Drowning

Dreaming-Chapter 11

“Nate.” I warn again.

“Tessa.” he imitates.

“Why would I even want to give her benefit of the doubt. It's not like she ever does for me.”

“God damn, it's like your relationship with your mother is like a high school relationship between two best friends. You literally act like you're seventeen.”

“I am seventeen!” my shout echos across the empty pool, bouncing off tile walls and seeming louder than it actually is.

“Oh yeah..I forgot.” he mutters than laughs at himself. Again.

He has a point though. One minute mom and I can be perfectly happy. Coexisting in our own worlds that happen to sometimes coincide with each others. We can live together and not fight or argue, just live, in quiet peace. I mean, I don't tell her things. But then again she doesn't tell me things either. We keep our private lives private and share only a few mutual conflicts, like dad. However, those mutual conflicts often end up in full out brawl, like right now. It's seriously similar to what Nessa and Morgan and I shared before the incident. And even then, the incident was just a mutual conflict way to big for either of us to overcome.

And they say high school never ends.

“Well anyways, I think you should call both Eli and your mother.”

“You think so?”

“I do.”

“And what makes you king of the world, Weber?” I tease.

“I AM king of the world. Especially your world. Without me you'd be living on ramen, Scott.” he teases back.

“I already AM living on ramen, you idiot. It's the only thing normal in your house!” Terry is a health nut, so the only spare food really laying around their house is granola and banana and some pickled beets that make me want to throw up. All I can find that I actually can bare the thought of eating is ramen.

“Fine!” He throws his shirt on and stalks toward the exit sign from the pool and holds the door open for me with a scowl on his face. I stand where I am, right next to the bench.

“What?” I ask after an excruciatingly long minute stare down between the two of us.

“What do you mean what? We're going to get something other than ramen now come on.”

So he leads me out to Caroline, his car, and starts towards the little twenty four hour pancake house right outside of town. Free swim ended at 10 so by the time we get there it's almost 10:30 at night. Frank's Flaps looks like a deserted, run down, creep shack, but living in Westwood has taught me not to judge a place on it's appearance. Not to mention the fact that I've recited the line don't judge a book by it's cover probably millions of times.

And despite the nearly empty front parking lot, the place is bustling with late night hungers and insomniacs. The rickety bar stools are chock full of old trucker men with jean jacket's from the 70's and equally as old woman with white perms. Nate leads the way to the empty booth in the back corner and plops down.

“Since we only have ramen, that means-”he starts but is cut off by the busty waitress with bright red lipstick and a candy stripe outfit on.

“Natie and Tessie!!!” she squeals like a teenager but in reality is probably sixty or more years old. I'll admit, I don't really remember her. Back during the first months of the incident Nate and I spent a lot of time here, just to be away from home or his house and everything going on there. Usually we'd stay until almost one am every single night. During those times I made Nate into an insomniac. But to be honest those days are all a huge blur that I prefer to block from my memory completely. So though this woman knows me really well, I can barely remember her.