Chasing Spring(7)

It was time for another sip.





Chapter Eight


Chase





I stared at the Calloways’ dining table as my lasagna warmed in the microwave. It was an old wooden square that rocked back and forth on unstable legs. It’d sat in the corner of their kitchen for the last decade and a half and it housed countless memories. I’d sat across from Lilah at that table, licking ice cream off my face before begging her to let me finish off her bowl too. I’d lost my first tooth in an apple at that table and I’d gotten in big trouble when I’d scared Lilah with my bloody mouth.

There was a layer of dust coating the top of it now, as if no one had eaten on it in years. I wet a rag and wiped it down until the microwave dinged. Then I took a seat at my old spot against the wall and ate my dinner. I had a perfect view of the empty house. It had the effect of a museum preserving time as best as it could. I knew the lamp in the corner no longer worked, but no one replaced it, just like the ancient VCR and the broken rocking chair in the corner. They were all things Mrs. Calloway had added to the house and I couldn’t figure out why no one had gotten rid of them.

I could hear the faint sound of game footage coming from Coach’s room down the hall. His notepads littered the house, continuous ramblings of a man with a passion for baseball. I loved the game too, but it was in Mr. Calloway’s blood in a way it would never be in mine.

Harvey let out a melodramatic moan beneath the table and I realized he’d been waiting patiently for a scrap. I tossed him a piece of burnt cheese just before the front door opened.

It was 12:01 AM, officially the start of my second day living with the Calloways, and I was finally getting my first glimpse of Lilah. She stumbled inside, closed the door behind her, and then leaned against it as if she couldn’t hold up the weight of her own body. With bated breath, I waited for her next move. Before she could meet my gaze, Harvey’s excitement bubbled over. I reached down and held his collar so he couldn’t run and lunge at her. I shook my head as his bright pleading eyes met mine.

He wanted to run and greet her as much as I did. Lilah was back. She was back, and yet she was so different. Black hair and short shorts and a drug-induced haze. But she was also the same girl I’d always known—pale, small, freckled, and lost. I scraped my chair back and stood to announce my presence, but she was already gone. Her eyes popped open and she ran for the stairs, clutching her stomach with one hand and covering her mouth with the other. She was too sick to notice me standing in the kitchen.

I put Harvey outside and then took the stairs two at a time. We were sharing a bathroom, her and I. She would have noticed my shaving cream beside hers, but her head was over the toilet and she was throwing up, making deep loud heaves that sounded as if her body was rejecting everything inside of her.

I stepped into the bathroom and closed the door carefully so her dad wouldn’t hear over the game footage. She reached for toilet paper, wiped her mouth, and whirled around to stare at me.

Her eyes hit me all at once, bright green and vulnerable until she registered who I was.

“Are you okay?” I asked, taking another tentative step closer.

She narrowed her eyes and pointed at the door. “GET OUT.”

“Lilah—”

She spun back around and threw up again, her protests about my presence losing to her body’s need to purge itself of the night’s indiscretions.

“Did you drink?” I asked.

She nodded, quick and almost imperceptible.

“Did you take something too?”

She didn’t respond, so I repeated the question. “Lilah, did you take anything?”

“Molly,” she said, resting her head on her arm along the edge of the toilet.

I reached around her to flush and caught a whiff of her. She smelled like she’d bathed in cigarette smoke and throw up. I bent low to check if she was all right. Her eyes were closed, her lips cracked and raw. I watched her chest, trying to make out the rise and fall beneath her tank top.

I could feel the heat rolling off of her and after I confirmed she was still breathing, I crept back down the stairs for a glass of water, and then thought better of it and got two.

When I returned, she was awake and sitting with her back against the bathtub. Her knees were pulled to her chest and her hands were wrapped around them, keeping her body in a tight ball.

“Here, drink these,” I said, dropping the glasses near her feet and looking away before she could shoot me another death stare.

I rifled through the medicine cabinet above the toilet. Everything in it was old or empty. The only bottle of Advil had expired the year before but I still grabbed it. She’d need something to curb the headache in the morning.

“The prodigal daughter returns,” she slurred with a dark tone. “And who runs to meet her?”

I turned from the medicine cabinet to catch her staring up at me with the same fury as before.

“None other than Chase Matthews, the golden boy himself.” She smirked and wiped the back of her hand across her mouth. “Is this how you expected to find me? Just like her?”





Chapter Nine


November 1996

Blackwater, Texas





The old house sat silent in the night except for the two teenage girls trying in vain to keep quiet in the bathroom. Hannah propped Elaine up over the toilet and held her long blonde hair away from her face.