now that was all I was thinking about it, it was hard enough trying to get him out of my head last night. There was something different about him but I was sure it didn’t have anything to do with mom’s theory.
After my shower I grabbed an apple and some OJ and went back to my very bare looking room to hide from my mom. I looked over at my daisy clock which sat all by itself on the nightstand. It was only 7.15am but it already felt like I had been up for hours. I was completely bored and felt sluggish. I sat on the window ledge, staring out the window. A large black bird had caught my attention. It sat perched on a branch across the street, it looked huge compared to a standard blackbird, maybe it was a crow. I squinted trying to get a better look at the bird it looked to have something on its leg like a tag, maybe it was someone's pet? Something below distracted my eyes away from the bird, it was mom dashing across the front lawn to her car holding her work bag that normally had her work clothes in.
I went downstairs to find Frank putting on his coat on.
“Where's mom going?” I asked.
“Work,” he said slipping his shoes on.
“I thought yesterday was her last day?”
“It was but they were short on staff and she offered to help,”
“So where are you going?”
“Your mom is dropping me off at the Bill's for a few goodbye beers,”
He moved to the door. “Now when your mother gets back I want you to behave yourself, I don’t want you upsetting her. I heard you this morning having another go at her, she doesn’t need it she's under enough stress as it is with the move. The last thing she needs is to have to deal with a teenager having a tantrum every five minutes.” he said slamming the door.
My mouth actually dropped open, I couldn’t believe he'd said that it was his fault we were having to move in the first place.
I felt trapped with nowhere to go. Seth was gone and I was moving away from Carly. I sat on the stairs trying not to cry it would only make me feel worse. I don't know how long I had sat there with my eyes fixed on the bottom step mindlessly staring, when there was a knock at the door. I slowly got up and walked to the door, thinking mayb
e mom or Frank had forgotten something but they had their own keys why would they knock?
I was just glad I hadn’t burst into tears I would of looked all pink and blotchy from crying. I opened the door and found Seth with his hands jammed in his pockets. I smiled and frowned at the same time, he was the last person I expected to find on the other side of the door. “Hey! Can I come in?” he asked.
“Sure,” I said opening the door wider. I looked down the drive and saw his truck parked up, Micah was in the drivers seat on his cell.
“What are you doing here, I thought you left?” I asked curiously.
“We decided to stay, neither one of us could be bothered to do drive back yesterday and well I was thinking a lot about what you had said yesterday and was wondering if you wanted to come and stay for the rest of the school break with me? The cabin won't be quite up to the living standards you're used to and the spare room is full of junk at the moment but I thought you might want a break from all this,”
I wasn't sure if I’d even heard him correctly.
“I know it's short notice with the move tomorrow, but it's not like they need you for that. Mom's got removal men collecting and dropping stuff off, they can dump the stuff in your new room and you can just unpack when you get back.”
His whole body language had changed, he was pacing around he seemed anxious he almost sounded desperate. This was a turn around from yesterday when he didn’t think it was good idea, I wonder what had changed his mind? Maybe he felt sorry for me stuck here. I was still trying to take it all in when I heard his thoughts they were jumping all over the place it was hard to pick anything out. Please say yes, I heard his thoughts, he sounded almost desperate.
I started going over it in my head anything would be better then staying here, even if it was for the one week. It would be better than nothing and it meant spending time with Seth. But then there was mom she was never going to agree to this.
“Rubes you're not saying anything. You sounded so miserable yesterday I thought.....” he had noticed the smile that had spread across my face.
“Seth I would love to go back with you even if it means staying in a cabin in the forest for a week without Wi-Fi with the possibility of been eaten by a bear anything beats staying here, I know I said all that stuff about wanting to leave, but realistically you know mom's not going to let me leave here with you or your stoner friend.”
“What?” he said crossing his eyebrows confused.
“Mom thought he looked high yesterday on account of his eyes, she also blames your erratic behaviour before you left on drugs.” I looked at him waiting for a response.
Seth just shook his head. “And she probably thinks I’m living in a crack den in the woods,” he laughed. “Micah doesn’t do drugs, he just has freakish eyes. I know I went off the rails for a bit before I left but I never did drugs. I was just going through a lot of changes,”
I didn’t know what he meant by changes, maybe I could ask later?
“Micah is one of the first people I met when I left home, he's been a good friend to me.” I knew from the look on my brothers face he wasn’t lying, I knew he'd never touched drugs but even mom made me doubt him before.
“Look even if you were to produce a urine sample for her, she’s still not going to let me go with you.”
“What if she doesn’t have a choice,” he said leaning on the banister railing, grinning. “What do you mean?” I asked.
“Well I don’t see her anywhere do you? What if you were to get your stuff right now, get in my truck and leave with us. I know for a fact she's not going to travel out to Heaven's Point to come and get you she doesn’t even have the proper address for a start and it's too remote she'd get lost trying. I'll phone her later when she gets home, let me deal with her it's just for the week what’s she going to do? She can argue with you when you get back, that’s all you two do at the moment anyway.....come on you know you want to,”
I think the expression on my face said it all, I was so excited. All of my stuff was already packed in boxes which he said was fine we'd just take all the boxes instead as there was plenty of room on the back of the truck and I didn't have too many things, he even insisted we took my books that were already boxed encase I got bored. I locked the house and posted the key back through the letter box I wasn't going to need it again after today. I was sure everything I owned was on the back of Seth's truck and I had the strangest feeling that was his intention.
