Somewhere Behind

Angelica Part IV

The earliest moments of happiness I can recall were of Chris. I don't know how or why but it was quite an odd friendship.

I met him on the last day of school right before the summer holidays, back when I was just 10 years old.

The stampede of students to get out of school for the holidays had knocked me down and sent all my books flying. As I fell I banged my head against a locker and lay on the ground too stunned to do anything.

Out of the blue, I see a hand held out to me, seeing this act of kindness, I grabbed the hand and I found myself hauled onto my feet. I tilted my face up to look at my savior and found myself staring into a pair of deep blue eyes. The only time I had seen eyes like that was in a mirror, and I gasped in astonishment.

The boy chuckled and asked if I was okay. For some reason, I couldn't respond verbally so I just nodded my head in response.

A girl handed me my books which had been trampled and were now looking pretty grubby. But I found myself mesmerized by this boy's eyes and just couldn't break my gaze.

Embarrassed I glanced down at the floor. The boy and the girl introduced themselves as Christopher and Natalya and they decided to walk me home.

As I stepped out of the building and looked up at the shining Sun, I knew I'd found two new friends and little did we know that our friendship would strengthen by the day.

Chris and Natalya lived pretty close by, so the moment I felt that trouble was brewing at home, I would quickly rush off to their place. The Peterson's were always ready to accept my intrusion into their lives and treated me like their own.

These acts of kindness and compassion gave me something to be happy about in my miserable life. They were an escape from the harsh life at home.

Chris's life was pretty interesting yet quite heartbreaking. He was an orphan at an early age and had been through dozens of rough patches in his life before finally settling with the Peterson's.

He never really liked to talk about his past, so I never wanted to question him about it.

Yet Chris knew basically everything about my life, we would sneak out at the late hours of the day, when I slept over at their place, and head off to an old abandoned supermarket and on the roof underneath the stars just talk about anything that popped into our minds.

There were times when we would fall asleep and wake up to see the rising Sun beating down on us basking us in the upcoming warmth of the day. Whenever this happened we would rush back home in the early hours and stealthily creep back into our beds as if nothing had happened. Chris's folks never found out about our late night ventures.

Over the years I realized that I was spending more and more time at the Peterson's, and found myself going home maybe once or twice a week.

The sad part was my dad never really seemed to care. He would just glance my way if he was home and then just completely ignore me or like now make me get him a beer or a pack of cigarettes.

His past rage had now simmered down and he spent most of his time drinking, and that was fine by me.

After I handed him the beer. I went off to my room hopped into my bed and lay there, my mind just wasn't at ease as it kept drifting off to that dreadful night at the pub.

As I squeezed my eyes shut against the image, I heard the gunshot ringing in my ears. I shook my head and clamped my hands over my ears.

But I still saw the image of Chris's face tears streaming down his cheeks as he silently held his uncle in a moment of agony.

Lost in these thoughts I fell into a restless sleep.

I was awakened by the sound of a melody. Twisting around I saw that it was my phone, for a moment I felt like switching it off and to fall back asleep.

Then I noticed Hunter's name flashing on the screen, a part of me was filled with anger but then again another small part was like, "It wasn't him who shot Uncle John," I glanced at his name again and the small part inside of me began to grow until on the fourth ring I decided to pick up the phone.

"Hey Angelica, how're you doing?" Hunter's voice came through the phone speaker.

"What do you mean - 'How're you doing?' – one of your friends murdered Chris's Uncle, Chris is beside himself in grief, the police are looking all over Los Angeles for you and your gang." I yelled my voice rising with each word.

Hunter was silent for a moment.

"It's okay, I'm in a safe place," he murmured.

"There is no safe place Hunter, you're basically a fugitive of the law." I cried.

Hunter let out his breath in a whoosh.

"That's what I wanted to talk about," he said. "Are you free now? I can come in a car and pick you up."

"Huh?" I thought.

"I don't want to be a part of this Hunter, just tell the police what happened."

"But..." he started.

"Besides..." I interrupted. "You didn't even commit the crime they might let you off lightly if you plead guilty," I said.

Hunter thought about what I said.

He surprised me by saying. "Okay, I'll go to the police but can you come with me now? I have a surprise planned for you." His voice filled with excitement.

Every bone in my body was forbidding me from going along with him. But again the small part inside of me that wanted to go made me agree with him, and after a few minutes of small talk, he said he would swing by in an hour to pick me up.

I cut the call and lay back on my bed letting out an exasperated sigh.