CHAPTER 30

Despite seeing her in her normal cheery mood, I barely wanted to follow her. I still wanted to be alone in my room with the door slammed shut. I felt sorry for her, and it was clear I caught her at a bad moment, but she hurt me.

I still followed her, of course, worried what kind of bold introduction she would make to my father. As I caught up to her, she was already in the living room, and had already made eye contact with my dad.

"Ah, you must be Timothy Watson." she smiled at him.

Dad gave me a glance. "I'm Adam's father, if that's what you mean." he answered her, outstretching his hand. "You're Nicole, right?"

Nicole nodded enthusiastically. After sinking back into the sofa, dad eyed me and exclaimed, "She's !" It was probably another dated reference.

And of course, it was stupid of me to assume Nicole wouldn't catch on to it. "Ah, I loved Poltergeist.Perhaps one of my favorite Spielberg movies. It's interesting how light in his movies always signifies evil, don't you think? It was a real transition from movie conventions. Maybe that's why they consider the '80s the second Golden Age of cinema."

Dad said nothing for the longest time. He just stared at her with an incredulous look on his face. Finally, he turned back to me and ordered, "Keep her."

Nicole just giggled at the comment. I hated to admit, she was cute as hell when she giggled. Despite this, even when she turned back to me and gave me a smile, I just stared at her.

"So did Adam really give you my name?" Dad asked, not aware of the tension between us. "He doesn't talk about us much."

"Nope." Nicole answered simply, her eyes still fixed on mine, before she turned around to face him again. "You just look like Timothy."

Dad was at a loss for words, for the second time in a few months. It was a record for him. "Right…" he finally managed. "Okay then, what's Adam's mom's name?"

Nicole blinked twice. "She looks like Marcia." she said in a thoughtful voice.

Dad's eyes widened. "Adam, ask her how I die."

Even when freaked out, dad's sense of humor never dwindled. Nicole just laughed at him and looked around eventually seeing the staircase in the hallway leading upstairs. She emitted an audible 'ah' and made for the staircase.

Dad pulled me by the arm to him as I was about to follow her. "Vampire or siren?" he asked me in a whisper, with no humorous undertone to his voice.

"Don't whisper around her!" mom hissed, running up to us. "She'll hear you!

My parents were nuts. As easily as I could, I slipped from dad's grasp and followed Nicole upstairs, to my room.

"I think I freaked your dad out." Nicole remarked as she threw a shirt of mine into the hamper. I looked around the room. The floor was clean, the bed was made, and all of my laundry was in the hamper.

"So how'd you get his name? And mom's." I asked, before hastily adding, "And don't just say grade 11."

"Your family leaves their bills on the kitchen table. I saw it on my way to greet him." She answered me, smiling slightly. As soon as she saw that I wasn't smiling back, her smile faded and she sighed.

"I'm sorry." she said slowly as she advanced towards me. "I didn't mean what I said. Any of it."

I didn't smile, I didn't react, I didn't do anything besides stand and give her a death stare that would make Luigi jealous.

"I was upset." she protested. "Really upset. I'm not good to talk to when I'm… there."

I remained unmoved, as Nicole sighed loudly. "I was a gigantic jerk. I get it."

I nodded. "Want the full story?" She asked me.

"Sure." I said, sitting down on the edge of my bed and inviting her to do the same.

She breathed in and out a few times before beginning. "My brother died in August. Like, this August. He was between jobs, like he always was. 'High-school drop-out' never looks good on a résumé, y'know…" She emitted a single chuckle, and smiled while looking at the floor. "He sometimes stayed at our place. It's the room across from mine. It's now pretty much a study… Anyways, he was between jobs, and he figured the best thing was to get out of the house and live on his own for a while. With strangers, on the streets, just something to get him motivated, or something like that."

Her smile was gone at this point, and she was beginning to lean over the bed. I caught her with my one arm, and her arms grabbed at it, pawing their way up my arm until her hands were clutching at my sweater in some kind of embrace. I hugged her back.

"After about four days, we wondered if he got the job or made it to the outside world or something, because, y'know, he wasn't back. We were actually kinda happy for him in the beginning. But after two weeks, we weren't happy… It wasn't like him to just… walk out of our lives."

Her voice was just above a whisper at this point. "He was so damn chatty." she remarked, although what should have been humor in her voice was just sadness. "Sometimes he'd come back home every two days just to talk about all of the stuff he did, all of the people he met, all of the parties he went to, all of the sunrise he saw… Then just leave, like that. Always off on another adventure. So after twenty-one days passed, we called out to the neighborhood, his friends, then even the police. No one even heard from him, until we heard from one distant friend that he was traveling, but would be home soon. There was even going to be a party for him when he came back with his friends. Mommy, daddy and I were so happy…"

Her clutch on my chest got tighter. "A few days later, we heard he was back. Mommy wanted to go see him immediately, but we wanted him to have his party first. So we waited for one more day, but in the morning…" Her voice was beginning to get clouded up from the onset of tears. "In the morning, we received a phone call. It was for my parents… They needed to identify someone at the park where Mitchell had his party. Our tone had shifted from happy to worried, but it never crossed our minds that it could be him. We thought it was someone we knew at the party… They only needed dad, but we all went. I stayed in the car, hoping that Mitch would be there, that he was helping them. That would have been so like him."

She paused for a second to catch her breath before continuing. "Even in the car, I could hear mom screaming at the sight. I looked out the window to see her crying like crazy into dad's shoulder, with dad just standing there, holding a hand over his mouth. I'd never seen dad crying before, and… and I…"

She couldn't finish her sentence amidst her new tears, but she tried anyway. "I ran over to see what the commotion was, trying to push the idea aside, and when I got there… It was fucking Mitch, but it didn't look anything like him. His skin was just white, his lips were blue, he looked like shit, and I…" She got that far before bursting into tears, crying right into my sweater.

She looked up at me, as if I was there with her. "We later found out it was a heroin overdose. Fucking heroin. I didn't even know Mitch DID heroin. That wasn't Mitch. It couldn't have been." She looked at me for a few more seconds before the tears came back.

"I refused to admit it for the first bit. Like Mitch was still out there, and would walk in the door any second…" she trailed off, only to start a more violent series of crying. "It's not fair, god dammit! Mitch didn't deserve it! He was the sweetest fucking guy I knew! I just want him back, God fucking dammit. I just want him back!!"

She pounded the bed with her fist. Not knowing any words for her, I just pulled her in close. She responded by pulling me as tight against her and crying for as long as she could.