Wild Nights, Hot And Crazy Days

Part 1.3: A New Year's Eve Tragedy

CONTENT WARNING: THIS CHAPTER DEPICTS THE ACCIDENTAL DEATHS OF SIX YEAR OLD CHILDREN. WHILE THE ACTUAL DEATHS ARE NOT DESCRIBED IN DETAIL SOME READERS MAY FIND IT DISTURBING.

PLEASE REMEMBER, THIS IS A TRUE STORY. THIS EVENT ACTUALLY HAPPENED AND IS AN IMPORTANT PART OF THE STORY. 

When I went to sleep that night I was full of the kind of happiness I never dreamed possible. Little did I realize that tragedy was about to yank my happiness away as fast as I had achieved it.

I awoke to Aiden out of bed, leaning over me and gently kissing me on the lips, then placing his finger over mine to keep me quiet. "Mom's home", he said as he handed me my underwear, "And she sounds like she's on the warpath. Get dressed, quickly". 

I did as he said, and once we were both dressed we went downstairs to the kitchen. Aiden's mother was there glaring at us, and Richie was sitting there at the breakfast nook eating his cereal with a big shit eating grin on his face. I had never seen such a venomous look on her face – she was usually happy to see me, but not this morning. Had she somehow found out what we had done? I looked over at Aiden and it was clear he was thinking the same thing.

"So, how was your evening?" She asked coldly.

"Fine", Aiden said carefully.

"What did you do last night?"

"We just sat around watching movies."

Richie piped up: "That's not all you did!"

The blood drained out of my body, and I could see Aiden had turned white as a sheet as well. Worse, his mother noticed it on both of us.

"Shut up, Richie!" Aiden said.

"Don't you talk to your brother like that! He didn't do anything wrong! You, on the other hand, are in big trouble. Now, I'm going to ask you again, What did you do last night?"

"I told you, we just watched movies!"

"Really. Well, would you mind explaining this?" she said, as she reached behind her and presented three empty beer bottles.

"...Or this?" she said, as she slammed a full ashtray down on the table, butts going everywhere.

Aiden and I glanced at each other, our relief palpable. Yes, getting caught smoking and drinking was bad. Very bad. But if she had known what we really got up to it would have been certain death for both of us. She mistook our relieved expressions for smugness.

"You can wipe those smiles off your faces, both of you. Richie told me that you guys huffed him off to bed as soon as the first movie was over, but he didn't want to go to bed so he hid in the hallway and watched the other movie. He said he also watched you guys smoke about a half pack of cigarettes each and drink beer."

Aiden shot Richie a dirty look, and he just grinned back. Richie was clearly enjoying this.

Mike's mom continued: "What the hell were you thinking? That I wouldn't notice the beer missing? Well, clearly you weren't thinking at all, because you didn't even bother cleaning up after yourselves. I found the beer bottles and cigarette butts all over the table when I got home from work".

We both looked at each other, then at our feet. We really were that stupid.

"Well, you're grounded, Mister", she said to Aiden. She then rounded on me: "And I'll be telling your parents about this too".

Aiden's mom's anger at us seemed to pale in comparison to Aiden's anger at Richie. I was kind of mad at him too, but it wasn't his fault that we smoked and Aiden drank, and we did leave the evidence lying around, so we'd have been caught anyway. Aiden did not share this opinion and was being particularly nasty. Each time he said something awful to Richie his mother barked at him to leave him alone.