Standing in the sand of the lake I'd visited with Grace so many times before, I watched all of her friends scatter around and collect the garbage cans that had been placed erratically around the lake itself. The same guy who gave Nathan the spray paint came up to them and seemed to douse them in some brown, almost earthy-colored liquid. It wasn't but a moment later that he struck a match and dropped it into one of them.
Before long, what sat in front of me was a raging fire made up from the garbage and whatever he had soaked the containers in. It was almost as if they were trying to recreate a makeshift Burning Man for themselves, all while enjoying the process of it. Even when society looked down on every last move they made, they all looked so carefree. None of them seemed to care if people judged them by how they looked or acted, yet I was left in the dust wondering just how they did it.
Sudden laughter forced my head to left, revealing a few guys lugging along bright blue and white ice chests full of what I would have assumed to be various drink, though I was willing to wager that isn't wasn't just soda and water. As they passed, Erin approached one of them and pulled out what looked to be two familiar glass bottles, brown and glossy. The same shade of brown, the same bottle that had essentially taken her away from me.
Erin stopped in front of me and raised the bottle up before lightly tapping its base against my forehead. "Come."
Just like so many nights and afternoons with Grace, I followed Erin along the water as the stars fought and fought to make their presence around us known as they died so far in the distance. The only difference was that the stars weren't the same with her not around. They never shined as brightly as they once did. The sky wasn't painted as clearly as it once was, foggy and hazy with the clouds that nature itself brought. Nothing seemed to look the same with her gone. The world around me had become gray. Dull. Just as dead as I felt.
After minutes of walking, I found myself in a secluded area filled with loose trees and rocks that seemed to be placed just as erratically as the garbage cans. With an easygoing smile, she turned and sat down on the sand as she brought the cap of the beer bottle to her teeth. A small cracking sound hit the air as she spit the cap out and handed that very same bottle to me, the one she had just opened.
I took the bottle and followed her lead as I sat down on the sand. Even if I just saw her open it, I was entirely weary of even thinking about drinking it. Had it been safe, or was I asking for the same thing to happen again?
As I brought the bottle to my lips, I caught her eyeing me while she pulled a small bag off her shoulder. "Something wrong?"
"Nada." she brought her knuckle to my jaw. "You're just a little cuter than I thought."
Erin's knuckle fell from my jaw, continuing down my neck and past my shoulder until the nail of her index finger was scratching my bare thigh. With the exception of Nathan's shirt, I hadn't been wearing much more than Erin was, and she knew it as she leaned forward with her other hand burying itself into my free left thigh. Inch by inch, she leaned inwards with her covered eyes and smile, leaving me unknowing of what she was going to do next.
Slithering up from my waist, her hands found the inside of my shirt and my stomach as she pushed upward, peeling my shirt up with those very fingers. Seconds within slow seconds passed until she tore both shirts off and dropped them into the sand, leaving me in just my bra and a very short pair of shorts. Erin brought her lips to my own and let her tongue invade my mouth as a spider-like smile slowly crawled across her face.
"Tasty." she murmured in between breaths, pulling away as her tongue traveled from my chin to the middle of my neck.
Erin's tongue hadn't decided to just stop at my neck as it fell past my collarbones and stopped just above my bared chest. While she tried to distract me with the tricks her mouth provided, the unbuttoning of my shorts went unnoticed as she ripped them down to my ankles in one fell swoop. One by one, Erin seemed to carefully pull them off and lob them with where my shirt had lied, leaving me in only my underwear all while she was still fully dressed.
With her hair draped over and brushing against my skin as she crawled her way back up, her right hand went in the opposite direction, falling passed my ribs and to the bottom of my stomach. Erin's hand slipped into my underwear as her head dipped and teeth sunk into my neck. As much as it pained me to say it, Grace hadn't been a thought on my mind at that moment. I honestly had to wonder if I there was any thought on my mind at that moment.
"S-Stop." I caught her wrist.
"Why?" Erin hadn't stopped. Her middle finger began to slip deeper in between my legs. "You scared that I'm going to be like him?"
From just one word, I was jolted into stiffness. There wasn't a word I could say or a thing I could do, for me or for her. At that moment, I had turned into someone and something no more flexible than a cardboard box, and she made it clear that she felt it as she pulled her hand out of my underwear before pushing herself up from the ground. Without another word, she only bent over and took a swig of her beer.
"Figured as much." she muttered, looking at my clothes. "You went pale as soon as I said Herrera when we were at their fuckin' mansion. It was obvious something happened with them."
"Don't tell anyone, please?" I brought my thumbnail to my teeth, unsure of what else I could say.
