I'm sorry if this chapter seems really odd, but whatever I am about to write is influenced by the fact that I'm exhausted, but still in a writing mood. With that said, I begin…

Chpt. 7 – Hoodsie's Retaliation

It was like he had just become the main character in a soap opera. Hoodsie sat and listened as Ginger attempted to explain everything that had happened to his best friend in the past two days, but none of it was making sense. How could all of this be happening so fast?

"Hoodsie are you even listening to me anymore?"

Suddenly Ginger's voice broke through his clouded thought processes and he glanced with a glazed look at her. She sighed audibly and leaned forward, staring into the liquid in her glace which, now placid, showed a rather stunning reflection of her left eye. The silence between them seemed unbearable to Hoodsie, yet it also seemed that there was nothing he could say, nothing he could do, there was just nothing left for him here. A wave of sadness began to creep over his being that he couldn't quite place, or maybe it was that he didn't want to place it, whatever it was, he didn't like it and quickly forced it back down from whence it came. Eventually Ginger looked away from her glass and back at him.

"I know this is hard Hoodsie, it will be for all of us, but we've got to do what we can to help, you know what I mean?"

She was right, this was hard, and none of it made sense, but he wasn't going to let something like this come between him and his best friend in the whole wide world. Slowly, and with a rather annoying screech of wooden chair legs against kitchen floor tiles, Hoodsie pushed his chair away from the table and nodded his head.

"I'm going to go talk to him."

It was obvious that he didn't have to say anymore. Ginger replied only with a curt nod, before returning her attention to the juice in front of her. Her mind seemed to be wandering somewhere between thoughts of the present and some other time that Hoodsie couldn't quite determine. This was definitely one of those moments that he wished he could read minds, but there were more important matters at hand. With a final decision, Hoodsie stood and quickly made his way across the kitchen toward the arched hall leading to the living room and the stairs. As he began to ascend said stairs, he heard the familiar ring of the Foutley's phone, and the sound of wood against tile again, leading him to believe that Ginger had rose to the occasion.

The walk to Carl's room wasn't all that long, yet it seemed like eternity for the poor boy who had no clue what he was going to say, or how Carl would react. Each step felt like he was wearing lead shoes, and it was only a moment of time before he collapsed of exhaustion on the Foutley's staircase, but that moment never came. Instead, Hoodsie reached Carl's room much sooner than expected in the warped reality that was now his mind, and tentatively he reached out to touch the door. It was unlocked. Gathering his nerves about him, Hoodsie turned the knob fully and pushed the door open just enough for him to slip through. Closing the door behind him, there was a resounding "click" in the silence that was now Carl's room, and on the other side of the room, huddled in a ball in the corner was Carl himself.

Hoodsie had been in Carl's room plenty of times before, but something about this time seemed to prick that sense in Hoodsie's mind that everyone thinks they have but can't seem to use it unless it wants to be used. That sense that causes the hairs on the back of a person's neck to stand up because someone is behind them. It was that sense that caused Hoodsie to give the room a once over like he had never done before. The room seemed to be in even more disarray than normal. Certainly Carl was messy, but where the rest of the world saw disorganization, Carl knew where everything was, and so did Hoodsie. Yet now nothing seemed to be in any sort of order. Then it hit him, the wall at the foot of the bed had a hole in it, a rather large hole, just big enough for…

"What do you want?"

The cracked, dry sounding voice of the boy across the room held a tone of malice, but all the same seemed incredibly pitiful to Hoodsie. Carl had not even raised his head to speak, rather he had muttered the sentence into his crooked knees, on which he rested his forehead. His hair looked as if he had run his fingers through it a thousand times or more in the past fifteen minutes, but at least he had stopped crying, that was a good sign, right? Hoping for the best, Hoodsie shifted from one foot to the other while he spoke.

"I…I want to help, why won't you talk to me?"

"I told you, you wouldn't understand."

The retaliation was cold, but held a hint of surprise. Along with that, it had seemed to Hoodsie that Carl had looked up, if only for a second, at the sound of his voice. It was then that Hoodsie started to piece together more than he had already seen.

"You didn't think it would be me, did you?"

There was a long pause from the other end, before a slight croak was heard, indicating that Carl had attempted to say something, but his dry throat would not allow it. On a second try though, he managed out one word.

"No."

"Carl, Ginger told me what happened."

With that Carl's head shot up, a look crossed his face like that of a small animal caught in the path of a speeding car, and he glanced from side to side in an instant, as if looking for where to run. Seeing no escape, Carl made to say something, but Hoodsie calmly held up one hand to silence him.

"Do you really think that something like that would matter to me? I'm your best friend Carl; at least I thought I was…"

The last part of Hoodsie's comment seemed to come out as more of a whisper, a comment-to-self, rather than meant for the ears of other humans. Yet there was no doubt that Carl had heard it, and the questioning look on his face only confirmed it.

"What do you mean?"

Carl's voice was still cracked and dry, but somehow he had managed to squeak out a question for his friend to answer for once, and at that, all hell broke loose. It seemed as if something inside Hoodsie finally broke. The feeling that he had felt back in the kitchen rose up again, but with renowned strength, and forced its way out. Hoodsie's mind seemed to reel between thoughts of sorrow, of rage, and of pure pity, but for whom he was not sure.

"What do I mean? I mean the fact that in one weekend you've managed to replace me, and with who, no one else but your worst enemy. Do I really mean that little to you anymore? So little that you can just toss me aside when you're done with me?"

The words that Hoodsie spoke came from some place inside of him that he had not known until that point, but everything he said made sense in his mind, even if it didn't in the minds of any other. He felt a tear trickle down his face and drip from the end of his chin, which only caused him to reach back and pull his namesake tight around his head, hoping to hide in the shadows. Suddenly he became aware of the heart breaking sob from the other side of the room, and the mutterings that were just barely audible.

"I'm sorry Hoods…I never meant to replace you…I don't know what's going on…It hurts so much…I don't know…what…"

A racking sob overtook the smaller boy's frame and, without thinking, Hoodsie rushed to his side, and that was all it took. The quarrel hadn't even lasted five minutes, until Carl lay weeping into his best friend's shoulder, muttering about how much it hurts and how little he knows. Slowly Hoodsie wrapped his arms around his friend, feeling rather awkward, but knowing that he could help Carl in any way was enough for Hoodsie. The sobs eventually began to recede, and then stopped all together. Sniffles came and went, and then there was steady breathing, and Carl was asleep.

Well, that chapter didn't seem to have much to do with the whole plot too much, but it was fun, and there are a good few hints in there about things to come, if you can spot them, so I will leave you for now. Latta.

MK