Chapter 6 – Chap 6

Spring Break in the midwestern United States is bittersweet. On the one hand, you’re out of school for a whole week. On the other, seeing as how it takes place in the middle of March, the temperature is still too cold to properly enjoy the weather outside. That is unless you were one of the lucky ones who intended on traveling somewhere warm, like Florida, on your time off.

As fate would have it, though, my junior year of highschool I was stuck freezing in my home town. Regardless of how much I expected my spring break to be mind numbingly boring, I found myself praying for the week to end as I walked into school the Monday morning before.

It’d only been three days since we’d taken our trip down trail 2 on Friday night. I hadn’t had any form of communication with Josh since and I didn’t plan to. Our long awaited reunion hadn’t been as ceremonious as I had hoped for, especially with me almost getting into a fight with Drevon. I was still upset that Josh had taken his side on the matter as opposed to mine. Still, though, I didn’t want to add fuel to the fire.

So, when I walked by the lunchroom that morning before school, I did my best not to pay too much attention to their group’s tabel. I couldn’t resist a glance however, but I only saw them huddled closely together, talking. If I had to wager a bet I’d say that it was about Friday night’s events. I tried not to think about it as I made my way to my locker.

Still not quite awake, I lazily dialed in my combination, hardly noticing the short blonde girl to my right.

“Oh,” I said when I opened my locker door with a bit too much force and almost hit her with it, “Hey, Amy.”

She looked up to meet my eyes, smiling slightly as she did, “Hey.”

I’d always thought of myself as a pretty observant person. Yet, as I looked down at this freshman, I realized how much I really wasn’t, or at least hadn’t been as of late.

She looked good. I don’t mean to say that she didn’t before or that I was on the verge of a crush at the sight of her. Nothing like that. Amy simply looked happy today. She looked like the same Amy who had bumped in to me that first day of school back in August.

I’d been so caught up in my own life that I hadn’t noticed the sadness that she’d carried behind her eyes and the spunk that was disappearing from her with every step that she took. If my memory was correct, the earliest date that I could trace it back to was after Ronnie Ferguson’s death.

“Uh,” I stammered, hating the awkward silence yet again, “How was your weekend?”

She grabbed a textbook from her locker and tucked it under her arm.

“It wasn’t bad. Did some homework, hung out with some friends,” she trailed off as she grabbed another book, “How about you?”

“Not bad,” I wanted to leave it at that, but she kept looking at me, wanting me to go on. And perhaps because of the anger I was still feeling from Friday’s events, I continued. “I went to the woods.”

She tilted her head slightly to the right, “Oh yeah? What woods?”

“(Redacted),” I wasn’t ready enough to come up with a lie but I knew the second the name of those woods came out of my mouth that I shouldn’t have said it.

With those words, Amy’s happy demeanor had fallen.

It was the last time that I ever saw her look truly happy. I still feel regret for taking that away from her.

There was now a fire in her eyes and it didn’t take an expert to realize that she was mad.

“Why?” Her eyes were watering.

I couldn’t think of a good reason, “I…I…”

SMACK!

I felt a hot sting streak across my left cheek and jaw. I only realized what it was when I saw the bright red palm of her right hand still being held in the air. She had dropped her books and slapped me.

Luckily, the area was near empty besides Amy and I, saving me some embarrassment.

“You went because of him, didn’t you?” All I could do was shamefully nod my head.

“Did that creep Josh talk you into it?” This time I did nothing. She sniffled and wiped the forming tears from her eyes . She bent down to pick up her books and I did the same to help.

“I’m sorry,” she muttered as I handed her a french textbook.

“It’s fine,” I said. I didn’t feel good about the whole situation anyways. She picked up the last textbook and rose to her feet with me. Then, she leaned in close and whispered, “Did you find anything?”

I nodded once more.

Her eyes widened and her lips parted open with a gasp, “Will you show me?”

I weighed the idea in my mind. I wanted to tell her that there was hardly anything to see at all. I felt like it was a pointless endeavor that couldn’t possibly lead to any closure. But I took one look into those sad, green eyes and saw just how much it meant to her.

“Of course.”

Amy wanted to leave Saturday morning, the first day of spring break. As fate would have it, however, I had my drivers test early that day.

“What about later?” she pleaded. I had already told her that all we had found was a little strip of police tape, but she was nothing if not persistent, “You could pick me up! You know… if you pass your drivers test.”

I knew that there was a law stating that all new driver’s license recipients must wait six months after receiving their license before they were allowed to drive around any passengers that weren’t family.

Trespassing in some woods at night was one thing. This wasn’t something that I wanted on my record for insurance reasons and I especially didn’t want to risk having my license getting taken away on my very first day having it.

Seeing as how there had been a serious car wreck that had taken the lives of several students of our rival high school less than a year ago, police officers weren’t joking around about teen traffic laws. If I got caught it wouldn’t just be a slap on the wrist. I didn’t want to risk it.

The bell rang, signalling that we had just ten minutes to get to class. I gave her my answer.

“Yeah, I’ll be there.”