Jacarandas~chapter 1

“Time to move. The missionaries are onto us.”
I smile and flick the pamphlet at him. Niko bats it away and rolls his eyes.
“Yeah. That’s gonna happen.” He makes his voice like a movie announcer: “And now.... when Jehovah’s witnesses attack!”
I giggle despite myself, an awkward sound, then roll my eyes when it ignites a sheepish smile of his own. Fiddling with a ‘Do not disturb’ sign I’ve picked up off of the tray of hotel amenities in the bathroom, I look out the window into a drizzling downpour, listen as the silence stretches too long and the mood of the room grows heavy.
“When are we going back?”
Ah, that’s the question. The one that I know I will regret the moment I say it but talk anyways. The one that sums up the past few days I’ve had. There’s an explosion of breath and Niko gets off the bed and starts slamming things around in the small kitchenette, making coffee in the cheap ceramic mugs that came with the room. He ignores me.
“Okaaay, I’ll say it again. When are we going back?”
A crash comes from the kitchenette and Niko’s cursed explication is loud in the heavy silence.
“Damn it, Blake, we’re not going back there! Are you insane? No, let me rephrase that: I realize you’re insane, but even you cant possibly fathom going home!”
“And if I can?”
“If you can? If you can what? If you can forget everything you know and go back to those pompous, grasping freaks? If that’s it, then go right on ahead, you’re not the person I know.”
“I didn’t ASK you to drag me out here! I was dealing. EVERYTHING doesn’t have to be your way, Niko! Why can’t you see my point of view?”
The pamphlet I flicked at him in play a few minutes ago is sitting by my leg; an orange sunset printed across the cover. White italics ask me if I want to find my way back to the truth. You’ve got to hand it to organized religion. It doesn’t quit. Ever. Time to take a page from its book.
“They’re my family, Niko.”
My voice is small, and Niko pauses in the noise he’s making cleaning up whatever he’s broken this time. I look down at my skirt and wonder why the world is blurring. I feel the bed sink lower, and Niko’s hand, warm and solid, is awkwardly resting on the middle of my back. I brush him off and stand, knowing we’re both too awkward with the whole hugging bit.
I sniffle a few times and that’s the end of it. Outside it is still misty gray on the main street of some half-baked town that we’re in.
“Fine. I’ll take you back. But don’t expect me to stay,” his voice breaks a little and he leaves, slamming the door behind him. I fall back onto the bed, arms outstretched, and look up at the ceiling. It looks like the surface of the moon. If lunar surfaces were pockmarked like the face of a smallpox victim... I stand up. You know its time to do something when the creepy metaphors start coming.
Walking into the bathroom, I turn on the harsh, green-yellow light, and then grimace. I think I prefer darkness. The last few days have not been kind to me and the unflattering light accentuates the fact.
         My dark green-blue eyes are a little red, and I look haggard, fragile, like a jumper that just doesn’t know it yet. You can just vaguely see the purple-blue bruise poking out from the top of my blue sweater. Reaching down, I turn on the water and step out of my clothes, turn to the mirror. Steam is already beginning to fog up the surface, but I still cringe when I see myself. Shoulder-length brown hair looks windswept and tangled, the only straight thing being the bangs that cut across my forehead in a slanted line. My hand shakes a little as I gingerly tough the discolored expanse that runs from the base of my neck to the upper right part of my back. A brilliantly mottled color show, it hurts like hell when I step under the hot water. A lot of damage you can get with a car door. But that’s another story. I run my fingers through my hair to saturate it and then stand there under the hot tears of water and think.

         My parents are two of the most respectable people you’re ever likely to meet. Rich but charitable, down to earth celebrity types (is that an oxymoron?) who enjoy living “just like everybody else.” If a million-dollar mansion counts as like everybody else. How did they get their money? Stock market mostly. Then pet corporations. My mother has been in a few small movies. But to be honest I’ve never paid too much attention to where the money came from.  They were not what I would call a large force in my upbringing. Too cold for real affection...I don’t know. At least it led to a strong bond between my older brother and I. The public loved them when they enrolled their two children: Blake and Casey, in public school. If we were all back in Jacaranda, Casey would be two years older than me.
         Jacaranda high school loved us, but we never really became friends with too many people. We were always the son and daughter of the richest, most powerful people in town, and everyone knew it. The problem with status: it does not lend itself too easily to real friendship. I had a few boyfriends, but nothing special. Sometimes I even wonder if what I had with Casey was only half real. But my brother and I were always friends, inasmuch as we could be. Then Niko moved to town, and we became friends. He always said Casey and I would seem to be in our own little world at the most inopportune times, but I don’t know where he saw that. Ours was just a brother-sister friendship. Unbreakable because of blood ties but otherwise the most fragile and unstable thing in the universe.
         There had always been...trouble...between Casey and our parents. He was always pushing boundaries, testing just how far he could bend them before they broke. Lets just say that he was grounded quite...frequently. And then one day, right before I left for French camp, he ran off with Niko. Just the biggest stunt in a long series of stunts, or so I thought. But apparently there was a lot that I had never known about him. Like that he and Niko were in love.
         What I know for certain about what happened: they say it was a hit and run driver who killed my brother and sent Niko to the hospital with internal bleeding. He or she was never caught. It’s not a lot of information.
         
         I turn off the water and step out of the shower, dress quickly then get my things together, pack them into my bag. I’m going back. Dammit, I’m going back. Part of me says I’m crazy to be doing this, then the other part tells me I have to do this. For Casey. And a little bit for Niko’s lost innocence that I can see shining through his eyes, though I doubt he will accept that...So it’s for Casey.