Part Thirteen

We had finally landed. I told my brothers about the girls and they were surprised at how people were connected these days. We decided to all get off the plane together.

“I see Randi over there.” Ike pointed out. Michelle, Rachel, and myself ran over to her. I got there first to give her a big hug and a kiss,

“I take it you’ve met Michelle and Rachel.” She look at me as they got up yo her.

“Yeah he did! How come you didn’t tell us?!” Rachel exclaimed.

“Well I wanted it to be a surprise, duh.” My brothers caught up to us and we all headed to Randi’s car.

“Will your car fit everybody?” I asked.

“Well I got the SUV so only one person will sit in the trunk area.”

“Michelle and I will!” Rachel volunteered them.

“That’s fine.” Randi showed us to the SUV. We all fit pretty well in there. I sat in front with Randi. I could here Michelle and Rachel talking and giggling in the back. They were just too much. They must be best friends or something.

“So how long have you known those two?” I glanced in their direction.

“Practically my whole life. We all lived in a row and were always together. The three musketeers as we called ourselves. But when I moved we were forced to split up, but we vowed we would always be one. Now if you can’t tell they aren’t missing me much. They’ve got each other. I still miss them though.” I thought she was going to cry.

“They still love you hun, they just haven’t seen you in a long time.” I would make an attempt to cheer her up. She turned the music on so they couldn’t hear her.

“Well I just feel left out already. I flew there a few months back, before I met you. Yeah they missed me a lot and we did everything together each day, but those two have the connection that I seemed to have lost with them. It’s not their fault either; I just couldn’t be there for what had happened.” She paused.

“What happened?” I was almost afraid to ask.

“I can’t tell you now, I’ll tell you later.” She didn’t talk for the rest of the drive home. I was worried. I know everything will be fine but I was curious at what went on in her past. She dropped us at our house first.

“Thanks for the ride home.” Tay got our last bag out of the back and shut the trunk.

“No problem.” She was holding my hand.

“So are you still coming over tomorrow? They can come too.” Ike inquired about or party. I forgot about that again. My memory is going and I’m only 15.

“Sure, I’m sure they won’t mind.” She smiled. I gave her a kiss goodbye and they left.

“Is something wrong with her?” Tay asked me. I didn’t want to tell him anything because I wasn’t sure if she would appreciate that.

“No, not that I know of.” I shrugged it off and took my crap inside to my room. I brought more than I thought. I decided to clean my room up since it was really dirty. I put all my clothes away and put the ones in the wash that need to be. I put a few pictures frames on my dresser of my family and whatnot. I made my bed and vacuumed. I did it all. My room looked and smelled really good when I was done. We had the central air on so I couldn’t open the windows, but that would of completed the look of a freshly cleaned room.

“Whoa, what happened in here?” Ike and Tay came in after I was done. “This is the cleanest I’ve ever seen anything of yours.” Ike continued. “Are you feeling okay?” He eyes me.

“I just wanted to sleep in something clean, not something dirty.” I shooed them away. I just laid on my bed for a while. I really didn’t feel like doing anything. I heard the phone ring, but I let one of them get it.

“Hey Zac!!! It’s for you!” I heard Ike yelling.

“Who is it?” I came out of my room.

“Randi.” He handed the phone to me.

“Hey babe, what’s up?”

“We were all going to go swimming and I wanted to know if you would join us?”

“I guess. I’ll just meet you there in a bit.”

“Alright, see ya soon.” I guess I was going swimming. I went into my room and got my swim shorts on. I didn’t bother putting a shirt back on because it was too hot outside for that. I gabbed a towel and started to leave.

“Where are you going?” Tay looked at me and I think he figured it out. “Can we come?” I debated for a second, like I would care either way.

“Sure, whatever.” I waited for them to get their suit on. We all just brought our towel shirts were not required. As we walking into the pool area I saw Michelle and Rachel’s eyes light up. It was like one of those commercials where you have the three hot guys walking by you looking good. Just replace the hot guys with our pitiful selves and people still love it.