". . .So it is true, then. I won't tell anyone." Erin picked up and tossed my clothes into my lap. "Sorry about doing all that to you."
Standing half-naked in front of another woman for the second time that day, I threw my shirt over my head and pulled it on with her eyes following my every movement. As I fixed my hair, I studied her now emotionless expression. The grin she was wearing while she was on top of me had disappeared and now bordered on a frown as she returned my stare, though it was hard to pinpoint if she was looking at me or staring into space when I couldn't see her eyes.
"So, you would've stopped on your own if I didn't stop you?" I knelt back over for my shorts. "Or was that little comment you made a lie?"
"You're too young." Erin took a drink of her beer. "If I was a couple years younger, I'd be letting you know just how much clothes bother me on pretty girls."
Turning my shorts around as a light laugh escaped my lips, my phone and wallet fell out of the back pockets, landing in the dry sand in front of Erin. Erin snickered as she momentarily looked at them before reaching forward and picking up my wallet while I slid my shorts back up my legs. Opening my wallet, she pulled out a white card that looked to be my school ID, but it was after she moved that wallet away from her face that her expression told me something entirely different.
I almost hadn't even brought my wallet with me, but Nathan had said to bring just in case something happened and that he would lock it in his truck if it bugged me that much, so that had been exactly what I did. It was never meant to be anything more than that, but Erin's expression told me the polar opposite. That it was more than just nothing, that a picture and my name meant something more to her.
"Owens? Is Brian Owens your brother?"
"Yeah?" I answered with something of another question as the shock refused to leave her face.
"No wonder you remind me of him." Erin brushed her long bangs back and revealed both of her blue, cold eyes to me. "Brian was my best friend, like a brother or some shit. We always chilled. Until Lindsey died, at least. He also never shut up about his little sister and how awesome she was going to be when she got older."
Brian knew Erin? He knew and spent time with all of these people? Lindsey was a name I hadn't heard before, not until Erin mentioned her. It was slowly beginning to seem like the Brian I knew was someone completely different from the Brian others knew. Everything I knew about my brother was being put to question, and there hadn't been a way to tell how much I knew about him was true and how much wasn't. Brian said everything was fine, but then why did he stop spending his time with her after this girl died? Why had he felt the need to hide his life and friends from me?
"Who's Lindsey?" I brought the sleeve of the flannel shirt over my right arm.
"His girlfriend, my little sister. The only person he might've talked about more than you was her. Brian was hopelessly in love with her, saying corny shit like how he was going to make her the happiest girl alive and how they were going to leave this place for bigger things. He was so focused on making her happy that he didn't even realize all she wanted was him and a peaceful life." Erin looked at the sky, her eyes reflecting the starlight even through her black bangs. "I only left to the store to get some food for later that night and when I came back, she was lying in the middle of the street naked and in her own fucking blood. . . I should've just taken her with me. She'd still be here if I just forced her along."
". . .Is that why he left?" my bangs fell as my head dropped.
"The police said she was asking around for some crank and just ran into the wrong guy. They never found him, either." Erin looked at me as she drank her beer. "Brian just disappeared for a while. Whenever I did hear about him, it was about getting arrested or getting into a fight. Last I heard, he started fighting professionally or something. I got Lindsey hooked on that shit and I feel like if I just left her in the dark about drugs and this life, she would still be here laughing with everyone. Instead, I lost my best friend and my little sister."
What Erin told me had explained a lot about Brian and the days leading up to him leaving Ely. He became just a little bit more distant and quiet. Brian was often caught smiling about something more times than not, I had rarely ever seen him with an anger or sadness on face. Before he left, he looked sad, trapped within himself and his emotions. In a sense, I understood how he felt. I knew what it felt like to be trapped in my own feelings and emotions, stuck and drowning in the things I couldn't change.
Even if I knew how he felt, even if I knew what happened to him, what was I supposed to do or say? Brian always steered me away from drugs, yet I was around people who had no hesitation in doing them. Hell, I had actively started doing heroin myself. If I told him that I knew about Lindsey, he would've eventually traced it back to Erin and then he would have probably killed us both. It hadn't taken a genius to figure out that he would've blown his stack on the very thing he told me to stay away from.
"Sorry for you reminding you of them."
"What? I don't mean it like that, kid." Erin looked to her left. "I'm just saying. . ."
As the screen of my phone lit up to warn me of a low battery, I bent over to pick it up. Coming back up, I was given a shock as a pair of arms wrapped around my shoulders and pulled my face into her chest. Erin was motionless, quiet as her arms only tightened in a silence that was only accompanied by the waves of the lake behind her and the faint sound of music playing in the distance. This wasn't just a hug. It was an apology.
"I'll be here for you, just like he was for me."
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