The Getaway

CH. 34 Contraband Club

The moments following after Lucas left went something like this...

Lance brought down a big family conversation— regaining his position as the rightful leader of our household.

I kept my head down almost the entire time, so surprised that only three words dislodged Lucas from his high horse. If I knew it had been that easy, I would've done it a long time ago.

"He hit me."

These words rang throughout my head for the entirety of the week.

I tried my best to float into the background, making as little disturbance in front of my family as I could.

I ran away from little rules such as eating lunch with my brothers weekly. Since Lucas wasn't here to enforce anything, I got away with this pretty easily- sneaking off during my lunch breaks to go smoke with Scotty.

It had become a routine after the first day I threw myself into his car. We were becoming closer friends everyday.

Due to my brother's distractions with Lucas, Lance eventually gave me my phone back. Not a flip phone like Lucas had threatened, but my real, functioning phone. I was relieved that Lucas' absence had infiltrated my brother's logical thinking, but it was sad to watch. It seemed as if Lance was struggling the most from Lucas' leave.

It brought an eerie feeling upon the rest of my brothers too, but, their distracted minds did buy me a longer leash. So, I guess that was a win-win for me; no Lucas, no attentive brothers. Due to this, I began to fall right back into the way things used to be before Lucas came back; I was forgotten.

I snuck around the house like a ghost, staying as far away from family activity as I could. Once in a while, I would give in and force myself to accompany them just to draw the attention away from my abnormal behavior. But, for the majority of it, I was in the clear. Nobody worried about me as long as I smiled every so often.

At this point, I was finding every resource to numb myself... from Matteo, from Lucas, from Ian. I smashed Ian's burner phone he gave me, returning the broken pieces to him with a sharp glare. I remember the way he stared at me, watching the shards of his phone fall into his hand. He wasn't even mad. In fact, he looked at me with pain, but I refused to say much, turning away and ignoring him from then on out.

I hadn't talked to Wyatt at all since our last interactions. Most of this was because I didn't even know what to say. He had seen me at my most vulnerable moments. I just wanted to keep our distance as much as possible. I wanted to remove everyone who brought shame into my life, sadly, even the ones who attempted to help.

I spent my day to day activity entranced in a high, laughing in the back of Scotty's car with him.

He was the only person I could stand to be around.

It was fun.

We talked about possibilities of the world, and how our home-lives had been. I skimmed over lots of information, but I found Scotty telling me every little detail. I felt guilty, really. He was being so honest with me, meanwhile my main priority of being with him was to escape reality—not to talk about it. Although, in some form, I do think our time spent together was an escape for him too. He had told me how his dad drank a lot and how when he did, things got ugly. He didn't elaborate much, but I could infer what he had meant.