"It's weird," Kelly said, sitting up in her hospital bed, "my whole life I'd never been able to survive any kind of physical activity of any kind. That's why I never want out for any sports. Remember when I broke my tailbone just from falling off the monkey bars in 5th grade?"
Rachel nodded, sitting in the chair beside the bed. "And yet, here I am, having survived a plane crash," Kelly continued, "who'd have thought, of all the people we know, that I'd be the one who'd manage to achieve that." "It's not a skill," Rachel remarked. "I know that," Kelly said, "but it's still pretty damn impressive. The odds of it being me, out of all those people, is wild. None of The Evergreens, not even the guy sitting next to me-" Rachel looked up from her yogurt, spoon sticking from between her lips. Kelly noticed her and elaborated. "Some older guy in a sweatervest," she said, "might've been a teacher, I don't know." Of course. Wattson. Rachel continued eating. The last thing she wanted to discuss, in all honesty, was the crash, but it seemed oddly therapeutic for Kelly, so she let her prattle on and on long as she wanted, because it kept her interested and awake. Really, though, Rachel was just happy to finally be able to see her, especially after a few scary days of thinking she'd never see her best friend again. "Hey, at least now you'll have a cool story to tell on dates," Rachel said. "Right, like I get asked out," Kelly said. The door to her room opened and Wyatt entered, carrying a box of donuts and setting it down on Kelly's lap. She lit up immediately and threw the box lid open, grabbing a sprinkle covered donut as Wyatt sat down beside Rachel, handing her a coffee, which she politely thanked him for. "Plus now I get spoiled," Kelly said, mouth full of donut, "if that isn't worth the terror of a free fall from the sky, I don't know what is." Rachel smiled weakly. So many things she wanted to say. Apologize for. Like how she'd inadvertently been involved in the crash to begin with, but if she ever told Kelly that, she knew it would be the end of everything. So instead she just smiled, nodded, went along with the conversation, ignoring all the goodwill in her heart to do the right thing. After all, she'd not been doing the right thing for so long now, what was one more lie added to the pile, in reality? And Wyatt? Wyatt did the same. He didn't want to lose Kelly's friendship, after he thought he'd nearly lost her wholesale as it was. Besides, much as he cared about her, he wasn't actually here to talk to Kelly. He was here to talk to Rachel, and all because of an interaction he'd had earlier in the day. *** That morning, when Wyatt woke up, he went downstairs, found breakfast already made and Scarlett and the kids eating, and he smiled to himself. A return to at least semi normalcy was more than welcome at this point. He got himself some coffee from the pot before seating himself at the table, all of them eating in silence. Mona was reading a book, her little brother was babbling happily, and Scarlett was scrolling through her social media feed on her phone. "What motivated you to make an entire breakfast spread?" Wyatt asked as he pulled some pancakes onto his plate and began pouring syrup over them. "Well, I started to feel like less of a mom after watching nothing but 80s sitcoms all day," Scarlett replied flatly, the both of them laughing at this response. After breakfast, Wyatt went upstairs, took a shower, got dressed, said goodbye to his family and headed to work. However, the last thing he expected to find once he entered his office was Celia, of all people, who had apparently been waiting for him since work started. He jumped a little at the sight of her, then straightened out his tie and put his briefcase down by the desk as he sat in his office chair. "What're you doing here?" he asked, checking his watch, "Isn't this a little early for a meeting?" "We need to talk about Calvin," Celia said coldly, and Wyatt nodded. "Yeah...yeah I know." "He's unhinged," Celia said, "he's...I mean he's an out and out danger to anyone and everyone around us, and he's the thread that will unspool it all if we don't do something to get him under control of some sort." "You sound like a mob boss," Wyatt said, grinning, making her smirk. "Listen," Celia said, standing up and pacing, "...blowing up one guy? It's bad, but it's manageable. But blowing up an entire plane, killing literally over a hundred people? That...that's not so manageable. What if he gets the itch to do something worse. What if some other prominent figure attached to the whole thing emerges, and he has to...I don't know, derail a train?" "A train?" Wyatt asked, laughing, "Who is he, Dick Dastardly?" "Wyatt, I'm being serious, you know what I'm talking