Chapter 10

25.12.08

I have been dubbed by Cuddle Bear herself: "Danger."

Now, not only do I have an amazing ankle brace type device, but I also have a nose cast. I look like I just got mugged.

Which is just the cherry on top of a perfect evening.

Right now I'm sitting on my bed writing a new poem about darkness and despair. Which is basically what I'm feeling like right now.

Jason is in his room doing everything he can to get over Cuddle Bear, I think Mom went to go live in a hotel, Shane is… hell if I know, and I am here.

I am here writing.

So why am I up at one fifty in the morning on a school night?

Because I've decided to become home schooled.

Jason will teach me at home because there is just too much drama that comes with the whole high school experience.

I just have yet to tell Jason he's my new teacher.

I plan on staying up all night.

With Jason as my new teacher, I will study, read my textbooks, and do my homework… And I will not sleep until I have finished. And I'm not one bit tired.

I pick up my Biology textbook.

Okay… Chapter one. "Mitosis versus Meiosis."

I'm tired.

I throw the book across the room and turn out my lights, going to bed.

X X X

When I wake up, it's well past ten. I head downstairs and see Jason at the table, mindlessly sipping a cup of tea.

I sit down at the table with him.

Jason completely ignores my presence and stares straight ahead.

I wave my hands in front of his eyes, but he doesn't snap out of his trance.

I shrug it off and sit down on the couch and watch TV.

When four thirty comes around, Shane comes home and goes right upstairs to his room.

I am so tired of re-runs. I've memorized this show.

So I go upstairs. I knock on Shane's door. "Shane? Can I come in?"

Shane opens the door. "Yes?"

"Want to talk?" I ask.

Shane looks at me funny. "Nate, you are a weird little kid." He shuts the door in my face. Then reopens it and says, "You got something on your nose," then slams it again.

"Nice talking with you, Shane," I call to him sarcastically.

I limp over into my room and log on Facebook. No one's on.

But that's only because school.

You know what's so weird?

I kinda miss school.

Well, not the whole working part, but the whole friends part. I'm bored. This is boring.

With a sigh, I get my lazy butt dressed and walk\limp to school.

It was more of a limp.

When I walk into my French class, my teacher (who is very caring) gasps and says, "Nate, what happened to you?"

"I… got mugged," I say and sit down at a table.

The bell rings like two seconds after I sit down, so I have to hop back up and make my way through the crowded hallway all the way to English class.

Right as I enter the classroom, I see Caitlyn colouring something. I hobble right up to her and say, "Hey."

Caitlyn looks up at me and screams. "Good lord, Nate! What did you do to yourself?"

"I tripped and fell… a lot. Listen, I got to talk to you about some stuff after school. Come home with me?"

She nods. "Yeah… just try not to kill yourself from now to eighth period. Do we need to re-teach you how to walk? Because you seem to be falling a lot."

"Well, my cat jumped on my face… and I tripped on a skate board…"

"Somehow, I always knew something like that would happen to you. I told you you should have gotten a dog."

"I should practise falling so I don't get hurt so much when I do fall."

The bells rings, so I go sit down at my desk.

The rest of the day was boring.

I should have stayed home.

Right as that last bell rang, I almost flew out of my seat and limped like the wind all the way to Caitlyn's locker.

Only I got winded and had to stop for a break.

Goodness, what if I am an old person?

When I finally do make it, Caitlyn has her backpack all packed and ready to go.

"Did you get hurt again?" she asks.

"Nope," I say proudly.

"Well that's good," she laughs. "I'm proud of you."

"Thanks."

"Okay then. Let's get a move on out of this hell hole."

"Sounds good to me."

Caitlyn and I head off out of the school building.

"Let's go the fast way," Caitlyn says and goes across the other bridge.

"Through the forest?" I ask.

She nods. "Yeah. It's faster."

"Okay I'll try my best on these crutches."

"I'll carry you if you can't get through."

"Fine."

We take a sharp left and then go off the sidewalk into the forest. It's a bit steep and I have a hard time walking through, but I make it somehow up the hill and then it starts to level out.

But as we walk, something catches my eye. I look over to my right and see a mysterious-looking black trash bag. I stop limping. "Uhh… Caitlyn, does anyone go out here for some weird reason?"

"What do you mean?" she asks, coming over to me.

I point to the bag. "Scary. Mysterious. Creepy."

"Oh, don't be silly, Nate. It's just trash."

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah. Maybe someone was too lazy to go throw it away in a dumpster."

"Should we call nine-one-one? What if it's dangerous? Like a bomb."

"A bomb? Nate, what have you been smoking?"

