All In My Head

Chapter four: Breaking News

I stood in front of the open door paralyzed in fear. I watched the board burn- Hell, I was the one who threw it in the fireplace! There's no way the board could've been replaced because we were all together. So how did it come back, untouched?

"Screw this, I'm leaving!"

"Wait up!" The three traitors dashed into Christine's Jeep and sped away. I caught a quick glimpse of the license plates, couldn't scream anymore Christine; it was custom bright pink with the word 'Cristy' in large letters on it.

Kylie looked up at me, fear wide in her eyes. She asked me worriedly, "Vanessa, you aren't going to leave me here... Are you?"

"Of course not! Get in, we'll figure out what to do later," I mustered up the courage to shut the front door and the two of us raced into my car. I miraculously managed to put the key in the ignition without fumbling and deserted away from the house. "How the hell did it come back? We burned it! You don't have a second one, do you?"

"I only had one, pretty sure of it." Kylie paused for a moment and held her head dramatically in her hands. "Ugh, I have to go back eventually! You know how crazy religious my parents are! If they see that board, who knows what they'll do?"

"You can crash at my place until then, my mom wouldn't care." Minutes later, I pulled into the driveway of my house. A small red car that I didn't recognize was parked in the driveway. I assumed it belongs to my mom's date.

We exited the car, trying to be as silent as possible. As stealthily as we could, we walked onto the porch, avoiding any creek in the floorboard. I knew where all of them were due to the numerous times we snuck out of this house.

I was about to unlock the door until I heard my mom and her date 'Caden' talking. "I really like spending time with you, Denise. You're a wonderful woman."

"Was he here all night-" Kylie shushed me and covered my mouth with her hand. I slapped her hand off of me and the two of us continued to ease-drop.

"I do, too. But Vanessa should be back any minute-"

"Then I still have time to do this until then-" She squealed in excitement as he kissed her. Not wanting it to go on any further, I flung the door open which caused them to jump in surprise.

"Vanessa!" My mother jolted her head in our direction, revealing the noticeably large purple mark on her neck.

"Nice hickey, miss Olsen." Kylie commented with the same matching grin as me. In embarrassment, my mother quickly covered the hickey with her hair.

"Caden, this is my daughter Vanessa, and her best friend Kylie."

Kylie scoffed at her title. "Ouch. Nice to see you too, my other mother."

"It's very nice to meet you. Both of you. I wish I could've made a better first impression," He spoke with a genuinely kind smile. We stood in awkward silence for a few moments before he spoke again, "Well, I guess that's my cue to leave. I had a great time, Denise. Let's do it again sometime."

"You know where I live." My mother shrugged with a giddy smile. It was a little weird seeing her so happy. I haven't seen her this happy in forever. Other than me, of course.

"Goodbye, everyone." I walked him to the front door. Once he was gone, I shut the door behind him. Kylie and I looked at her eagerly for an answer.

"Don't look at me like that!" My mother scolded. She tried to escape the conversation by going in the kitchen, but she knew we were stubborn and weren't gonna drop this so easily.

We watched her as she tidied up in the kitchen, putting the newly dried plates in the cupboard and such. Trying to pry as much information out of her as I could, I asked, "How did it go?"

"He seems really nice!"

"It went fine." She answered vaguely.

"Maybe a little too fine?" My best friend joked, wiggling her eyebrows. I rolled my eyes at the thought. "What? He spent the night, for god's sakes!"

"Get out of here, the both of you! You two have way better things to do than meddle with an old lady's love life! Vanessa, you should be job-hunting."

"Right..." I frowned.

"Now get on with it!"

"Yes, mom..." Kylie and I said in unison. Once we were out of her sight, we giggled and raced up the stairs. Still chattering about my mother's sleepover, we scurried down the hallway to my room, which was the farthest door on the right.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Kylie looked around my room with a chuckle. The walls were painted in a rich teal colour, the bookshelves were covered with the books we used to spend hours reading, and the grey carpet was the same. "Seriously, your room hasn't changed at all since two-thousand-nine. That's ten years ago!"

"This desk is new..." I pointed out.

"That's one thing," She snickered. Her eyes wandered over all the books on the shelves. "The boxcar children, chronicles of Narnia- no friggin way!"

She pulled out a tall but slim book from the shelf and laid it in front of me. I glanced at the title; middle school memories. "Hell no!"

"I have to see this!" Before I could swipe it away from her, she already had the scrapbook in her hands and was already flipping through all the embarrassing pictures. "Nessa, look! Our first school dance!"

She showed me the picture of our group of four at the time. We didn't get to meet Blair until she transferred to our school the year after. Each of us looked dorky but I cringed at the sight of my seventh-grade self; I smiled giddily at the camera with my rainbow-coloured braces. I wore a bright neon striped dress with matching framed glasses.

I recalled the dance being a 'glow in the dark' theme and you bet your butt I went all out! The cringy part, though, was I was the only one who wore neon. "This was in two-thousand-ten. Can you believe it's only been nine years?"

"It feels like it was only yesterd-" The both of us jumped in fright at the sound of Kylie's phone ringing loudly. Her face fell pale as she read the name of who was calling her. "It's my parents..."

"Answer it!" Her thumb waved over the green button. Shakily, she pressed the button and turned the speaker on. I sat back and waited for the drama to stir.

"Hi sweetie, we've decided to extend our trip for another week. How's the house?" Her mother's voice spoke into the phone. Kylie remained frozen. I sighed knowing she was never good at lying, especially to her mother.

I took the phone from her hands and mimicked her voice, which wasn't that hard to do since everyone always says that we have similar voices. "Good! How's your vacation?"

"Just great! Your father and I are having a fun time. Vanessa was right about Florida being gorgeous. We saw our first alligator the other day."

"You did?"

"You wouldn't believe it, it was just laying there in the middle of the street! We managed to take a picture of it," Almost five seconds later, she sent Kylie's phone a picture. You could see the beach far in the distance, the roads and grass looked well maintained. Right in the middle of the road was the alligator getting his tan on. "Any-who, I just wanted to check in really quick. You know I can't be on my minutes for a long time. Bye, sweetheart!"

Surprisingly, she was the first to hang up. Kylie sighed as the anxiety passed through her. "An alligator, of all things..."

We laughed it off before turning on the TV. I was going to change it until the words 'breaking news' grasped my attention. I cranked up the volume and listened to the reporter babble, "Breaking news! A serious car accident on the highway, everyone in the accident was rushed to the hospital in critical condition!"

Kylie's eyebrows furrowed in confusion. "Wait a minute, pause the TV."

I did what she asked. The two of us observed the flipped over black Jeep. My eyes widened at the bright pink license plate. Though the plates were blurred out, it was undeniably known whose car it was. "That's Christine's car..."