about. If he's capable of terrorism on that level, then he's capable of anything, and we need a contingency plan of some sort in place to deal with it when that time comes." "You mean if." "No, I think we both know I mean when," Celia said, looking sternly at Wyatt's face. This was when it dawned on Wyatt just how right Celia was. It wasn't a matter of if. It was a matter of when. He sighed, stood up and walked over to Celia, putting his hands on her shoulders and guiding her back to her seat. Celia reluctantly took her seat again, as Wyatt sat on his desk in front of her, holding her hands, rubbing the back of them with his thumbs in a comforting manner. "Listen," Wyatt said, "leave Calvin to me, okay? I know you're right. I know that moment is going to come. But you don't have to worry about it. You have your job and your son, and you don't need to be struggling with Calvin's bullshit as well. Leave him to me and maybe Rachel. We'll figure something out, I promise. And unlike my father, I don't make promises for the sake of looking good. I'll actually follow through on them. So when I promise you something, rest assured you can take it at face value." Celia smiled, nodding. She did believe Wyatt. Up to this point, he'd done his best to keep her and Rachel as shielded as possible for Calvin's batshit attitude and actions, and up to this point he hadn't let them down, so why should she think he would? Wyatt let go of her hands and walked back around behind his desk, sitting back down as Celia turned around in her chair, facing him. "Why'd you say that about your father?" she asked, "you never talk about him." "Because he's an awful bag of shit," Wyatt said, "and because I've done my damndest to not be anything like him. Rest assured, the only thing we have in common at this juncture is our last name, and even that I'm not too crazy about. I actually thought about taking Scarlett's last name when we married just to have absolutely nothing in common with my father, but Wyatt Demure made me sound like some kind of old timey cowboy, and...I mean, that's not uncool but it's not exactly business like." Celia laughed, listening. She was grateful to have Wyatt to calm her nerves, nerves which were beginning to get frayed at each end. So she sat there and she listened to him joke and she tried to let herself forget about the potential danger they were constantly in. A few hours into it, Wyatt suggested they go to lunch, and frankly, Celia couldn't think of a better way to spend an afternoon. *** When Rachel entered Kelly's room for the first time, she almost burst into tears. Kelly wasn't asleep, she was just resting, but seeing her best friend in a hospital bed, after having survived something almost nobody survives...it really made her feel emotional. She approached the bed lightly and sat down in the chair beside it, almost as if it'd been placed there expecting her. Kelly slowly opened her eyes and looked towards Rachel, who just smiled at her. "Hey," Kelly whispered, "you finally showed up." "I did, yeah," Rachel replied, "I brought Yogurt. Do you want Yogurt?" "It's one of the few things they let me have in here, so not really," Kelly said, chuckling, "kind of sick of it by now, but thanks for thinking of me. I appreciate that." "How are you feeling?" Rachel asked, and Kelly pursed her lips, thinking. How was she feeling? She'd been on her way to a convention for work and somehow wound up surviving a plane crash in the process. She should be feeling invincible, but instead she found that she felt more...fragile than anything. Like life could be taken from her at any moment, because, when she faced reality, she realized that her survival was a fluke. She could've just as easily died like the others. So she didn't feel invincible. She just felt lucky. Grateful. To still be here, still have her friends, her life. "I feel..." Kelly started, "...alive." "Well that's an answer," Rachel remarked, chuckling as she pulled the lid off her Yogurt, dumped in the little granola bits on top and dug in with the tiny plastic spoon provided, adding, "when do you think you'll be able to get out of here? I mean, how bad of shape are you in?" "My left leg is completely shattered, bone wise," Kelly said, "I'll be in a cast for months. On crutches for a while, and that's if I even should be allowed out of bed. Other than that, I'm surprisingly okay. I'll probably be staying with my folks, though, since being on my own in my apartment is likely a bad idea." And just as she said this, the door to the room opened again and in walked her parents, Allen and Carol. They stopped at the sight of Rachel, surprised, having not seen her in years. Rachel stood up and set her yogurt down on the table, and was suddenly hugged tightly by