The woods

Chapter 1 (👾)

Most times it's hard to remember this part.
Like a piece of it fell off my mind somehow, yet it's still there.
I remembered, a blurry busy street, hiltower. The place where I was born. I was at a cafe. There were people hustling around the cafe, I was sitting near the window, it was raining hard. I'm waiting for somebody?, a lady came and placed an espresso on my table. "Uh, thank you." I said quietly but the lady walked away halfway my sentence. I sat there, for Atleast a solid 30 minutes, people walked in and out. Until, he walked inside.
I'd like to say I'd be joyful to meet my childhood best friend. But unfortunately the only emotion that stirred inside me was annoyance, I'd been 30 minutes and he said to come at 8:00. It was 8:32. I shouldn't have even thought he'd be here early, he was never on time. He was wearing baggy jeans that were wayyy too big for him, they had drawings on them so I figured he got too excited with his posca markers he got for Christmas. He had a XXL white graphic shirt on, along with the largest purple and white jacket I've ever seen, it was... shining?.
So, all I could think was either he wanted to look like this, a oversized disaster, or he just never looks at sizes and tries stuff on and buys them upfront. Both options seemed normal for him. He looked around confused for a bit until he saw me in the corner.
"Soooooo, long time no see?" He said as he tossed his colossal purple jacket at the end of the seats. Before he could say another word I was already pre-annoyed by his face. "Yeah, long long time no see." I murmured. Why he called me at a cafe after not responding to me for 3 years? I dunno. It was a great time to ask. "Been busy for 3 years haven't you?" I said sarcastically, the smile melted off his face which made my whole year.
"Ah. Right, about that." He said as if he forgot about my whole existence up until now. "Listen Cart, I was gonn-". The waitress came to save his embarrassment. "Are you two ready to order?" She said as if she wouldn't be allowed to leave work until we ordered. He looked up at daze as if he forgot why he was there for 7 seconds. "Oh. Oh! Right uh I'll just have a vanilla latte with extra sugar." The girl stared at him like she knew him, "have we met?" She said confused. But Tyler just looked at her and shook his head.
5 minutes later she came with his order, he hadn't said a word to me so I guess I had to start a conversation. "So, you're turning 17 in a few weeks aren't you?" I said acting like I could care. "Yeah, my dad wanted to go to Italy and stay there to wait for my birthday, but I wanted to see you first." He smiled at me like for the first time he cared about our friendship. Which I found weird since he almost never did that.
I realized I was just staring at him in disbelief instead of saying anything. "Well. That's ironic because last I checked you haven't replied to any of my messages since 3 years,". He looked hurt like he expected this but it also was sad to hear me actually saying it to his face. "Yeah, I know. I regret it as well. I guess I was so caught up with, you know since that happened."
I expected him to pull that incident up at some point on but I was still annoyed when he did do it because ever since it happened I had thought it was clear I did not want to ever speak of it again. Yet I still had a lot more anger to show to him of that, "So you just had to bring it up?" I said. It came out in a tone ruder than I expected I almost felt bad. Almost.
"I know I know you hated that day but you can't just hide away from it your whole life." He said with sympathy. "I don't know where you got that information but I've been doing well of hiding away from it for 3 years. So yeah, I'm okay.". He didn't look convinced, like he knew I still thought about it everyday (which I did NOT)
He observed me blankly like he wasn't sure what to say. "Well, I guess I didn't come here to talk about past experiences. But, how have you been?" Now there were at least fifty things I wanted to fill him in on but then again I remembered I was supposed to be a mysterious cold guy who doesn't care much. "Nothing much, well I'm gonna move to Quaris after a few months because.." my voice faded.