"Apparently, a lot."

"Look, it's perfectly fine."

"Well, I live around here and if it's a bomb, I don't want to die."

"Nate, you're silly," Caitlyn says. "Look."

Then she kicks the bag.

And just like a scene out of a horror movie, something rolls out of it.

And it wasn't trash, I'll tell you that.

It was a skull.

A human skull.

As in a dead body was in the bag – well, the remains of a dead body.

Caitlyn and I both scream as louder than we've ever screamed before and we start running. Only I trip and roll down the hill a bit, so Caitlyn grabs me, pulls me up, and drags me out of the forest as fast as we could possibly go.

We continue screaming all the way back to my house and right as we get inside, we lock the door and stand there, spooked to death, trying to catch our breath.

I look down and see that my leg's bleeding. I must have cut it on something. "Oh my god!"

Caitlyn looks over at me. "Yeah. That was fucking creepy."

"No, I cut my leg. What if I get some mad incurable disease from that… dead person?"

She ignores my cut. "We have to call the cops. That was the freakiest thing that's ever happened in my life. You do realize I'm going to have nightmares forever and ever right?"

"Me too," I say and we both walk\limp into the kitchen.

Caitlyn calls the cops and tells them what happened.

Only while she was talking to them, there was a knock on the door.

"IT'S THE DEAD GUY!" I scream. "He wants his head back and now he's coming to get us!"

"Nate, go answer the door!" Caitlyn says to me.

"No!" I call out. "If it's the dead guy, I don't want to die!"

"Get it, you pussy!"

I gulp and hesitantly walk over to the door. I close my eyes and grab an umbrella that was by the door. I unlock the door and open it, swatting the dead guy with the umbrella, screaming.

"Nate, what the hell!?" I hear a voice.

I open my eyes and see Shane standing there, trying to protect himself from my umbrella of doom.

"I'm sorry; I thought you were the dead guy that was coming to get us!" I defend, putting the umbrella down. I hug him. "I'm so glad it's just you!"

Shane pushes me away from him. "Get off me, you freak. And what dead guy?"

"Caitlyn and I found a dead body in the forest!" I tell him frantically.

He looks at me like I should be in a mental institute. "Um…. Okay." He walks upstairs.

I let out an exasperated sigh and walk into the kitchen. I see Caitlyn sitting at the table, sipping an ice tea. She looks up at me. "They said they'd send someone out to get it."

"Okay," I say and sit down at the table.

Caitlyn stares straight ahead kind of like Jason did this morning.

"Well then," I say, breaking the awkward silence.

"I'm not gonna be able to sleep tonight," she says.

"Me neither."

We sit there a bit and then Caitlyn says, "So why did you want me to come over? You said you wanted to talk about something?"

I nod. "We have to go upstairs to talk about it, though," I say, standing up.

Caitlyn and I go upstairs and sit down on my bed.

"So…" she trails off.

"So, here's the thing," I say. "Shane had this house party Saturday night."

"And?"

"And… I did drugs at said party."

Caitlyn gawks at me. "Really?"

I slowly nod.

"Wow, Nate. I never thought that'd you'd have the balls to do drugs. What'd you take?"

"Ecstasy. And I didn't take it voluntarily. Mitchie, you know, Shane's girlfriend, spiked the orange juice."

"Well," Caitlyn says, patting me on the back. "Good job."

"Good job? I thought you'd be mad! You're the first person I told."

"No, good job getting stoned."

"How is this a good thing?"

"It's not. I think it's funny."

"It's not funny."

"Sure it is. Think about it. You drank some harmless orange juice and what happened?"

"I went to the hospital when my fever spiked?"

"Exactly. That's why it's funny."

"You're a sick, cruel person. You know that, right?"

"Yes, well you're a paranoid old person."

"Not an old person!"

"Yes you are. Now tell me more about this party."

"Well… there were like a ton of people."

"And how did Shane get away with this with Jason here?"

"No, Jason was in Saskatchewan."

"I see now. Go on…"

"Well they did a bunch of drugs – Shane was selling them. And… That's about all I can recall. I only remember getting up one time to get orange juice and that's it."

"Well then how'd you find out about the ecstasy if all you remember is drinking orange juice?"

"My lab partner was there and he told me everything."

"Oh. Wow."

"And when I was at the hospital Doctor Cuddle Bunny confronted me about it, and I had no idea what she was talking about… but now I know."

"Wait. Who's Doctor Cuddle Bunny?"

"Never mind."

Then the door flies open and I see Jason standing there, looking horrified.

"Jason!" I exclaim, startled.

"Is all of this true?" he asks, disbelievingly.

