The Guy from the Insane Asylum

Chapter 37

Song: ALL NIGHT (ACOUSTIC) by THE VAMPS.

"Life ... is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing." — William Shakespeare.

Chapter 37

It was the last night camping for the Harlow's. And they were using most of it up sleeping because of how tiring canoeing was.

Grandma Maggie and Grandpa Greg were not so used to the environment of the outdoors so they actually called a cab—despite everyone offering to give them a ride—to take them back to BellTown where they would reunite with the rest of the family the next morning.

In the middle of the night, Zach moved the grandparents tent a little further from the rest. He and Bethany planned to sneak into it when everyone was completely out for the night.

The second Joe was asleep, Zach took a pillow and blanket, as did Bethany, and they headed over to the empty tent. Bethany accidentally stepped on a bag of chips, very loud chips. Zach tried to shush her the whole rest of the eighteen steps.

"Okay, that was harder than I expected." Bethany whispered, throwing her blanket and pillow on the inside of the tent.

"That's what she said!!" Zach immaturely whisper screamed.

Beth stared at him, trying to keep her grin from causing a laugh. "Who are you? Michael Scott?"

"Yes. And you're my Holly Flax." They both referred to an American TV show. The Office.

"You know she leaves, dumps Michael, and gets together with some other dude, right?" Bethany chuckled.

"Well, we'll skip all of that. To their happy ending." He laid next to Bethany and cuddled her.

"Happy endings don't exist." Beth murmured.

Zach become tense as he recalled his mother telling him the same thing. "My mom used to say that. I never believed her, but I knew why she did. Her marriage failed, her family isolated her, her kid was being used by his own father to do illegal things and she couldn't do anything about it. She said that to lower expectations about real life and the world."

Beth sighed and after long intervals of silence, she asked, "tell me about your mom."

Zachary never talked about her. And for various reasons. One being that he never felt comfortable doing so, but over the course of three months, he grew closer to Beth than he and Joey had in over years. "Her name was Kayla. She was very beautiful. Her hair was the lightest shade of brown and her eyes were blue." It had been a while since he recalled the way she looked, he missed her.

"She was an excellent cook. Like restaurant-worthy good. But we never had enough money to do that. One day, I promised her I was going to become someone and earn lots of money so I could help her build her own little restaurant here in BellTown. It was how she was going to start, but then people would realize her food was too good for a small town and they'd move her to New York. And I'd go with her. And Toby would be out of our lives, forever. My father would be gone." He scoffed when he referred to him as a dad.

"What was she like?" Bethany asked, wanting to move forward from his father because she knew he was a hated topic.

"She was nice. Sometime too nice, but she never knew that because she didn't believe in too much of anything good. She was superstitious, too. She believed in karma, she never walked under ladders, she never broke a mirror for fear of bad luck, she always picked up pennies, she knocked on wood every time she challenged fate, and she never opened an umbrella indoors." Zach laughed and Bethany could feel him against her.