Chapter Text
When Hero left the next week, a goodbye party was held both at home and at the party. On both of these accounts, he had smiled the entire way through, on one, he had cried.
“Come on, you miss us already?” Kel jokingly slapped his brother’s back. The day was warm and they had taken refuge at the old hangout spot. A light breeze kept Basil on edge as he watched the two brothers slap each other’s hands away.
“Well, yeah, I kinda do.”
“We’ll be right where we left off. Hey, you know what’s crazy. Last time you came here, we…” Kel glanced over at Aubrey and Basil looked down at his hands to avoid the secondary embarrassment.
Prior to attending the gathering, he had tried to take an edge off noting that it was important. Hero’s last day in town before leaving needed to be a good one, no one should seek to make any scene, freaking out about some subtle cut. What was perhaps the most insulting part of the equation was that he hadn’t particularly felt terrible prior to or even during his salutary confessions, but rather afterwards.
“Do you have to bring that up at every opportunity?” He heard Aubrey snap. “Jesus.”
“I wasn’t thinking!”
“That wasn’t even the last time anyways you moron.”
“Yes it… oh. No it wasn’t.”
“Is the punch…”
For a moment he was certain that someone was watching him, but when he turned around, slowly so as not to alert the watcher, he was met with an emptiness in the woods.
Just as he thought he was safe, something jabbed his side and he pushed himself back with a gasp.
Embarrassingly, he realized his overreaction when Sunny, with a finger sticking out, jumped back as well. He stared at him, the darkness of his pupils seeming hostile.
“Okay?”
“...Okay.” Basil nodded, confused.
“No, are you okay?”
“Certainly!”
It was the warmth of knowledge that had taken him in and had only left behind small portions of uncertainty afterwards. Still, he couldn’t help but notice a slight difference in himself that caused him to grow uncomfortable. It was, maybe, the disaster of self-awareness.
“Hey, Basil. Get a load of this.” Kel rolled onto his side, head resting on his hand and elbow stuck like a stake in the ground. “Can you get this as a photo? I know you have your camera on you.”
Like an automated response, he reached inside his bag and looked at the camera. Suddenly, his heart began to pound and the machine started to look more complex and unordinary.
“Um. Sunny, I’m doing this right… right?” He smiled, pressing the screen to his eye.
Another sharp jab and he glanced at him. He gestured for the power button and Basil rushed to turn it on, hoping no one noticed such a blunder. The photo was snapped and the camera spit out the film which he rushed to put in his bag.
“Why are you putting it away?” Kel asked, sighing a breath of relief when he got out of his pose.
“The sun.” Basil answered. “It will mess up the quality.”
“Oh, alright.” He nodded, though seeming a little dejected that he wouldn’t be seeing it right away.
It was at that moment he realized that everything was wrong. What he had planned to happen was a lapse in thought, a type of gap that would silence one side of the internal monologue and replace it with seemingly obvious solutions. Now, it seemed as though he had upset Kel by simply handling the film with care. For whatever reason, though he didn’t think it usually would have, he found himself mildly irritated.
“Well everyone,” Hero stood up from the blanket, silencing the group. Aubrey’s friends had come along, spending most of the time tormenting Kel or screaming at each other. They too stood quietly, waiting for him to speak.
“Thank you all very much for planning this for me. Truthfully, I didn’t want to go back because Kel was right, I was going to miss you all. I can’t begin to express how… well, how happy it makes me that we can all be together. Sometimes, I feel like the luckiest guy in the world for having such great friends.”
“...Gross.” Aubrey coughed.
“Softy.” Kel muttered.
“So I’m going to go back to school and do my best so I can get out of there sooner! I’ll see you all next Summer!”
“That’s a whole year!” Kim shouted. “Why would you want to go to school full time, are you nuts?”
He chuckled. “I have to make up for lost time. Besides, college isn’t so bad. If I wasn’t drowning in debt it would probably be even more fun!”