“Hey Randi.” Ike set his towel down and dove in. Tay and I did the same.

“You brought the whole gang.” She swam over to me. She kissed me, but not normally. She was acting horny and well weird. Something wasn’t right, but I decided not to address it in front of everyone. I would wait till later when we were alone, well hopefully.

“So why are you guys living over here?” Michelle asked Ike.

“Well our parents had to go out of state for a few months because of our dad’s work. So we are living here for a while.” She hung on every word he spoke. It was cute because she was in a trance.

“Well where did they go?” She looked at him with the little cute face girls give. Flirty one she is.

“Michigan, near Detroit I think.” Her eyes lit up like light bulbs.

“I live there!” Michelle practically squealed.

“Really, then why were you on our plane in Tulsa?” Tay came up next to Ike.

“Well we had to stop there, our flight wasn’t a direct flight to L.A.” She went underwater to fix her hair. Suddenly Randi jumped on my back making me fall underwater. I wasn’t expecting it.

“What were you staring at?” She looked almost afraid of what I was going to say.

“Nothing, just off into space.” I didn’t want to say Michelle because that would sound wrong.

“Well I’m getting out, I promised my mom I would clean the house, but you can stay here.” I knew she wanted me to come I’m not dense.

“No, I wanna come.” I got out with her. She told them we were going back to her house. Now you could take that the wrong way, but I think something was a matter. She’s been acting really weird. When we got there we had practically dried off. I couldn’t wait any longer though. I had to know what was wrong.

“Ok, what’s wrong? I know something is because you’re acting so weird around me now.” She stopped in her tracks and slowly turned around.

“Nothing is wrong with me. Just because I am enjoying my friends doesn’t mean I am acting weird. I am having a grand old time.” She was getting defensive. I didn’t want her to get mad, but I wasn’t going to let her off this easy.

“Oh please, I see right through your ‘trying to be happy’ bit. You don’t have to hide your feeling with me. I love you remember, we can be open about things.” I guess I worded it wrong.

“Oh just because you think you know everything I have to share everything with you. Well I fucking don’t!” She picked up a plate and threw it at me. I ducked and it missed. I had no idea what to do or say now.

“I better go.” I picked up my towel.

“Yeah go run home, I don’t need your pity.” She was acting to weird. I decided I would give her time to settle down. I went home and took a long cool shower. When I got out I saw Tay was home. Ike went out somewhere with some friends of his.

“So did you and Randi have fun?” I think Tay had the wrong idea about that.

“No, she actually blew up at me and went all psycho. Something’s wrong with her and she won’t tell me.” I was still trying to think of what was bothering her.

“Wow, I thought she was going to jump on you like a fly on shit.” A little blunt there, but whatever.

“Well I did at first, but then I could tell I had to say something. She couldn’t seem to express it to me. I don’t know what to do know.” I was still pondering what I did wrong, or what was wrong with her. I zoned out. This was bothering me way too much. I couldn’t put it all together. It had to do with Michelle and Rachel; I know it because of what she said in the car. I snapped out of it. I had to call her or talk to her. I walked over to the door and opened it to see Angie standing there about to knock. “Well hi, I haven’t seen you in a while.” I let her in.

“Yeah, I’ve been a little bit busy. So I’m coming to your party tomorrow. I can’t wait actually.”

“Me either. So was there something that you wanted?” I didn’t want to seem pushy but I had to do something about Randi.

“Yeah I wanted to talk to Taylor.” Then I remembered Tay was in the room, well I thought he was. I turned around and he wasn’t there. I must have been out in space for longer than I thought.

