The Spawns

The Spawns | Chapter XIX -- You'll Be Old and Pudgy

THE SPAWNS

You’ll Be Old and Pudgy

Chapter XIX—Jayden

© DarknessAndLight

The second Cole closed the door behind him, I knew something was wrong. I might have been out of it most of the time and I might have been unobservant but when one of my best friends was hurt I knew.

And it didn’t matter that Maika and I were just in the middle of a all out tickle war and she was winning—as always—when your best friend looked that miserable, you dropped absolutely everything and demanded an explication.

“What’s wrong?” I asked, getting up from my bed.

“I don’t wanna talk about it…” Cole mumbled and turned around, pressing his forehead against my door. “Especially not with you.”

“What do you mean especially not with me? Is this a cat thing?” I got up, heading towards him. “Look, you know that if it’s a cat thing I can pretend like I’m concerned!”

“I just… I don’t want to be here anymore,” he whispered against the door.

“Want us to go to your place?” I offered, worried about what brought this on. Maika stood up too, standing beside me, with an equally concerned look on her face.

“No,” Cole twitched a little, and hit his head against the door. “I don’t want to be here.”

“Alright… okay.” I scratched my head, looking around. “Huh, now?” I wasn’t exactly the one that took initiatives. Maika usually did, or Cole did. I wasn’t the one that made any kind of decisions. Most of the time I was out of the loop because I was just out of it.

“Yes, now,” Cole answered, finally turning around.

For a second I just stared back into my best friend’s eyes. And that was all it took for me to make a decision. “Get the bag from my closet Mai.” Usually, I knew Maika would have argued with me since she hated being bossed around but obviously she was seeing the same thing I was looking at—a best friend that needed to get out. Now.

I didn’t wait or hesitated, and headed out of my room and straight to the kitchen. I grabbed a card box from the cupboards and filled with the necessary food, going as far as raiding my mom’s stack of M&Ms—I’d get hell for that one. I tried to make as little sound as possible not to disturb my parents or to have Belly come down. I didn’t want to have to explain what was happening to anyone.

I scribbled a quick “We headed off to the Dump Creek. We’ll be careful” on a memo sheet my mom kept on the counter and stuck it on the fridge.

Balancing the box of food against my hip, I grabbed the keys for the Jeep that were on the hook by the back door in the kitchen and headed outside to the garage. The old Jeep was waiting there. It wasn’t in the best of shapes and it didn’t even have the top or anything, so if it started raining we were kind of screwed but it was as good as we were going to get. And the gas tank was half full so that was a plus. So I put the box on the back seat, started the car and drove it to the front of the house.

Putting it on park, I ran back inside and saw Cole and Maika coming down the steps with two duffel bags.

“Got everything?” I asked.

Maika just nodded and we all headed silently towards the Jeep. I drove while Cole sat shut gun and Maika sat in the back.

No one was speaking as I drove in the empty streets towards the Creek. The stereo on the car was broken so it just made things worse. I wanted to crack a joke or say something but I just couldn’t bring myself to break the silence because I had rarely, if never, seen Cole like this. Of course, he got upset sometimes, but I didn’t think I had ever seen him this bad. For the first time in our lifelong friendship, I was lost for words. Maika kept poking me on the side now and then, and I knew she was doing it because she felt hopeless too and wanted me to step in, but honestly, I had no clue what to do aside from drive far away form my house.