Revolution (55 page)

She needed Charlie.

“Hey,” Rachel said softly, her hand resting on her shoulder to tug her around gently. Her blue eyes were wide with concern. “You OK? You’ve been so quiet lately.”

“I’m fine.”

“Really?”

How could she not talk to Rachel about this? Rachel was her best friend. But then…Rachel hadn’t always been her best friend.

Growing up Charlie had been Ari’s closest friend.
 
Her family really. He had been there when her dad forgot her ninth birthday, and the time she couldn’t stop crying after the lie she told when she was ten years old caused her dad and his girlfriend to break up. There was also that time she’d gotten her first period and, even though she knew what it was, she had completely freaked out. She’d run off from school during lunch and Charlie had chased her into Vickers' Woods behind the interstate.
 
When she’
d bawled out what was happening
he had silently taken her hand and walked her all the way to his house and stammered through a blushing explanation to his mom. Mrs. Creagh had hugged her close and called the school and her dad to explain where she’d disappeared to and why. The phone call was followed by a trip to the pharmacy and a lot more hugging.

Anything good, bad, small or huge that had happened to her, Charlie was the one who had been there. And then something huge - too huge - happened to him and suddenly Charlie wasn’t really
there
to be there.

“Are you worrying about Charlie again?” Rachel huffed.

Ari threw her a 'don't start' look.

“Let’s go to lunch,” A.J. interrupted, dodging any conversation to do with Charlie. He thought Charlie was a loser and hated that Ari ‘wasted’ so much time and anxiety over him.

Stemming a wave of anger at her friends and their attitude, Ari pulled away from them. “I’ll catch up in a minute, save me a seat.”

A frown appeared between Rachel’s smooth brows. “You’re not going over there?”

Clenching her jaw, Ari turned her back on them. “Just save me a seat,” she called over her shoulder, dodging students in her path.

“You need to give her a break about him,” she heard Staci say, but A.J.’s response was muffled as Ari moved further through the throng of teenagers.

Bursting out of the front entrance, Ari inhaled a lungful of warm summer air, shaking her hands out as if the gesture could shake out all her worries with it. Her eyes scanned the parking lot for Charlie but she couldn’t see him, which meant he was out behind the lot in the trees where the teachers couldn’t see. If he wasn’t careful he was going to get kicked out. He’d already been held back a year. Not that he cared. A rush of angry wasps awoke in her stomach as they always did when she was about to face him. That hadn’t been the case in the past. In the past, just the thought of him used to relax her.
 
Pulling her shoulders back, Ari started off across the lot with a determined stride. She just had to know he was alright. They hadn’t spoken in two weeks which was officially the longest they had gone without speaking.

As if coerced onto the scene by a sad Fate a litt
le boy of nine or ten years old with dark brown hair and eyes
shot towards her, puffing out of breath.

“Have you seen my sister?” he wheezed.

Concerned by his appearance at
the high school during the day
Ari stopped, grabbing his arm before he could shoot off without an answer. “Who’s your sister?”

“Gemma Hall.”

Ari frowned. Gemma was a junior. “I’ll-”

“Bobby!” They both spun around to see Gemma rushing down the school steps towards them. “Did you bring them?”

“Yeah, but you owe me, like, twenty bucks…”

Satisfied that there was nothing dramatic g
oing down between the siblings
Ari left them to it, only glancing back once at the kid. He looked so much like Michael.

Michael Creagh. Charlie’s kid brother. And the reason Charlie was so effed up. Two years ago, on Ari’s 16
^th
birthday, Charlie had taken his parent’s SUV out to pick up his little brother from Little League. He was hurrying, trying to get Mike home so he could head over to Ari’s to pick her up and take her out to celebrate. The cyclist came out of nowhere. Charlie had swerved onto oncoming traffic and the passenger side took the full impact of the collision. When Charlie had come to... Mike was already dead. Everything changed that day. The happy Creaghs stopped being parents to Charlie and Charlie stopped being…Charlie. He blamed himself for his brother’s death and Ari wasn’t so sure his parents didn’t either.

Ari felt a rip of pain across her chest at the thought of how much agony her best friend was in. How did you live with that kind of guilt? Ari stopped hanging out at the Creagh’s because Charlie didn’t want her to. He told her his dad had started drinking and his mom had gotten her old job as manager at
FoodLand
back to keep them afloat financially
 
and to avoid her husband and the son who hadn’t died. Eventually, Charlie started hanging with a new crowd: slackers, potheads. He started skipping school, dropping grades. She’d even on occasion found him wasted in Vickers' Woods. She’d hoped he’d snap out of it eventually, that it was just his way of grieving. But it had been two years…

Before it happened… Ari had been psyching herself up to talk to him that night… the night of her 16
^th
. Afte
r confiding in Rachel, her new c
hem lab partner, she had been persuaded it was time. She had been moping after Charlie for three years. Ari didn’t know when her feelings for him stopped being platonic. There wasn’t a moment when everything shifted and suddenly she loved him. It was more that she turned thirteen and suddenly boys were cute and gave her butterflies. Charlie gave her butterflies. Not raging wasps like he did now. But tickling, exciting, beautiful creatures that fluttered their wings against her stomach, kicking her heart into a wild dance that matched their beat. She had been sixteen years old and in love.

