Chapter 14

Garbage

…two days later

Why did Josh always have to be involved? All he did was offer to get the mail. He

wanted to see if he got his college catalogues, especially the one from Princeton

University. Despite being on the Honor Society Josh didn't think he had the makings

of a true Ivy Leaguer. He only applied there because Mindy did and they wanted to

start their college careers together. There were no college catalogues in the mail only

one from JcPenney and a stack of bills.

The envelope was lavender as well as lavender scented. The handwriting was neat,

charm school cursive.

To: Drake Parker

From: Emme Jessica Watson

The middle of the envelope was squishy indicating that there was a note inside of the

card.

There was an underlined message in neat bold block lettering in red ink on the bottom

left hand corner:

Please Read

Josh put the rest of the mail back in the mailbox and decided to get this over with as

soon as possible.

Drake set up the Monopoly board on the coffee table in their room. Surprised at

himself, because he hasn't played Monopoly in like years. Well, the strip version last

year with the senior twin cheerleaders Monica and Marcia Horan in their out-of-town

parents basement didn't count.

Community Chests, indeed.

"Hey, Josh. Come play Monopoly."

"Wow. You must really be bored."

Or board. Josh saved Drake the bad pun.

"What's wrong? You look like you ate too much pie."

Yeah, how good is pie?

"You got something in the mail, Drake, and I'm afraid to give it to you."

"Why? Don't worry about it, man."

"Okay. You got a card from—Emme." Josh handed Drake the card that he had hidden

inside his orange hooded sweatshirt.

"That's what you were afraid of?" Drake smiled.

Josh questioned the smile in his mind.

"Are you all right?"

"I'm fine." Drake got up and Josh was too curious to not follow him to see where he

was going with it.

"Drake, where are you going?"

"You'll see, Josh."

They walked to the garage and as soon Josh's eyes focused on the dark green plastic

Rubbermaid large trashcans that were stacked neatly in the back he knew exactly

what his brother was going to do. Drake undid the already loose knot Josh made in

one of the white kitchen Hefty bags for tomorrow morning's pick-up and put the

unopened envelope in the trash bag and then tied the bag in a tight knot.

"Are you sure that you are okay?"

"I'm great. Apart from a 'little' cancer, I feel just great. Let's play Monopoly. I'll even let

you be the racing car."

Josh knew not to push his brother so to get him to open up for a magical reveal so he

just followed him back upstairs. Josh didn't know what all of his opinions were on this

subject.

Yes, Emme did a hurtful thing to Drake and the rest of the kids in the support group,

but his brother got the most of the hurt and that wasn't right. Yet, she was probably a

terrified girl underneath all of the rudeness who probably just wanted to push everyone

away so they couldn't get close to her because she had cancer and she didn't believe

that she was going to make it. It was like she was trying to spare people in a very

unfortunate way.

But Josh was a sucker for a happy ending. He'd love to see Drake be a one-woman

man and bury every single skanks phone number in the backyard along with his fish

Renaldo because he didn't have the heart to flush him down the toilet. His brother

could pull her to safety, which was probably what Emme wanted all along.

"I'm going to bring up a snack do you want some pudding?" Josh asked

"Chocolate?"

"Is there any other kind?"

"Sure. Thanks, Josh."

Drake continued upstairs with no revealing emotion on his face, it was like a part of

him that wanted so desperately to be woken up was put right back to sleep forever

and it didn't bother him one bit.

I-I don't care.

"I'm glad to see you dressed for our walk on the grounds." Mrs. Watson said to her

daughter, she couldn't help buttoning up her soft yellow cashmere cardigan for her.

"I can't stay in bed all day, all the time."

(Did Drake get the card?)

The only ones who wrote back were Amy who just signed her name on a standard

'thank you' note card that she was probably prompted to do by her parents. Herbie

made her a homemade card on his computer and enclosed some samples of some

sensitive skin and safe for cancer patient's lotion that his Aunt Iris was selling. They

walked three quarters of the way before Emme opened her mouth on the subject.

"Mom, do you think Drake got the card yet?"

"I'm sure he did, dear." Mrs. Watson liked to walk with a solid piece of tree branch so

she could scrape the dirt that was along the edges of the smoothly paved surface.

"Can we stop here?" Emme liked to hold onto the brown fence to look at her horse.

A chestnut brown Arabian named Peanut Butter Cup who was ten years old. She

wished that she could ride him again.

"Do you want to go back inside?"

"No, I want to look at Peanut Butter Cup," She waited a few seconds, "Did you have

lunch with Mrs. Nichols yet?"

"No and no. I know what you want to ask and the answer is no."

"But Drake is stubborn!"

"You're going to question Drake's actions? I'm sorry; Emme Jessica, but you pushed

him away. How do you expect him to react?"

"Why can't you TALK to Mrs. Nichols for me?" Emme didn't want to cry, she was afraid

her mother would accuse her of shedding crocodile tears.

"Because we agree that it is not our place to get involved in these matters."

"What am I supposed to do?"

"The answer will come to you."

Emme was this close to calling her mother 'a bitch' out loud. What was she going to

do ground her? She was already a walking death sentence.

For the rest of the walk around their lavish spread Emme did not speak one more

word to her mother.

(Why won't you help me?)

(I am your own daughter.)

It was four o'clock in the morning when Josh got up to go pee. He was worried that

Drake was not in his bed and when he walked to the bathroom he got even more

concerned when the room was empty. Josh put away his urge to use the bathroom for

a moment and went to look for his brother. He swore if his brother took his car and

snuck out for a drive to only God knows where Josh was going to strangle him after he

hugged him upon a safe return.

There was Drake in the garage putting a hole in the garbage bag because he tied

the knot too tight to pull out the lavender envelope from Emme Jessica Watson. It had

spaghetti sauce on it and drips of Italian salad dressing.

Josh didn't want Drake to know he was down here so he quietly left the room, stubbing

his toe on Megan's bike because she moved it earlier when she went out for a ride.

He bit his lip to keep from cursing and hobbled to the bathroom.

By the time Drake put the unopened envelope in his top desk drawer and climbed

back into his bed Josh was already there tucked into his own covers.

"How's your toe?" Drake asked, while grabbing the raspberry scented alcohol free

anti bacterial hand wash that his mother wanted him to use.

Josh pretended to be snoring as to not admit that he was spying on his brother.

"Goodnight, Josh." Drake laid on his side and pulled the covers up snuggling back

into his blue blanket.

See what's inside?

It's going to take some time to realign.

Author's note: Lyrics of "I Found a Way" by Drake Bell and Michael Corcoran.