them both, which surprised her. She hadn't expected such a warm welcome, especially after how things had gone down between Kelly and her in high school, but here she was, always the ever present familiar face, ready to help. "We didn't know she was having a visitor," Allen said, as he pulled away and sat down on the bedside by Kelly, stroking her face, "if we'd known we'd have come prepared with more snacks and stuff." "Oh, it's okay, I brought my own snacks," Rachel replied, snickering. Rachel's eyes then turned to Kelly's mother, Carol, who was still hugging her, looking at her. Rachel felt a sense of unease, and politely squirmed away, excusing herself. Once out in the hall, she leaned against the now shut door and breathed, her chest rising and falling fast. She didn't know why Carol had been eyeballing her the way that she had, and it made her incredibly uncomfortable. She needed comfort food. She needed a candy bar. She felt around in her back pants pocket to discover her wallet, and headed to the candy machine down the hall. If there's one thing that can calm a girls nerves, she thought, it's chocolate. *** "When I was a boy," Wyatt said, cutting his sandwich in half at the table on the outdoor patio of the bistro they'd gone to lunch for, "and not the strapping young lad you see before you now, my father and I had an okay enough relationship. I mean, it wasn't great, we weren't playing catch every day and bonding like you see in commercials, but hey, that's why they're commercials, right? An idealized lie about reality, meant to make you feel insecure about your own so you buy their product." "Wow, you really understand marketing," Celia said, sipping on her iced tea. "Well, I work in business, so," Wyatt said, taking a bite from his sandwich; he chewed, swallowed, then continued, "anyway, so we got along pretty alright. But once I got to be a teenager, I started spending a lot of time with my mom, and between that and my first girlfriend, I kind of...stopped being an asshole. I mean, I was never an asshole asshole, but I had that guy mentality that all guys start out with, right? Thinking you're the center of the universe, the best, biggest and brightest. I was never mean to women, but I also never considered them much. But my first girlfriend, Amelia, she especially opened my eyes to how hard things were for women, and after that, I started seeing my father in a whole new light, and he frankly wasn't happy about that or her." "Sounds like a wonderfully delightful man," Celia said, sticking her fork into her her chicken salad. "And then he started verbally abusing my mom," Wyatt said, "never got physical, but shit, some of the stuff he said was just downright cruel. I promised myself I'd never be like that. I wound up being sort of like that though. Not intentionally, however. When I broke things off with Amelia, I wasn't...I wasn't exactly nice about it. Besides, we were kind of dating in secret. I was already pretty popular, and she was that weird girl that everyone made fun of and I just didn't want anyone to know I was seeing her for fear of my reputation. In hindsight, that's ridiculously petty and shallow of me and I regret it every single day." "Well at least you've shown growth, recognition is the first step to betterment," Celia said, "what happened to her? How did she take it?" "Not well," Wyatt said, picking up his beer glass and taking a long drink, then adding, "she kind of...had a breakdown. My father was pleased when I started dating Scarlett though, because even in spite of her feminist mindset, she was, apparently, more socially acceptable as a woman than Amelia was. He's such a creep. I never wanna look at women the way he did or continues to do." "You know," Celia said, spearing a tiny tomato and pulling it up to her face, "if you'd told me that the most popular boy in our high school, the jock of all jocks, would wind up being a feminist, I don't think I'd have believed you, and yet here we are. Stranger things have happened I suppose." Wyatt laughed and nodded. Indeed, it was funny, even to him. "So where's Amelia these days? Is she okay?" Celia asked, and Wyatt shrugged. "You'd have to ask Calvin," Wyatt said, his voice lowering, "...she was his sister." *** Rachel pumped in the corresponding numbers and letters to the keypad and awaited her delicious treat to be given to her from the vending machine. Standing there, tapping her nails on the metal of the machine, she didn't even hear Kelly's mom, Carol, coming up from behind her. When she felt a hand on her arm, Rachel screamed a little, jumped back and then put a hand to her chest to catch her breath, half laughing. Carol was laughing as well. "I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to frighten you," Carol