“Bobby!” They both spun around to see Gemma rushing down the school steps towards them. “Did you bring them?”
“Yeah, but you owe me, like, twenty bucks…”
Satisfied that there was nothing dramatic going down between the siblings Ari left them to it, only glancing back once at the kid. He looked so much like Michael.
Michael Creagh. Charlie’s kid brother. And the reason Charlie was so effed up. Two years ago, on Ari’s 16th birthday, Charlie had taken his parent’s SUV out to pick up his little brother from Little League. He was hurrying, trying to get Mike home so he could head over to Ari’s to pick her up and take her out to celebrate. The cyclist came out of nowhere. Charlie had swerved onto oncoming traffic and the passenger side took the full impact of the collision. When Charlie had come to... Mike was already dead. Everything changed that day. The happy Creaghs stopped being parents to Charlie and Charlie stopped being…Charlie. He blamed himself for his brother’s death and Ari wasn’t so sure his parents didn’t either.
Ari felt a rip of pain across her chest at the thought of how much agony her best friend was in. How did you live with that kind of guilt? Ari stopped hanging out at the Creagh’s because Charlie didn’t want her to. He told her his dad had started drinking and his mom had gotten her old job as manager at FoodLand back to keep them afloat financially and to avoid her husband and the son who hadn’t died. Eventually, Charlie started hanging with a new crowd: slackers, potheads. He started skipping school, dropping grades. She’d even on occasion found him wasted in Vickers' Woods. She’d hoped he’d snap out of it eventually, that it was just his way of grieving. But it had been two years…
Before it happened… Ari had been psyching herself up to talk to him that night… the night of her 16th. After confiding in Rachel, her new chem lab partner, she had been persuaded it was time. She had been moping after Charlie for three years. Ari didn’t know when her feelings for him stopped being platonic. There wasn’t a moment when everything shifted and suddenly she loved him. It was more that she turned thirteen and suddenly boys were cute and gave her butterflies. Charlie gave her butterflies. Not raging wasps like he did now. But tickling, exciting, beautiful creatures that fluttered their wings against her stomach, kicking her heart into a wild dance that matched their beat. She had been sixteen years old and in love.
And she still loved him.
Even though he wasn’t Charlie anymore.
Ari’s skin cooled as she stepped into the trees, winding her way over the worn path that took her into the clearing that was popular with stoners. Surely the faculty knew about this place but they were either too lazy to do something about it or just didn’t care. Her eyes washed over the gathering, finding mostly sophomores and juniors. She only knew a few people by name and she nodded at them warily. They were lounging around on the grass, leaning against one another and rocks, their pupils dilated, their features slack. Drifting through them, Ari headed towards a guy she recognized. He was tall, his long legs stretched out before him in dirty, ripped jeans, his Smashing Pumpkins t-shirt wrinkled and worn. His expression was blank as he gazed up at her, brushing his unkempt dark brown hair out of his deep brown eyes. He had a nice face, handsome in that boy next door kind of way. As she stopped before him, he tilted his head back and the corner of his mouth quirked up. A flash of emotion sparked in his eyes transforming him from cute guy next door to sexy and dangerous ‘anything is possible with me’ guy. Before her was a boy who could hurt her more than anybody else.
“Charlie.” She nodded, trying to act casual, which was difficult considering the stares burning into her back.
“What’s up?” he asked softly, reaching for the joint Mel Rickman handed him. Ari deliberately kept her gaze focused on Charlie. Mel was older than everyone else, in his early twenties, a complete waste of space. The guy gave her the creeps and not because he was hanging out getting sophomores stoned, but because when he looked at her it was as if he were imagining her na**d. The lascivious douche made her uneasy.
She glanced around to make sure no one was paying attention, suddenly feeling foolish standing there in her washed, un-ripped hipster jeans and plain t-shirt from The Gap . The grass tickled her feet in her flip flops and she looked down, her eyes wandering over to the steel toe cap boots Mel wore. She fingered the tennis bracelet on her wrist, trying not to flush. Most of the kids Charlie hung out with came from the east, the low income side of Sandford Ridge. It was a medium-sized town situated in the southeast of Butler County, not small enough for everyone to know everyone’s business, but not big enough for people not to know if you lived on the east side or the west side. “I was wondering if you’re still coming to my birthday party on Friday?”
Charlie gave her an inscrutable look, the silence between them stretching into irritating and unnecessary. Ari was this close to throwing the folder in her arms at him.
“I’ll come to your party, babe.” Mel winked at her. “Give me a private showing sometime and I might even buy you a present.”
“Watch it.” Charlie whipped his head around at him, his dark eyes glittering with fury. “Don’t talk to her.”
“Hey—”
“Just shut it.” Charlie pinned him in place with a look of warning that would have made a smarter man pee in his pants. Ari shivered, unsettled by him even though he was only defending her. He glanced back up at her, the anger still etched in his features. “Of course I’ll be there,” he told her quietly. “I’ll see you Friday.”
Not wanting to leave him there, Ari jerked her head in the direction of the parking lot. “Do you want to come have lunch with me?”
He shook his head infinitesimally, his features losing expression again. “Go back to school, Ari, I’ll see you later.”
Feeling that familiar ache in her chest, Ari nodded and spun around, hurrying out of the clearing and the woods and wishing like hell her car wasn’t in the garage and she could just head home.
She stopped on the hot asphalt, staring blankly at the Ohio plates of the Buick Lacrosse Rachel’s parents had bought her as a graduation gift. I can go home. I am going home . Ari turned and began heading towards the gate. It was a half hour walk, it was nothing. She could do with the exercise.
“Ari!”
Closing her eyes in disbelief Ari huffed and slowly turned around to see Rachel running across the lot towards her. “Rache.”
“Where are you going?”
“For a walk.”
“Were you going home?”
“I thought about it.”
Rachel shook her head, her eyes narrowing. “He’s put you on a downer again, hasn’t he?”
“It’s not his fault.”
“Stop making excuses for him, Ari. And you’re not going home.” She tugged on her arm, dragging her back towards the school.