The crowd chuckled but there was a slight waver to Hero’s disposition. Whatever it was that had caused it seemed to disappear when he continued to talk. “So watch out for each other, take care of each other, and Kel’s got my number if any of you ever need to talk. I think I’m sticking to the medical field, but I sort of want to study psychiatry. I guess we will have to see if I can handle it!”
“Oh, that’s kind of cool,” Angel said. “Isn’t that like, where you become a school counselor?”
“Um… well, not exactly.”
“Angel, you idiot.” Kim rolled her eyes. “It’s where you study people’s brains. You know, like crazies. They study stuff to help people.”
“Oh. OH. I knew that.”
“Sure you did.”
He wondered if it was just a figment of speech or if there was a chance that she truly thought that people who attended therapy services really were crazy. It was a question he had wondered about himself, though whenever it was brought up be it through passing or during a chilled night in a bedroom, he had started to fake optimism.
The rest of the evening was spent with snacks and Aubrey and Hero had walked towards the pond, the stars of the night watching over everyone beneath their glimmer. He watched for a moment as they pointed outwards into the water and the way they spoke with their hands.
Sunny had fallen asleep against the tree and Kel was on his way to falling asleep too. It had been a very good night, though one with its consequences. He could feel it.
When he and Aubrey retired for the night, they both went their separate ways silently in the hall, neither one of them exchanging a word. He shut the door quietly behind him and sat down on his bed. It had grown late while they were out there, but regardless, he knew he wouldn’t be able to sleep.
Still, there was plenty to do. The garden needed a complete makeover, he had neglected it in March fearing for another frost, then he needed to pack for the vacation they were supposed to take, though he couldn’t remember when that was. Then there was the work clothes that needed washed, the counters that needed wiped, and the floors that needed mopped.
Seeing as it was Monday night and there was only a few days left of school, it would likely be better to wait it out.
Then again, somehow, mostly thanks to his friends, he had passed junior year and made it out alive. If it hadn’t been for a workaround regarding his psychiatrist lamenting to the teachers about letting him turn in late work, he also probably wouldn’t have made it. What this ended up doing was giving him an outlet to procrastinate, something he had gotten into a terrible habit with.
He brought himself back up and decided he wouldn’t be able to rest if the kitchen was a disaster and made his way to the room. Unfortunately, when he opened the cabinet under the sink to fetch out the cleaning supplies, it was a total disaster. He hadn’t noticed it before, but there was little to no structure and everything was kind of everywhere.
Though after he had pulled every object out, scrubbed the boards, and then began to scrub the cleaners that went in there to ensure everything was cleaned and essentially set back to square one, Aubrey had emerged from the hallway to give him a weird look.
“Dude. It’s four in the morning, what are you doing?” Her pink hair spilled out of a loose ponytail and her face seemed too tired to look fed up.
“Huh?” He glanced at the microwave, heart dropping. It had just been eleven, there was no way. “I haven’t been out here that long.”
“Please. Go to bed. You’ve been keeping me up all month doing this.”
“I’m almost done.” He said, more to himself than her.
She groaned but in the moment, it sounded more like a stab in the ears. “Basil. For the love of Christ go to bed please. We have to get up in like two hours.”
“I can’t just leave all of this here.” He said, raising his eyebrows. It should have been obvious, cleaners and creatures didn’t mix well together. “I don’t… I- What do you want me to do about this?”
“...Put it… in the cabinet? Why are you cleaning the Febreze anyways?”
He wanted to ask her why she wasn’t cleaning the Febreze… or the counters… or the floors, but stopped himself, knowing he didn’t have the backbone to say it.
“Are you going to answer me?”
He was certain she could hear his annoyance as he put the cleaners back into the cabinet mildly aggressively, and softly slammed the cabinet door and only slightly swung his door shut.
What she couldn’t hear were the thoughts that ran in his head asking why he was so angry in the first place and what was causing this reaction.
The next day they stood at the bus stop once more without any conversation. The uncomfortable thing was, she kept looking over at him then back down at her shoes.
“Are you alright?” He finally asked after the fourth glance.
