Chapter 1 – Weed Hoard
Thomas
I can bet on my parents’ entire estate that there was not a single person here who didn’t want Eddy O’Doherty dead—and that’s saying a lot. We dreamed about wringing his neck, we spoke of tossing him off the roof and letting him free-fall thirteen stories down, we discussed taking a Colt .45 and shoving the barrel right down that bastard’s throat. I can also safely bet that not any of us had a single bad reason to do all those things. Hell, I bet I also had the most reasons to do so.
But on that night … I wasn’t the one who killed him. I swear.
Okay, I admit I was at the scene of the crime when it happened. But I only watched Eddy die. I didn’t move a single finger to help save Eddy O’Doherty, or even to help the killer get the job done. I only watched, my stupid brain trying to process if it was only a hallucination induced by all that crack or if this was the real shit. And then, when I figured out that this was actually real, I had walked away. I figured it was the nicest thing to do for Eddy; after all, I would very much have rather gone over to inspect the body before giving it a good kick to the face.
And anyway, you can’t lay all the blame on me by default. I wasn’t the only one there that night.
Juan leans back, reclining lazily as he slowly exhales the smoke. At the same time he does that, I press the cigarette to my lips, sucking in as much as I can while watching him silently. These stupid foster-home-slash-rehab people are trying to slowly get me off cigarettes by giving me lights. Soon, I’ll have none at all. But it’s no different from right now. Smoking these are like sucking on fucking straws.
“How many more days till they cut those too?” Juan asks, staring at the burning tip of my cigarette.
“Any time next week, I reckon,” I reply, letting it dangle from my mouth as I tap the password on my laptop rapidly before pressing enter. My desktop pops up, a photo of the football team. The football team I was the star wide receiver of. My chest tightens at the sight of it—I have no idea why I still haven’t changed the damned thing—and I open up iTunes with its screen maximized to block it out. “Those assholes think that’ll keep me off them forever, but they’re wrong.”
Juan sneers at that, crossing his legs at his ankles and staring out the huge windows of my room. It’s a beautiful day for a November afternoon. The sun’s out, the leaves surrounding the trees are a brilliant red—as if there are pools of blood surrounding them—and there’s not a single cloud in the sky. Three years ago it would have been beautiful to me. But now I have no cares for such little things; why waste life admiring the landscape? And anyway, I personally think it would look much better if I were high.
“I like this place the way it is now,” Juan comments absently, still looking out at the crisp fall scenery.
“Why?”
His head swivels to me and he raises an eyebrow. “Well, you know why.”
“No, I don’t. Please enlighten me.”
His eyebrow furrowing—the way it always does whenever I play clueless—he studies me long and hard for a moment before sighing. “Y’know, it’s much more quieter around here now that that prick Eddy’s gone. But damn, I still wish I knew where he stashed all those Marlboros.”
I do too. One of the millions of reasons why I wanted to kill Eddy O’Doherty was because that dickhead enjoyed hoarding the drugs and cigarettes Juan and I worked so hard at keeping hidden so we could survive our sentences here. The first time he had snatched that bag of powder just before I was getting ready to sniff it—how better to spend another lonely Friday night high with Juan?—I had slammed the kid into the wall, wanting nothing more than to beat the crap out of him. Just as my fist had met his face only once, Mrs. Cooper walked in on us. Thankfully he didn’t find the substances, but I had still been sentenced to three days in Isolation—which is just a fucking joke, by the way—and a call home. In front of me.
“Hello?” I had heard my mother say into the phone in her tremulous voice.
“Hello, Mrs. Jackson,” the warden, Mr. Hohn, had the honors of dialing my parents once again, “Unfortunately, I must inform you of your son’s continuous behavior at this home. He had gotten into a fight with a young man only a few hours ago. Would you like to speak to him?”
A pause. I had already known the answer. Hell, old Hohn even knew the answer. It’s the same each time and yet he still thinks it’s necessary to ask it. Just to add humiliation. Just so he can look at me with that stupid look of pity in his eyes again.
“No, but thank you,” my mom says softly.
“Would you like me to pass on any messages, then?” Mr. Hohn pressed.