Micah was sipping on what looked like a blue energy drink and just nodded at me to acknowledge me as I climbed in, it was definitely an improvement from yesterdays behaviour. On the way out of town a wave of emotions swept over me all at once, sad I’d never come back to my childhood home, upset I wouldn’t see Carly until the next holiday, guilty for not even leaving mom a note, happy I would be spending time with my brother. But most of all I think felt relief. Maybe because the further away we drove the further away my problems seemed to be, well for now anyway. They would still going to be here when I got back.
Chapter Three
We had been on the road for over an hour. Micah's cell had beeped five times already with messages, maybe it was a girlfriend? Seth didn’t say anything about it. The two of them chatted for a while about which routes to take back that would cut time off the fifteen hour journey, I was just wondering if the truck would make it back in one piece, every time we turned a corner something clanked underneath. The pair of them both went quiet and shortly after that I realised Seth had passed out and was snoring in the middle of us.
Well this was awkward, I didn’t know what to say to Micah or if I should just leave him alone and not say anything at all.
“Sorry about the radio Seth broke it, so it's stuck on this,” he said banging his hand against it. I had wondered why it was playing country and western, I just assumed one of them liked it. “It's okay, it's not that bad really,” I looked over at him, he was casually throwing glances in my direction.
“Not that bad,” he laughed. “You wont be saying that by the time we get back, my ears are physically hurting now and I keep getting the urge to go line dancing, I just want it to stop.” he banged his hand against it again, which did nothing.
He was actually speaking to me, maybe yesterday he was just having a bad day? I did a small laugh to show I was listening but my mind was already re-playing everything I had heard him saying on his cell. Maybe I’d misheard him and got it all wrong? He didn’t know what I could do he was clueless like everyone else, wasn't he? I still wanted to test that theory though, yesterday there was nothing. It was strange and it was still bothering me.
“So how remote is this cabin that Seth lives in?” I asked.
“Very, not many people knows it's up there, there's a river that runs behind it........” Just one quick look in his head........In a flash I was no longer sitting in the truck.
I was falling through the sky, travelling fast through white fluffy clouds. It felt like I was falling more than flying. I must be dreaming I thought, I thought it was strange that I knew I was in a dream I couldn't normally tell when I was dreaming. I still felt a rush of panic as I realised I was still falling. Down below I could see shapes and colours mainly greens. From up here it looked peaceful, but I was still falling and I started panicking. I needed to wake up I didn't want to be in this dream any longer.
I woke up with a jolt, I was sweaty and my hair was plastered all over my face. My heart was pounding against my rib cage. I was lying across the front seat of the truck and it was now dark outside. I could see the cabin from down here, the lights were on and the porch light was shining over the truck making me squint.
I sat up and took a deep breath, what had just happened? One minute I was trying to look in Micah's head the next I’m falling from the sky in some dream. It had been daytime when I was talking to him how had it get so dark? How long had I been asleep? I knew I was tired but not tired enough to pass out. It had felt so real I’d never experienced a dream like it.
Someone knocked on the window behind me, I turned my head to see Micah looking back at me and he looked annoyed.
“It's about time you woke up,” he said opening the door which I was resting against. I fell out backwards, but he caught me and dragged me to my feet by my elbows. I was sure his fingers would leave a mark by how hard he had gripped me. Ouch! I steadied myself and rubbed my elbows.
“What time is it?” I asked still a bit groggy.
“Nearly twelve,” he snapped back.
“At night?” I asked going all wide eyed, last time I checked my cellphone it had read 9.41am. How had this happened?
“Off course eleven at night, it's been like trying to wake the dead and you snore really loud....now get inside,” he said shoving me towards the cabin. What was wrong with this guy? In the truck he had been sort of nice to me now he was acting mad like I’d done something wrong. “Where's Seth?” I asked climbing the steps.
“He had to go somewhere,”
Somewhere that wasn't a proper answer. Micah was acting very strange, sort of on edge. He went to open the front door but paused with his back to me.
“Gunner,” Micah shouted. I turned around to see an extremely large black Great Dane running up the steps towards me. I jumped back for my own safety it was huge and scary looking and would of easily knocked me over. It sniffed my feet then my at my clenched fist as I was hiding my fingers encase it wasn't friendly, then it ran into the cabin out of sight.
The front door led straight into a room where a fire was already burning.
“Is it your dog?” I asked watching the dog settle next to the fire.
“No he belongs to a friend and he doesn't like strangers so don't go cuddling him or anything,” I looked over at the dog it was chewing on a scruffy looking trainer. The front room had a TV and two couches facing towards it, there was an archway leading from the room to what looked like a kitchen and a staircase was straight in front.
