The Three Of Us

Chapter Twenty-Three

                                                      Asher 

Everybody makes mistakes. Everybody creates messes. We just can’t help but do so because we are human. It’s something that we’re made to do, like it or not. Seems that when our kind was made, the  one thing that was imprinted in our minds was the need to make mistakes and messes. And after we make the first ones, we make bigger second ones, then thirds, fourths…

  And even if we try to stop making these mistakes, we just can’t help but continue.

  Avery handed me back my cellphone, which had been used to call Ronnie moments before. “What did she say?” I asked him, quite worried.

  “She says that she’s in the middle of the woods,” He explained as he leaned on the school lockers. We still hadn’t left Everlock since we had been worried about where Ronnie was. There were hardly any kids in the whole school now, besides all the kids that were put in detention. “Plus, she has a big bruise on her head.”

  “What?” I replied. “How’d she get that?!”

  Avery shrugged his shoulders. “She doesn’t know. She really doesn’t remember anything. We’re lucky that she even remembers us.”

  I could feel my palms start to sweat. Ronnie had really started to grow on me, causing me to be quite worried about where she was. Was she okay? Was it only accident on how she got that bruise on her head? Would we be able to make it to her in time?

  “Hey Asher, do you know how to drive?” Avery asked me.

  I raised an eyebrow at him.  “No, not yet. My father was supposed to teach me this summer, but as you can probably tell, that’s a little bit of a no-go now. Why though?”

  Avery crossed his arms. “Well, I doubt anyone is going to be willing to drive two teenage boys into the middle of the woods. And since I’m only fourteen, looks like you’re our only shot.”

 “What are you talking about?”

  “My dear friend, looks like you’re going to get an early driving lesson.”

***

  “Are you sure this is okay?” I asked Avery as we stared at his father’s car. Mr. Morrison had carpooled with Avery’s mother this morning to work, leaving his car still in the driveway.

  “Of course it’s okay,” Avery replied. “We’ll just take it for a little spin, bring it back, and everything will be fine.”

  “How are we going to get in though?” I wondered, motioning towards the locked doors on the shiny Toyota.

  Avery, who had gone back in his house once we got here, pulled something out of his pocket and let it dangle on his index finger. It was a pair of keys on a silver ring. He winked at me. “My father puts his keys high enough so Hartlyn can’t  get them.” He smirked deviously at me. “But as he obviously forgot, that isn’t high enough for me.”

  He twirled the keys around on his fingers, his smirk not leaving his face. After a minute of watching them spin around, Avery threw the keys in the air and caught them on his palm. He looked poked the keys with his finger as if he were tickling them and said in a sing-song voice, “You and I are going to have lots of fun.”

  He threw the keys at me without warning. Luckily, I caught them in my own hands. I stared at the keys for a second with wide-eyes. “Avery,” I said, not letting my eyes leave the keys. “Are you sure this is alright? I have a really bad feeling about this.”