“Yeah. I’m cool.” She shrugged, looking forward.
And that was the end of the conversation.
All throughout school she continued to act strange, but not entirely mean by any matter. Even Kel had begun to act suspicious. Always jolting around and laughing, there just seemed to be something off that he couldn’t pinpoint.
He trudged through the trenches of class, heavy minded on this situation when he found himself at the door of the journalism classroom. Having spent the better half of the last many months avoiding it, he wondered what had brought him there that day. Perhaps it was muscle memory, or maybe another automated response that occurred without him noticing. Regardless, everyone had seen him and it was too awkward to just walk away.
He took his seat and quietly wrapped his hands around his backpack on his desk and waited for class to begin.
“Long time no see.” Lauren beamed, rushing to a metal cabinet. “You never got your yearbook!” She slid it over to him and he pulled it back towards him, wondering if there was a hidden motive of announcing that so loud. The cover was a nice deep green hue, but he didn’t want to open it in front of everyone. One movement could bring on massive amounts of attention he didn’t need or want.
“We’re not really doing much.” Lauren said, taking a seat beside him. “There’s only a few days left and I sent some of the others out to get some celebratory photos for the spring magazine. It’s not going to be printed and handed out until next year but it keeps us busy. Where have you been? Are you doing alright?”
With the rumors that had circulated across his group of friends, he wondered what kind of rumors or even actions had been taken by the journalism group.
“Sorry.” He muttered, not knowing what else to say. “I guess I just wanted to focus on my other classes. I got behind.”
She laughed, but it was the simple kind of laugh that didn’t hold malice. “You’re fine. I think I know the real reason. I wish you would have come back sooner though, so I could tell you whatever you’ve been hearing is not true.”
A few others had shuffled in, one of which being Cris. She noticed this and lowered her voice, but it still felt like she was screaming. “We’ll talk later, kay? Meet me at… Oh, just pop over by Gino’s after school and I’ll be there.”
He relayed this information to Aubrey so that she knew where he was going after school and she had responded by insisting he let her follow him. Somewhat relieved, he agreed.
The wind was still chilly, sweeping through their hair and cradling the branches of the trees.
“So, Nate still giving you a hard time?” She asked, kicking the rocks in front of her.
“Not really,” He answered. “Just small things but it doesn’t bother me much anymore, I got you guys.” He smiled, knowing it sounded cheesy.
“So, what is she planning to tell you?” She asked, ignoring the sentiment.
He glanced over to see if he could read her expression but drew a blank when he didn’t see any notable emotions.
“Oh, I guess about my house getting broken into. Or, I don’t know.”
“I’m surprised you’re going to talk to her. Gotta give you credit there, six months ago you would have avoided her.”
“Well… I don’t know.”
They rounded the corner into the parking lot, reality smacking him in the face. “Can you stay out here?” He asked, turning to her suddenly.
“What? Why? Can’t I just pretend like I don’t know you?”
“Ah, well… it just feels awkward. It’s already going to be weird and with you there and knowing you’re listening in. You know?” He smiled, hoping she’d get the point. Her nod and heavy sigh told him she’d go through with it, even if it was something she didn’t want to do.
The dining room felt so much lighter than Rosso’s, though he could attribute that to the pop music that peeled out from the speakers or the neon signs that flashed like fireworks on the walls.
Sitting in a booth closest to the JukeBox, he noticed Lauren leaning over the table and waving towards him. Sanity escaped his grasp for a moment, the subtle madness of what he was approaching drilling holes in his knees. Regardless, he smiled and walked over to her, successfully fooling her into believing he was laid back or confident.
“Hey there, sorry to drag you all the way out here. My dad gets off in an hour or so, so I usually come here to do my homework.”
“Oh, he works at Gino’s?” Basil asked, feigning interest. It was always easier to get someone to talk about themselves and people loved talking about themselves.
“Yep! He owns this shop, my brother is Cesar! We have another store on South Side too.”
He nodded, having no idea who Cesar was. “That’s pretty cool!”