Another hesitation. I hear two people discussing in the background. I can hear Dad, his baritone voice unmistakable. He doesn’t sound unhappy at all, but his spirits must be dampened a little after mentioning me. I wonder if Ian’s home. Dad’s always happy when Ian’s home.
“Hello?” Hi, Dad.
“Is this Mr. Jackson?”
“Yes.”
“Is there anything you would like to say to your son? Anything at all? After all, it’s been a while since you have had any contact at all.”
Without skipping a beat, Dad says, “We’d like you to tell Thomas that we’re disappointed in him.”
After hearing those words and letting them sink into me, I realized that I had been leaning forward expectantly, waiting to hear their message. I realized that I had been gripping the armrests tightly and I relaxed, cursing myself for having any interest in that. Why should I have been surprised? Screw it, I had thought, tracing the wood patterns on Hohn’s desk, When are they not disappointed?
“Same,” I reply, wishing one of the cigarettes Eddy had stashed away was in my hand instead of these weak ones, “It’s a shame to have all those packs lying somewhere we’ll never find out.”
“No, we will,” Juan says firmly, “I think we should go out and search for ’em one day.”
“Probably confiscated,” I muse, scrolling through the thousands of songs on my laptop.
“You never know.”
We sit in an awkward silence, him sprawled all over my couch and me sitting stiffly at my desk. I stare at him, trying to guess what he’s thinking as he inattentively, almost mechanically exhales the smoke before sticking the cigarette back into his mouth, inhaling and exhaling again. Maybe he’s planning out where we’re going to explore to find those lost Marlboros. Maybe he’s wondering if they have indeed been confiscated or if Hohn had smoked them all. After all, he’s a notorious chain-smoker. Maybe he’s thinking what I’m thinking, that these stupid excuses for cigarettes are getting on our nerves.
Juan suddenly shoots up out of his seat, arms curling around the arm rests and looking straight at me. His eyes are unusually bright and unusually wider. I grin inwardly. Perhaps he really has found a route for us to follow when we go exploring in search for our salvation some time.
But instead he says something completely different. “Hey, Tom, I’ve been thinking ’bout this for a while now. You seem all pent up and hush-hush when I get to it. But I’m dying to know. No secrets, remember?” I stiffen.
“What is it?”
Juan’s voice lowers and he leans forward. “Tell me what happened to Eddy O’Doherty last week.”
I cross my arms over my chest. Oh God, not this shit again. “Nothing happened. It was dark. I was stoned.” Oh, how I wish it was too dark for me to see what was happening. How I wish I had been stoned that night. I shudder at the images I had seen then. Even standing atop that little knoll, tucked farther away and safe, it’s still burned into my mind. Bloody. Gory. Terrifying. Mind-numbing.
“I don’t believe you.”
“Don’t you also remember that we have to trust each other?” I say irritably. “I didn’t fucking do it, okay?”
“I’m not saying you did it,” Juan shoots back, narrowing his eyes, “I’m just saying that you’re lying. You do know what happened. No lies, too, remember?”
I roll my eyes. This kid just never gives up, never settles for what the slice they serve him. He wants the entire cake. That’s what makes him so different from those middle-class jackasses with their heads full of shit, strutting around thinking they’ve lived angst-ridden lives.
So I relent. After all, it’s not like I don’t trust Juan of all people. Juan is the only person I can trust, anyway.
Reaching into the duffel right next to my feet, I fish out a little plastic Ziploc bag that’s half-filled with white powder, holding it up triumphantly, like a trophy. Juan looks at it curiously, his gaze then flickering to me, trying to see how it relates to what I am about to tell him.
“What? Why do you need to get stoned at two in the afternoon?” he tilts his head, puzzled.
“Aw, you’re too cute, Juan,” I reply, laying the bag of illegal substances on the table and removing my credit card from my back pocket so I can split it up evenly. “But I’m going to tell you a story.” I shred it open and spill out the powder as I speak, smiling yet dreading the coming hour, “And all stories become much more interesting when you’re high.”
~*~*~*~
A/N: Just wanted to note that there is coarse language and many drug references. Especially during Thomas's parts. Hope you enjoyed this first chapter xx
I'd also like to dedicate this to monsterinthemirrorx for making this amazing character banner (and the ones in the next four chapters). They're just so UNBELIEVABLY FLAWLESS <33.