LOTF: Before and After

Phase 3: Chapter 18

Small talk was a brutal consequence of internalized tension, one that made time feel like it stood perfectly still. Ralph and Jack's relationship failed to surpass small talk after that night. Both boys knew better than to involve Ralph's parents. There wasn't anything one could say without saying too much. So they pushed their tolerance of each other to the brink in front of Jeffery and Laurie. They pretended to get along, but neither of them were fake enough to pull it off convincingly. During the day after his parents had gone to work, Ralph would always lock himself up in Jeffery's office and focus solely on school until they got home.

Jack couldn't comprehend his own existence inside the Langley house. Last summer, he'd been a guest, just like any and every other guest the Langleys had ever let in. But now, given the reason he was here and his broken connection to Ralph, he felt like a sore thumb. There were photos of Ralph and his parents all over the mantle and basically every flat surface in the common area, a combination of 7th grade school work and paperwork from Jeffery's job jumbled together on table tops, piles of novels Laurie lost herself in stacked with Ralph's old school textbooks, a laundry basket filled with unsorted clothes in multiple colors and sizes, dirty dishes consistently stacked in the sink in threes. Jack didn't fit into a house like this. Once bored of playing Super Nintendo, he would wander the house (minus Ralph's office made hideout), and run his hand along the surfaces that held the memories and belongings of a kind of family that would never be his.

Four nights following Jack and Ralph's heated conversation in Ralph's bedroom, Laurie got home from work before her husband. She took advantage of the unoccupied shower in her master bedroom, and was hold up in there for what seemed to the boys to be a weirdly long time. Ralph was studying at the kitchen counter, headphones over his ears as he listened to music on his Walkman (or simply just tuned out Jack) while he worked.

When the phone rang, Jack turned around from where he sat on the couch to see if Ralph noticed. Of course, he hadn't. Jack shrugged and picked it up.

"Hello?" he spoke curiously.

"Jack?" a familiar voice (or familiar voices) came through the phone.

"Who is this?" Jack asked, his eyebrows scrunched in confusion as the answer sat on the tip of his tongue.

"You got the number from the wrong page!" a voice came through the phone.

"I did not!" the same, high pitched voice responded to the first.

Sam and Eric, he finally realized.

"You were s'posed to call Ralph!"

"I'm sure I did."

"Obviously you didn't, dork!"

"Guys, give it a rest. This is Ralph's number" Jack confirmed, glancing at the boy at the dining table who still hadn't looked up.

"Why are you answering his phone?" Eric asked.

"Better question: why are you at his house?" Sam added.

"I'm just hanging out here for a bit" Jack refused to explain further to the younger boys.

"But don't you hate Ralph?" Eric guessed.

"No idiot, Ralph hates Jack" Sam corrected him.

"Same difference!"

"No it isn't, it's totally different!"

Jack was getting bored, practically yawning through the argument as he waited for them to get to the point.

All of a sudden, Jack flinched when Ralph appeared unexpectedly at his side.