I hadn't told him yet. He looked at me impatiently, "What happened Cart?" I was quiet for a bit until it finally came out of me. "My parents got divorced." I blurted. His head lowered back slowly, the spark in his eye disappeared which didn't make me happy for some reason. "Oh.. oh Cart I'm so sorry." He sounded like he really meant it. For a moment I thought just maybe just maybe he's a better person now. "It's okay, it happened 3 weeks ago. My moms looking for a job and we got kicked out of our apartment so we're staying at a hotel." I don't know why I was telling him all of this but, it'd been so long I've spoken to anybody about it I just broke everything down.
He didn't say a word, he didn't interrupt, he didn't make a joke to make me feel better. He just sat there and listened to me the whole time. After I finished he looked at me, his eyes softened, "I'm sorry, I should've responded to you. I think I was too stuck of about collage and moving I forgot... I forgot about you." He looked like he wanted to punch himself. I couldn't help chuckling, "Seriously you look like you're about to throw yourself at the table." He smiled but I could see worry In his eyes. Everything seemed fine, until she walked inside.
I felt like a huge black lump produced in my stomach, it was hollow. Tyler followed my eyes, I expected him to jump up and throw her across the room. But life doesn't always give you what you want. Instead, he dropped wayyyyyyyyy down my "asshole" meter and smiled at her, "Sadie!" (Yeah of COURSE he called her as well)
She looked back, she looked pretty. But don't let that fool you, the girl's personality is more disgusting than her skincare routine. She grinned happily in shock, but it soon fell off when she saw me, I took that offensively because I forgot about the time I slapped her on her birthday. (It was the best day of my life.) She said something to the waitress and pointed our way and happily waddled over.
"Tyler! OH EM GI! It's so good to see you again!" I was a little confused that's all she said until I realized, I turned over to him. "Wait wait wait. You invited her?" It was yet again in a ruder tone, this time I didn't feel a tinge of sympathy. He looked guilty, "Yeah.. Listen I know you want to strangle her but" (not as much as I wanted to strangle him.) "Just give her a chance. She said she's changed."
Sadie sat down next to Tyler acting all lovey dovey even tho Tyler has rejected her about 30 times as I've counted. "Oh my god Carter, I am so sorry about everything that's happened. I wish I could say that to you a when it happened, but I was just scared that.." I saw a small smile twinge at the end of her lips until he cleared her throat, "And. And I mean it's just been so hard to contact you again so I could never say how sorry-" she giggled and covered her mouth again. Yeah I lost it
I don't know much of what happened. But what I do remember is packing up my jacket and storming out the door even tho it was raining hard. I heard Tyler behind me and Sadie too which made me angrier. I couldn't believe he even thought to invite her. I took every positive thing I said about him back.
I ended up running away from them looking for a taxi. No such luck, I went through an alley way to lose them there, I could hear Tyler off to a distance so I kept running through the alley way. Finally it went quiet, I was panting and wheezing so I sat down for a minute, I felt like crying but I didn't know what to cry about, there were too many things. Unfortunately I didn't even have time to break a tear, because I heard a voice behind me.
"Well well well" I heard the voice of a raspy teenager and I knew I was in for a long day. There were three of them. All looking decomposed since they were holding cigarette packs. The guy in the middle looked either 15 or 35. He had a nasty smile on his face that reminded me of my middle school bully. Strong,ugly, and fat. All three of them were walking clones of the other. "Triplets or you're all ugly?" That was not exactly the smartest thing to say but I was reckless.
The guys took it pretty offensively and in no time I was being chased by 3 little pigs (or maybe big.) I ran for all I was worth and didn't look back once, one of them got too close and pushed me (which just gave me an extra boost) But it didn't last long when I stumbled on a rock and went rolling down a rocky hill. I hit my face around fifty times and felt miserable. When I finally stopped rolling I stumped on a tree, which didn't make me feel any better.
I looked around my surroundings, I was in the entrance of a woods. I looked back and saw the big bad pigs again and I knew I had no choice left, one of them saw me and yelled "There he is!" The rest of them glared at me and stormed downhill (which is gonna take them very long because the hill was very long.) I looked at the woods, "I hate my life." I plunged towards the woods.