I bite my lip. "Um… maybe."

Jason narrows his eyes and then slams my door, yelling, "Shane!"

"This could be messy," I trail off.

Caitlyn hops off my bed. "Let's go watch."

"Caitlyn!" I scold. "That's not very nice!"

"Aww, come on! It will be just like watching hockey, only Shane isn't wearing protective gear and they're not on ice." Caitlyn opens my door and we go out, only to see Jason attempting to kick Shane's door down.

"Shane Adam Gray, you get out here right now!" Jason yells, kicking the door.

Why does this look so familiar?

"No!" Shane says from behind his locked door.

"Shane, how dare you have a house party with drugs and alcohol?" Jason asks him rather harshly.

"Who told you!?"

"I find things out. Now open the door!"

There is no reply from Shane.

Jason kicks the door one last time, and I guess he must have hit it really hard, because it flies open and Jason goes in there. "Where are you, Shane?"

Caitlyn and I cautiously go into the room. Jason is looking for Shane, and I see that the window is open.

I point to the window. "Jason. Window."

Jason turns around and goes over to the window, calling out of it. "Goddamn it, Shane!" Jason then crawls out of the window and onto the tree near Shane's window. Caitlyn and I watch in awe as Jason climbs down the tree like Spiderman and he runs over to Shane, who was lying down in the grass, as if he were waiting to be killed.

We both watch as Jason grabs Shane and picks him up.

Shane then screams. "Ow! Ow!"

"There's gonna be more where that came from," Jason growls, grabbing Shane by his hair and pulling him away.

"Bloody murder!" Shane yelps out. "Jason, stop! Goddamn it!"

"Shane, you are in so much trouble, it's ridiculous!" Jason yells.

"No, I fell out the window and hurt my arm!" Shane tells him.

Caitlyn turns to me. "This is getting juicy."

I nod and keep watching.

"And why should I believe you?" Jason asks, dragging Shane by his hair again.

"Because I'm not a bad person!" Shane says, trying to hop on one foot.

"Yes you are! You are, Shane!"

"Well stop dragging me; you're gonna kill me!"

"You're already dead in my eyes!"

Caitlyn turns to me, her mouth wide open. "Wow…"

"Yeah… Now that you've seen that, welcome to the house of the Gray family – the most fucked up family in the world." I sigh and close the window.

"Oh, come on. You're not that fucked up."

"Yes. Yes we are. We don't have a dad. Our mom doesn't even acknowledge that we exist, my brother is a drug dealer, and my older brother is hopelessly romantic. Face it, we're the most fucked there ever could be."

Caitlyn stands there, sorrow in her eyes, and then when we hear Shane screaming, "Bloody fucking hell!" we both turn around and see Jason dragging Shane into the room, throwing him down on the bed.

"Look, Jason," Shane says, "I think I really hurt myself falling two stories like that."

"I can't trust you anymore, Shane," Jason says. He shakes his head in disappointment.

"Jason, I didn't do drugs! I swear!"

"You're a liar! A dirty, filthy liar!"

"Why won't you trust me? And OW. Can I please get some Advil for my arm?"

Jason shakes his head. "You're not actually hurt. You're a liar!"

"Goddamn, Jason, you've got to believe me! I didn't intentionally do drugs!"

"What do you mean by 'didn't intentionally do drugs'?"

"I mean Mitchie spiked the punch and Nate and I drank it!"

"I thought it was orange juice! Liar!"

"Just because I get the drinks wrong doesn't mean I'm a liar!"

"Yes it does! How else would you not know what actually happened?"

"Oh my god, it's just a name of a drink! Shut the fuck up!"

Jason yells in rage and slams his fist down on the bed, storming out of the room.

Caitlyn and I look at each other when it gets silent.

Then Shane ruins the silence by whispering, "Ow, mother fucker!"

I go over to him. "You really did hurt yourself, didn't you?"

Shane nods. "Yeah. Please for the love of all things holy, go get me the Advil."

I decide to be nice and I get three pills from his bathroom and a cup of water.

"Thanks," Shane says, gratefully taking the pills. He swallows all three of them without the water. "Now get the hell out of here."

Caitlyn and I shrug and leave his room, closing the door behind him.

Only right when we leave, I hear someone crying.

I walk over to Jason's room and knock on the door, opening it. "Jason?"

Jason looks up at me and stops crying. "Yes?" He wipes his eyes.

"Are you okay?" I ask.

He nods. "I'm fine… just… leave me alone."

And then he goes off again with the sobs.

I slowly back out of the room and close the door, turning to Caitlyn.

Caitlyn frowns. "Wow, your family really is fucked up."