You Can't Break Her

Chapter thirteen: part three | July

July 2003
Bayhollow, Ontario

Renee and I hung out with Steven and Ruby somedays and with Annie or Krystal other times. We walked and biked from one end of Bayhollow to the other and would be back home with the night sky.

We were waiting for a bus one night after watched a movie at the theatre on the military base, Annie and I were hackling a group of girls because one of them gave Annie a look. As we tossed insults at them they snickered to each other.

"Do you want some chocolate?" A tall blonde girl from the other group asked us, she extended her open hand to us.

Annie was positive she did, she grabbed a chunk and chewed it quickly and then handed me a piece. I declined, the movie junk food was still with me and I was not into taking candy from strangers, I passed that stage a while back.

"That was X-lax." The blonde girl walked back to her friends and they broke into a group giggle.

Annie grabbed her stomach and winced. Renee and I laughed almost as giddily as the other group.

"Why did you take that?" I whispered through laughter when Annie came closer.

"I don't know, I was hungry," she admitted sheepishly.

The bus pulled up and we got on, after the laxative prank we stopped our pestering of the other girls and enjoyed the night air from the windows of the bus. At each stop one person got off and then a couple and then it was just the three of us. We got off on the Main Street and walked the twenty minutes to my house.

Annie and Renee stayed the night, we played silly games of Bloody Mary, where we scared ourselves more than anything, which seems to be the true point of that game. We discussed the movie and the cute boys we saw that we recognized and our opinion about those guys.

The next morning Annie left when her mom called to tell her she was going clothes shopping, with or without her. Renee and I started packing our suitcases for a four hour car ride to my aunt and uncles trailer.

The luggage was being placed in the trunk, I handed my dad a bag and he positioned them so they fit together like puzzle pieces, leaving space in case we picked up odds and ends while we were gone.

Renee was getting the books we would be reading on the drive, I was right in the middle of Melody, the first book I had ever read by V. C. Andrews. We had visited the library earlier in the week to gather quality reading material and CD's to listen to on our Walkman's.
She ran out and tossed our stuff into the backseat of the dark blue sedan.

My mom poked her head out the front door with the phone pressed to her shoulder. "Renee, it's your parents. They said it's important."

Renee looked to me and her eyes widened, she ran to the front door and grabbed the phone from my mom. She placed it on her ear and moved inside, closing the door behind her.

"What do you think that's all about?" I scratched my head and continued watching the door. "Dad, What do you think?"

He closed the trunk and leaned back to stretch. "I don't know. You'll have to wait and see, maybe it's good news." Thought it was subtle comfort that he provided, it kept me centred.

"I guess." I plopped down in the backseat of the car, making it wiggle, which made me smile but my eyes never left the front door.