This Diary I Found

18 :: Goodbye, Jedi

CHAPTER 18: Goodbye, Jedi

There was a beat-up, black Nissan parked by the corner of Del Rio and Dalma. When I passed by it, the door opened. Peeking in, I saw Emma's black eyes on a different face.

"You Trevor?" the boy asked. He looked familiar, not just on the eyes, and I realized why. I've seen him before. Back at school, when Emma pulled the fire alarm.

"You're Emma's brother?" I asked, though it sounded more like a statement in need of assurance. He gave me my assurance; he nodded.

"I'm Ethan," he said, "Get in the car. I'm taking you to Ems."

I haven't seen him around Westmont High, so I could only guess that he was only in middle school. He sure looked like it, looked too young to be driving around. But he's got that crass, commanding tone in his voice that made me slide into the passenger's seat.

"Hi," another boyish voice rang from the backseat. It was the other brother. "I'm Erik!"

"Hi," I replied with a nod, then turned back to the older brother. Ethan started the engine and drove off. I asked, "So where's Emma?"

Ethan's jaw ticked. "Somewhere stupid. She's got your shoes, though."

I looked down on my feet, my wet sock-covered feet. Huh, I forgot about that. The reminder of my lost shoes also reminded me of how tired I was. The seat was comfortable enough with the silence to rock me to sleep.

"Trevor." A voice woke me up. "We're here." It was Erik, unbuckling his seatbelt. Ethan was doing the same.

I blinked groggily and looked out the window. We were out of town, I was sure of that. I was not sure exactly where we were. Outside the window, there was a heavily guarded gate of which I had no idea how we got through.

Ethan got out of the car, and on his side of the window, there was a building, as heavily guarded as the gate. I quickly scrambled out and fell in step with the Grange brothers. "Where are we? What is this place?"

Ethan didn't say anything. Instead, he pointed to the façade of the building where metal letters were securely attached on the wall, spelling, W-E-S-T-M-O-N-T P-E-N-I-T-E-N-T-I-A-R-Y. I gulped. "Oh, shit."

×××××

Emma looked good in orange. It was weird seeing her in anything else other than black. The weirdest thing, though, was seeing her without her raccoon eyes. She looked tired, but beautiful nonetheless. I'd kiss her again like last night but my head would only bonk against the glass divider separating us.

"What happened?" I asked her over that old telephone attached to the chord in the booth.

She shrugged. "They're charging me with trespassing."

My eyes widened. "Trespassing? On that gazebo?"

She nodded. "Yeah!" she exclaimed. "It turns out, a snotty family owns that place." She shook her head in annoyance and proceeded to relay the accounts of her arrest.

After waking up past 7, Emma went back to the fairgrounds to find our shoes. "I found them. They were at that Indian place we went to after hitting up Quino's Brewery. 'Parently, we took our shoes off as a sign of respect for their culture." She chuckled.

After getting our shoes, Emma headed back to the gazebo to wake me up. Unfortunately, she couldn't get back up the fence that I jumped over earlier this morning. Too hungover to jump, she circled around and found the main entrance. She got through the gates. A few steps later, she heard someone yelling. "There was this snooty, foreign dude telling me off, screaming at me," she said.