“Not really.” Her face fell flat and for a moment he was embarrassed until she laughed it off. “Just kidding, it’s awesome. We have some really awesome regulars but we have a pretty hard time keeping staff.”
“Why?”
“Well, a variety of things. One, my dad is pretty hard to work for. He’s got that Italian rage you know? Next, Cesar has the worst handwriting so when he leaves instructions out for newbies, they can never read it, then back to issue One, my dad gets mad. It’s an endless cycle of hire and fire.”
“I see.” Now that he thought about it, Kel had mentioned Sunny worked a couple jobs. He wondered if he had ever encountered a scary pizza man.
“Anyhow, I brought you over here for a specific reason. The first, you’re going to fail journalism, but I am guessing you already know that.”
He realized at that moment he hadn’t bothered to make any eye contact which he was certain she had picked up on. He forced his eyes up to her, nodded, and quickly looked back down at his hands. It was truly something worth studying, how Kel or Aubrey… even Hero could just lock eyes with a person and feel nothing about it. “Yeah… you’re right.”
“I don’t mean that in an insulting way, I do hope you will join again next year. I won’t be there, but that also means some of the others won’t either. All I wanted to tell you is that I’m really sorry about what happened! I know rumors have been floating around and stuff, and I won’t lie, everyone was intrigued. People love drama. It died out pretty quickly though.”
That was anothering a lot of people seemed so keen on doing. Instead of reaching straight to the point, they went on stories, buffers in a way. He couldn’t deny his guilt in the same, often neglecting to even cut to the chase at all, but it was nerve-wracking waiting to hear what someone was trying to really say.
She continued, “I didn’t break into your house. I don’t really know you that well and I’m not risking my background check to play some stupid prank. In fact, that rumor got so wide-spread that I was questioned about it by the school. Whoever did it clearly didn’t want you in the classroom though, and I think I know why. As you know, our team loves to search for stories and things not just for the school newspaper, but also for our own time. Being a part of journalism helps aid us in getting information easier. Would you be more prone to trusting a high schooler asking for random information for seemingly no reason, or a high schooler in journalism trying their best to be responsible? I’ll let you answer that on your own time. Point is, I think there’s a good chance that Chris is probably involved in this one way or another. He skips constantly so we never know where he is, and it might be circumstantial, but he wasn’t in journalism during the day your house got broken into. It’s important to me we find out who did it. Not just for your sake, but my own.”
He knew he probably looked dumb. She sat with her perfect posture, her written work glowing with highlights, shirt pressed and ironed, hair combed and falling like silk from her head. He sat across from her an antithetical and blotchy mess. Unkempt hair, haplessly sitting scrunched up and awkward.
“Why do you think he did it? If you don’t mind me pressing.” He asked, hoping she’d have more to say.
She brushed her long hair behind her shoulder. “Well.” Then she sighed, almost as if she was ashamed of herself. “There was this pretty crazy rumor going around. Chris started talking about how he found some things but he wouldn’t tell us exactly what they were until he and your friend broke up. That’s when he got petty and started a string of things. You know how he is. He talks to a girl, gets her feeling special, leaves her randomly, talks a lot of trash. Ridiculous. I bet he took it out on you because you and his ex hangout a lot. Probably grabbed Nate along too.”
“Truthfully.” He put his fist on his cheek, already exhausted and completely burnt out from the conversation. “I don’t really think about it much anymore. I’m pretty happy with how things are right now, so whoever did it, I hope they find peace.”
“That’s good.” She smiled. “Well, in the way that forgiveness is good. Take care of yourself, alright?”
“Alright.”
Aubrey was frantic when he left through the front door, a peremptory tone racing through every sentence she strung together.
“Tell me, you have to tell me every single word she told you. Go into story-mode. I need how she was sitting, what she was doing, how many times she blinked in a given minute.”
“Sure!” He couldn’t help but feel somewhat relieved someone was willing to listen to him replay the entire events. “Let’s wait until we’re home though… just in case someone overhears us.”