And she still loved him.

Even though he wasn’t Charlie anymore.

Ari’s skin cooled as she stepped into the trees, winding her way over the worn path that took her into the clearing that was popular with stoners. Surely the faculty knew about this place but they were either too lazy to do something about it or just didn’t care. Her eyes washed over the gathering, finding mostly sophomores and juniors. She only knew a few people by name and she nodded at them warily. They were lounging around on the grass, leaning against one another and rocks, their pupils dilated, their features slack. Drifting through them, Ari headed towards a guy she recognized. He was tall, his long legs stretched out before him in dirty, ripped jeans, his
Smashing Pumpkins
t-shirt wrinkled and worn. His expression was blank as he gazed up at her, brushing his unkempt dark brown hair out of his deep brown eyes. He had a nice face, handsome in that boy next door kind of way. As she stopped before him, he tilted his head back and the corner of his mouth quirked up. A flash of emotion sparked in his eyes transforming him from cute guy next door to sexy and dangerous ‘anything is possible with me’ guy. Before her was a boy who could hurt her more than anybody else.

“Charlie.” She nodded, trying to act casual, which was difficult considering the stares burning into her back.

“What’s up?” he asked softly, reaching for the joint Mel Rickman handed him. Ari deliberately kept her gaze focused on Charlie. Mel was older than everyone else, in his early twenties, a complete waste of spa
ce. The guy gave her the creeps
and not because he was hanging out getting sophomores stoned, but because when he looked at her it was as if he were imagining her naked. The lascivious douche made her uneasy.

She glanced around to make sure no one was paying attention, suddenly feeling foolish standing there in her washed, un-ripped hipster jeans and plain t-shirt from
The Gap
. The grass tickled her feet in her flip flops and she looked down, her eyes wandering over to the steel toe cap boots Mel wore. She fingered the tennis bracelet on her wrist, trying not to flush. Most of the kids Charlie hung out with came from the east, the low income side of Sandford Ridge. It was a medium-sized town situated in the southeast of Butler County, not small enough for everyone to know everyone’s business, but not big enough for people not to know if you lived on the east side or the west side. “I was wondering if you’re still coming to my birthday
 
party on Friday?”

Charlie gave her an inscrutable look, the silence between them stretching into
 
irritating and unnecessary. Ari was
this
 
close to throwing the folder in her arms at him.

“I’ll come to your party, babe.” Mel winked at her. “Give me a private showing sometime and I might even buy you a present.”

“Watch it.” Charlie whipped his head around at him, his dark eyes glittering with fury. “Don’t talk to her.”

“Hey-”

“Just shut it.” Charlie pinned him in place with a look of warning that would have made a smarter man pee in his pants. Ari shivered, unsettled by him even though he was only defending her. He glanced back up at her, the anger still etched in his features. “Of course I’ll be there,” he told her quietly. “I’ll see you Friday.”

Not wanting to leave him there, Ari jerked her head in the direction of the parking lot. “Do you want to come have lunch with me?”

He shook his head infinitesimally, his features losing expression again. “Go back to school, Ari, I’ll see you later.”

Feeling that familiar ache in her chest, Ari nodded and spun around, hurrying out of the clearing and the woods and wishing like hell her car wasn’t in the garage and she could just head home.

She stopped on the hot asphalt, staring blankly at the Ohio plates of the Buick Lacrosse Rachel’s parents had bought her as a graduation gift.
I can go home. I am going home
. Ari turned and began heading towards the gate. It was a half hour walk, it was nothing. She could do with the exercise.

“Ari!”

Closing her eyes in disbelief Ari huffed and slowly turned around to see Rachel running across the lot towards her. “Rache.”

“Where are you going?”

“For a walk.”

“Were you going home?”

“I thought about it.”

Rachel shook her head, her eyes narrowing. “He’s put you on a downer again, hasn’t he?”

“It’s not his fault.”

“Stop making excuses for him, Ari. And you’re not going home.” She tugged on her arm, dragging her back towards the school.

“You’re not the boss of me,” Ari grunted, tripping on her flip flops.

“I am not letting Charlie ruin graduation for you. You think I don’t know why you’ve been so sullen and quiet every time we mention college and graduation? It’s Charlie! It’s always Charlie. You’re going to have to leave him to soak in his self-destructive soup and frankly I think it’s a good thing. He is such a loser. You are so much better than that.”

“Hey!” Ari yanked her arm away and shot her best friend a look so livid it was amazing waves of burning smoke didn’t start weeping from Rachel’s body. “You don’t get to call him that. He’s been through hell and I’m sorry if he doesn’t fall int
o your perfect little bubble
but he’s my friend, and I don’t abandon my friends.”