Midnight Arrow

Chapter 30: A Something Else

We are standing in the middle of a white suburban sidewalk, with three (or four) story houses lined up along the streets. Christmas lights twinkle against the night, dangling off the roofs of rich-people houses. White picket line gates connect each home, looking as if they were just placed there this day. The sidewalk is devoid of any cracks, as if just recently paved. The street is a medium gray with perfectly aligned yellow dashes in the middle, though it's empty of any vehicles driving upon it at the moment.

The house we’re in front of is decorated with simple, colored lights. There is a garden leading from the end of the driveway, to the front-porch step. Aiden stares at it with a gaze of nostalgia.

“Is this your house?” I ask him.

My voice breaks through his bubble of memories, and he turns his brilliantly gray eyes on me. Every single light in this neighborhood pales in comparison when it comes to Aiden Ryder’s eyes.

“No, it’s Travis’s. I’m pretty sure he’s in there now. I sent him a text.”

“For what?”

“So he can hang onto the bike until we go home,” he explains, checking his phone.

“So this is where Travis lives?” I repeat, stunned. The house is colored with pale red bricks, and dark wooden double doors with stained glass stare at me from the front porch. The driveway is a long pathway, the pavement matching the color of the house. The lawn is trimmed down to the point of bounciness, a flawless shade of green, even in the dark of midnight.

I can imagine Aiden growing up in a place like this. He has the confidence of a child from a rich family, the posture of pride, a constant, defiant sticking-out of his chin. He’s like a real-life Draco Malfoy. Except, you know, he's not a complete douche-head. Though if he tries hard enough, he definitely can be one.

Travis? No, he seems to be more of a down-to-Earth man. Almost as if he grew up in a ranch in Oklahoma, riding horses. He has that southern-boy smile and charm; it’s really hard to believe that he grew up in a three-story house.

But how else could Aiden and Travis have become best friends? They obviously have known each other since birth, or something close to that. Which is probably why Travis had refused to give up on him, no matter how bad Aiden had got. If Travis had really spent his time on a ranch in Oklahoma, which I doubt, I’m pretty sure they wouldn’t be the best of pals. If anything, they might have hated each other.

“Weird, isn’t it? How he’s still living here and I’m not,” he notices, gazing at the house with a faint expression of sadness.

I open my mouth to say something, but then Aiden’s phone blares with the classic ringtone of the iPhone. Before answering it, he puts the phone on speaker-mode.

“Hey, Travis, my man!” Aiden greets.

“What do you want, Ryder? It’s literally one o'clock in the morning, you duck,” a groggy Travis replies.

“I am well aware of the time, Travis, thank you. I need a favor,” he explains, gazing up at a right-hand window on the second floor.

“The answer is ‘no’.”

“Oh, come on. You don’t even know what it is. It’s kind of a major problem,” he says with a slight smile on his face. Aiden apparently loves to get under his best friend’s skin, because he knows that Travis would never leave him. No matter what he says.

“And what is this ‘major problem’ you’re in, Aiden? And you better make it worth it, for texting me at one in the morning.”

“Again with the time. Just look out your window.”