Seeing Shane Gray ✓

eight | back alleys

*.*.*.*.*.*

September 24

Marla stops her car outside the small house party which is no place for a teenage couple to be hanging out at. I mean, sure, there are quite a few couples that I can see. It's not the company I'm comfortable with my friend getting involved with, though. Marla and Rachael have the same opinion as me. As soon as we say Riley's message in the group chat about 'going to a party with Carlos', the same thing came to our minds.

The girl's going to get herself killed. Or worse, raped.

Since my parents weren't home and Marla's parents aren't as strict as Racheal's about staying out at night, we decided to play cops and recuse her. Sure, it would have helped if we could convince her to stay back. But at least Marla somehow managed to ask her boyfriend which party Carlos was talking about. I, having neither a man nor a car, waited for her to pick me up and take me along.

"You shouldn't be going there alone," Marla's boyfriend Hashir says. His bespectacled face floats on Marla's phone screen because she has no sense of safe driving.

"I'm not alone," Marla says. "I have Tay with me, see?" She turns the screen towards me and I flash a smile and wave at Hashir.

Hashir rolls his eyes. "Yeah, how threatening."

"Stop worrying about me and focus on your exams," Marla shoots him down. "I don't want you getting expelled. The only reason I'm coming to college is so I can be with you."

"And I can't wait!"

Trying not to gag, I turn to stare out of the window at the house looming overhead. It's not too big, old and with a couple of tiles missing from the front. A cracked window allows a view inside so that I catch a glimpse of flashing lights and drinks being distributed in plastic cups. Scared of what Riley might be up to, I scan the dark and creepy neighborhood with its overturned trashcans and open gutters. I see a couple of kids smoking something as they lean against a streetlight and a dog with an injured leg race past them. One of the kids lets out a loud cackle and kicks at the dog which whimpers and runs into the alley right next to the house.

"I'm going to go inside and find Riley," Marla says to me, gathering up her braids and tying them into a pony at the top of her head. "You should stay out here and keep watch. If I don't come back in twenty minutes, call the cops and raid this damn place."

Even though I know she's doing it so I won't have to do anything but sit in the car, she makes it seem like I'm doing her the favor. Proving to be the badass she is, Marla throws open the door of her old 1956 Chevy and gets out. She stretches her arms back, rocking her black crop-top and jeans shorts that leave her long, dark legs bare, she closes the door behind her and heads toward the house, looking both ways as she goes. As she disappears through the door and the low thumping music becomes the only thing rooting me to the present, I lean back in the seat and scan the house and its few windows.

I've never been to these kinds of parties. Carter wasn't sociable and I didn't like going anywhere without my twin brother. I had friends but he didn't, sticking by me and telling me how everyone was only trying to live their best life.

'One day, they'll forget all about you,' he'd say. 'Nobody will even remember you after you die.'

I'd called him a pessimist back then but he'd only shrug and laugh. He took life too seriously, reading meanings into things and being too sensitive. I was the easy-going one, always ready to shake things off and move on.

If only I'd known it would be him I wouldn't be able to move on from.

Closing my eyes and inhaling a deep breath through my nose, I try to block out the memories that come rushing back to me. It's easier being away from them, easier still to remain in peaceful denial that my brother isn't dead. Sometimes, it's even better to imagine I never had a brother at all.