said. "That's...that's okay," Rachel replied, "It's just been a tense few days, I haven't had time to do Yoga or meditate or anything." "You do Yoga and meditate?" Carol asked. "No, but I still don't have the time to," Rachel replied, making Carol laugh again. She heard the clunk of her candy bar drop into the bucket, and reached down to retrieve it. Once she pulled back the wrapper, she offered some to Carol, who politely declined. Together, with Rachel munching away on it, they walked back down the hall. "I wanted to speak with you," Carol said, "about what happened in school, between you and Kelly. We never really got a chance to talk after that, and...you were always at our house, almost like a second daughter. I just wanted to make sure you were okay. Kelly was destroyed by the falling out, so I just...I wanted to make sure you were alright." "Well, considering it's been over a decade at this point, I'd say I'm pretty alright, yeah," Rachel said, "I'm managing well enough." "Rachel," Carol said, stopping in the hall, forcing Rachel to do the same and face her; she continued, "...I want you to know that we aren't mad at you. Friends have fights. Sometimes they don't come back from it. But you two did, and it didn't even take a tragedy for it to happen. You became friends again before the crash. That makes it truly genuine. You're not acting out of fear or regret. Regardless, Allen and I aren't mad with you. Especially after hearing from your mother what that man tried to do to you, even if she didn't believe it herself, we do." Rachel felt her heart flutter. Her eyes watered. "Kelly's told us a lot about you since you guys started hanging out again," Carol said, approaching Rachel and taking her hands in her own, "and we want you to know that...we accept you. Hell, we always kind of had our suspicions anyway. But we accept you nonetheless. You'll always be like a second daughter to us. We know your mother is...well, to put it bluntly, out of her damn mind, and that not having parents of any kind can make the world feel incredibly small and lonely, so we want you to know that we're here for you. You're here for Kelly, so we're here for you. We don't care if you're gay. We'll always love you." Rachel finally snapped. Everything she'd been holding back since the crash, all the tension and fear and anxiety, it finally burst through her chest like a dam of emotions, and she flooded Carol with her feelings. She threw her arms around Carol and hugged her tightly, with Carol rubbing her back, comforting her. Carol was right. The world WAS infinitely smaller and lonelier without parents, and so Rachel was happy to have some. Even if they weren't her own. Especially if they weren't her own. *** That evening, when visiting hours were almost over, Wyatt was standing outside of Kelly's room, waiting for Rachel to leave. As soon as she exited the room, shutting the door behind her, they began to walk side by side, but not speaking. Wyatt's hands were shoved in his windbreakers pockets, and from what Rachel could tell, he too had had a rather emotional afternoon. "Um..." Rachel started, "do you wanna get dinner?" "Nah, Scarlett's in a maternal mood, so I should go home to eat, what about you?" he asked. "Sun's super busy caring for her father, so I have a lot of time to myself right now," Rachel replied, scratching the back of her head, "...are you okay, dude? You look kind of like hell." "I could say the same for you," Wyatt remarked, smirking, "but yeah I'm alright. Just had a weird afternoon, remembering lots of stuff from the past, you know how it goes. Went to lunch with Celia. Talked about Calvin. That's actually what I'm here to discuss with you, is Calvin. You're closest to him. You need to keep an eye on him. Make sure he doesn't crack further. Because Rachel...if he does...if he can't either manage himself or be managed...something will have to be done about him. We can't risk losing everything because he can't hold it together." Rachel nodded, stopping in the hall, Wyatt doing the same, facing one another. "...and what do we do if we can't?" Rachel asked quietly. "We'll cross that bridge when we come to it, but for now..." Wyatt said, "why don't you come have dinner with my family?" Rachel smiled. She liked that idea. She might not have her own family, but she sure was accepted by everyone else's.
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A group of former high school classmates reunite at their 10 year reunion, and discover they each want something different, many with someone else there. What ensues is a labyrinthian relationship amongst them involving crime, murder, romance and, in one particular case, terrorism. Archives
May 2024
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