Part 4 (2/2)

He dried his eyes and returned his gaze to the stucco wall in front of him. Years! It had taken him years to gather enough courage to tell them. And for what? So his mother could question him and his father could all but call him a liar? Lorenzo threw the remote control down on the table. No, he would not speak on the incident again. But what was he going to do about the nagging pain that would not go away?

The timer on the oven began beeping and startled Lorenzo. He got up too quickly and felt light-headed. He put his hand on the wall for support as he walked into the kitchen. He stood in front of the oven for a few seconds before bending down to take the pan of ribs out of the oven.

As he pulled back the foil that had been covering them, the pent-up steam escaped quickly, surrounding Lorenzo with a temporary film of mist before evaporating into the air. He pierced the meat with a fork, twisting it until the flesh began to fall away from the bone. The meat was done. He turned off the oven and returned to the living room.

Like his mother, Lorenzo had also created his own pile of dirt. But instead of taking it out to the trash, he'd become his own receptacle. For years, he'd been depositing all that grime right into his own internal trash bin. Still, the problem with dirt is that it's dirty, and no matter how neat and clean he kept himself on the outside, there was still-just beneath the surface-a garbage bin filled with dirt. And Lorenzo was so tired of feeling dirty.

He opened the tiny plastic bag he'd purchased earlier and took the illicit painkillers out. He had already swallowed two of them right after he'd purchased them. Now he swallowed the last two. He sighed as the heavy pressure from his emotional pain settled into the center of his heart. He had learned to live with the dullness of it, but it was the constant ache that he could not stand.

He would deal with it until it became unbearable-and that would not take too long-then in order to subdue it, he would do what he'd just done, what he'd been doing for quite some time until the doctor had cut him off and forced him to find his medication elsewhere; he would take two of the little white pills to make it all go away.

His secret hope of finding someone who would recognize his plight and free him from his pain was dying. He thought he'd found a rescuer in Tia because she had been easy to talk to and even easier to laugh with. He could vaguely remember the thought swirling around in his head that she might be the one who could put an end to his misery and make everything better. But she could not do for him what he could not do for himself, and he began to resent her because of it. Now, they no longer slept in the same bed and barely spoke to each other.

He began to notice that two pills were not enough to eradicate his pain-they barely numbed it. And he found himself increasing the amount of pills he took more and more.

Chapter Nine.

Serenity Sparks watched her mother from across the street as she sped out of the cul-de-sac. She stood peeking through the blinds of her best friend, Cookie's, second-floor bedroom window across the street. She released the blinds when she saw Tia slam the front door of their house and walk hurriedly to her car.

”Is that your mother's car speeding down the street?” Cookie asked over her shoulder.

”Yep,” Serenity answered abruptly.

”She better be careful,” Cookie said, ”driving fast like that.”

”I know, right?” Serenity said as she looked through Cookie's pink jewelry box with a ballerina on top. ”If that was us driving like that we'd never hear the end of it.”

”Uh-huh,” Cookie agreed. ”They'd probably take our license away.”

”Yeah. If we had one,” Serenity said. ”She's probably late for church or mad 'cause I'm not home to go with her.” Serenity hesitated. ”She might be mad at my daddy too. But she's always mad about something.”

”How come you didn't go to church?”

Serenity shrugged. ”'Cause it's boring,” she said as she flipped through a fas.h.i.+on magazine. ”How come you ain't at church?”

”My momma's working late, and my daddy don't feel good,” Cookie said. ”But I like going to church. Don't you like the youth pastor?”

”He's all right.”

”How come your mom's mad at your daddy?”

”Seems like she's always mad at him,” Serenity said. ”It might be 'cause he's sleeping in the living room. I know she don't like that.”

Cookie fell back on the purple and pink polka-dot comforter on her bed. ”I wish I could sleep in the living room every night.”

”Why?”

”Then I could watch The Walking Dead every night.”

”Oh yeah,” Serenity perked up. ”That's my favorite show. Did you see the one about the guy sitting on top of the house eating some pudding?”

”Uh-huh,” Cookie giggled. ”That was too funny!”

”Ooh,” Serenity yelped, picking up a magazine. ”Look at this!”

The girls stared at what looked like a picture of a teenage model walking down a makes.h.i.+ft runway inside of a warehouse. Their eyes traveled to the exposed gray heating ducts running across the brown ceiling all the way down to the white lights situated a few inches below them. They scanned the black-and-white checkered floor of the runway, and finally the mult.i.tude of spectators all watching the one girl as the cameras captured her in motion.

”I could do that,” Serenity said making a small bubble with her chewing gum, and then popping it.

Cookie looked at her friend who was mesmerized by the picture in the magazine. ”You think so?” she asked.

Serenity got up and walked over to the L-shaped desk in the corner of Cookie's bedroom. ”Uh-huh,” she said as she sat down and turned on Cookie's computer.

There had been no school for most of the district due to a national teachers' conference, and the two girls had spent most of the day in Cookie's bedroom experimenting with eye shadow and foundation that Serenity had stolen from her mother's vast collection of cosmetics. Her mother's a.s.sortment was so huge that she had to keep them all in a bin underneath the bathroom sink.

Serenity and Cookie's thirteen-year-old faces did not require the layers of mocha and beige foundation each girl had on, and the thick line of black eyeliner that Serenity had applied to her eyelids, made her light brown eyes look hard and gothic.

Serenity clicked on the guest icon on the computer. Once the desktop appeared, she clicked on the browser.

Cookie looked at her. ”Don't forget to wash your face.

”You know I won't,” Serenity said twirling around in the chair. ”My mom would have a fit if she saw my eyes.”

”I'm surprised she let you put that red color on the end of your bangs,” Cookie said.

”It's just cherry Kool-Aid,” Serenity said patting down her dark brown bangs. ”I told her it'll rinse out.” Serenity left out the part about how Tia had warned her that if she did it again she was going to cut all of her hair off. ”And there'll be nothing left to dye,” Tia had said sternly. ”You better wash your face too,” Serenity said eyeballing Cookie.

Cookie looked at the computer. ”Did you remember to go private?”

”Oops,” Serenity said and quickly exited the chat room she had just entered.

”You can't be forgetting to do that,” Cookie said. ”I told you my dad checks this computer sometimes.”

”Sorry,” Serenity said as she moved the mouse up to the top of the computer screen, opened the drop-down box, and then clicked on Private Browsing.

The last few times she and Cookie had visited the chat room, Serenity had forgotten to sign in under Private Browsing, but she hadn't told Cookie.

”Is Saucer on?” Cookie asked.

Serenity signed back in to the online chat room, teen2teen.com, that she and Cookie often visited and looked for Saucer's screen name.

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