“I’ll get him for you.” I went to his room where he was chillin’ with his headphones on. I lifted them off. “Hey, Angie is here and she wants to talk to you.” I said while wiggling my eyebrows. He immediately got up and fixed his hair. I was like whatever and left him. “He’ll be out in a second. But I have to run, but I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Alright, I’ll see you too.” She smiled. I left to go to Randi’s house. I hate having to be in this situation. Part of me wanted to let it go but the other part told me to go to her and help her with what ever she was going though. I stepped up to her door and knocked. No answer. I knocked again. No answer. I knew she was home. Her mom wasn’t home so she had no way of going anywhere, well anywhere far. I knocked one more time. No answer. I couldn’t take the pressure. I needed to know why she got so mad at me, why she was acting weird towards me, and why she threw a plate at me. In the middle of my thoughts I heard my leg ringing. It was my cell phone. I thought it might be Randi.

“Hello?” No one said anything at first but I could hear breathing. This was freaking me out more than anything. “Hello!” I practically shouted at the phone.

“Zac?” A very soft quiet voice came out. “Don’t say anything.” I couldn’t tell if it was Randi or not, but I knew it was a girls voice. “I’m sorry for earlier.” It was Randi. “Listen there is something I want to tell you, I want to tell you really bad. But something inside of me won’t let me. All I ask is that you give me space to let my thoughts flow.” There was a pause. I knew she wanted me to speak then.

“Well are you coming over tomorrow then.” That was the first thing that popped into my head.

“I don’t know Zac, I don’t know. Listen I have to go.” And she hung up. Not even a goodbye or an I love you. What am I supposed to do now? I just sat there. I looked up at the sky. It was turning dark and it looked like rain. As the smell filled my head I started heading home. Right when I got up it poured. I didn’t care, all I could think of was Randi. I slowly made my way to our house and looked inside our window. I saw Tay and Angie laughing together. For some reason I couldn’t picture Randi and me like that. I was letting this get to me way too much. Then I started to think about the old me.

~*FLASHBACK*~

“Zac, Ike and I are going out, sure you wanna stay here?” Tay yelled to me.

“I don’t wanna go okay?” I didn’t feel like partying.

“That’s your choice, but I can’t say what time we’ll be back.” Tay wanted me to come but I just wasn’t like them. So those two went out. Lisa and Jackie were with them. Tay and Jackie had just gotten back together for the 5^th time. I hate her, still. So they left and I was home alone. Jessi and Avery were at their friend’s house to spend the night. Macki and Zoë were at grandmas house. With no kids to worry about Mom and Dad went to a party they were invited. Well I can handle myself and I didn’t mind being alone at all, most of the time.

“What to do now?” I was talking to myself. I decided to play some N64, watched Joe Dirt, and fell asleep on the couch sometime after the movie ended. I woke up to my brothers stumbling through the door and about 2 am.

“Zacy, you missed out!” They were, well how can I put this in a good sense, plastered. I just rolled my eyes at them.

“Actually I was fine here by myself.” I didn’t want to come home like that. Drunk, with a girl that used me, and smelling like crap. When they went into their bedrooms I told myself not to be like that. Don’t fall in love so easily like my brothers. I hadn’t had a girlfriend yet and I didn’t want one that would be like that and let me get all drunk and stupid.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

“Zac!” I was still standing in the pouring rain staring into our window. “Zac!” Tay was yelling from our porch. I turned my head towards him. “What are you doing? Get in here!” I just looked at him, I didn’t move. He could tell something wasn’t right. He walked over to me with his big blue eyes staring right into mine. “Zac, please come inside.” The droplets of water were dripping off the strand of hair hanging in front of his face. I agreed and walked in with him.

“Well I’ll get going. See ya tomorrow.” Angie excused herself and ran home, trying not to get too wet. Tay gave me a towel. I took it and went in my room to change. I came back out and sat down. Tay made me some coco to warm me up. I was trying to think of a way to explain this to him.

“What’ wrong?” Tay asked as he sat down on the couch. I looked up at him. I could start to feel all my emotions surfacing. My eyes were watering. I searched in my mind for the right thing to say.

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