I woke up with a weird feeling in my stomach. Rose was still sleeping beside me. I didn’t remember when we had gotten upstairs last night, the memory was still blurry. I could remember talking with the guys about Holly and then playing beer pong, but after? Nothing. I didn't know what really happened, but I really hoped that I hadn't passed out. That would be totally embarrassing.
I closed the door to my room, careful to not wake up my friend and got to the bathroom. The minute I was facing the mirror though, I wish I hadn’t come here. I looked like some monster. My hair was all messed up and I had massive bags under my eyes. Did I just left my room and walked all the way to the bathroom in this condition? Ah, hell. I crossed my fingers that nobody had seen me and looked down to actually see my fingers entwined. I laughed at myself, seeing how this movement seemed childish. I remembered that this movement was symbolizing two things. We did it when we were making a wish and when we were lying. I was wishing that nobody had saw me, and maybe that meant that someone did and I was lying to myself… I shook my head and cleared my thoughts. You have to stop analyzing everything you do if you don’t want to turn insane, I told myself.
I brushed my hair and my teeth rapidly, and left to go back to my room. Rose was still sleeping silently in my bed. I pushed the covers to get underneath them, it was all hot and cozy inside and I closed my eyes in comfort. It wouldn’t be the end of the world to get back to sleep right? The house was still silent and pleasantly dark, even at 10 am. I opened my eyes to take one last glance at Rose, making sure she didn’t wake up while I was trying to get beside her. She was breathing evenly and her face was serene, so I closed my eyes again and in less than a second, I was gone.
****
Rose was pushing me off the bed and whining in my ear. When my feet hit the cold floor of my room, my eyes opened.
“What the hell?” I said to my friend. She was still in my bed, pushing the covers over her head and moaning. Her eyes were opened, I realized as I got a glimpse of her between the blankets. And then I heard it. Voices. No, screaming.
“I’m trying to sleep here!” Rose’s voice was hysterical and she was still trying to cover her ears with a huge bunch of my blankets.
“Do something, make it stop!” She screamed at me, coming from under the bunch. I smiled at her, apologizing, and got out of the room. Out here, I could hear the voices clearly.
“What are you doing?” A voice screamed from the basement.
“Don’t do that, you’re gonna kill him!” Another one said. It took me a moment to realize that it was the guys speaking, and they were terrified. I got down the stairs and with each step, got closer to the screaming.
“Get out of my house, right now,” my brother’s calm voice broke away from all the panicked ones.
“What’s happening here?” I asked, finally arriving at the door to the basement. There, I could see my brother and Liam looking with disgust at Aiden. Devin was beside him, his left hand holding the collar of Aiden’s shirt gathered and a small bag with white powder in his right hand. Aiden had a bleeding lip and was looking dazed.
“What is this? Can you please tell me, ‘cause I’m not in a very good mood right now and you playing the innocent one isn’t working,” Devin said, his voice low and menacing.
“I told you, it’s nothing. Nothing you have to worry about,” Aiden said. His left eye was already starting to swell up. He tried to take the little bag from Devin’s hand but he crushed it in his fist and moved it away from Aiden.
“Are you fucking kidding me? Do you think we’re stupid? That’s coke. And tell me if I’m wrong, but I clearly remember that you told us that you had stopped all this nonsense...” Ben exploded and started toward Aiden who took a few steps back. He didn’t say anything and just continued to look at my brother, dumbfounded. Seeing that he wasn’t going to say anything, Ben took another step forward.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought. You better get out right now; I don’t like druggies, and even worst, I don’t like liars,” my brother said, his voice harsh and emotionless. He slowly pointed to the door at the top of the stairs, where I was.
“C’mon, man. Having fun, letting go, tell me you’ve never did that. Tell me, ‘cause I know you, Ben. Liam, Noah, Devin... You guys used to be fun, but now you are just a bunch of pussies,” Aiden said, straightening his spine to look a little bit taller.
I knew that my brother wouldn’t be happy, but it caught me off guard when he threw himself at Aiden. They tumbled around, hitting each other, and I could see from my vantage point that the guys were just standing there, an expression on their faces saying that they didn’t know what to do. I was the first one to move, my feet flew on the stairs and I was in front of my brother in a few seconds. I threw my arms around him and tried to make him stop fighting. Seeing me, Liam blinked hard and got over to where we were. He took Ben’s arms in his hands, restraining him. Noah was doing the same to Aiden by then.
“Get out,” the words left my brothers mouth between two breaths. Even thought they weren’t loud, they were powerful, and when Noah let go of Aiden’s arms, he flew upstairs, taking his little baggy of white powder with him.
When he was gone, nobody even acknowledge my presence. They all looked at each other, wondering what had just happened. They were all still in pajama bottoms, and Noah’s hair was sticking up, like he had just woken up.
I cleared my throat loudly to get their attention. They turned around all at once, surprised. They looked at me with a confused expression on their faces except for Liam, whose face was like a blank page, no words to hint to what would be happening in the next chapter.
“Can I have an explanation?” I asked. My voice was little and high pitched, rising to hysteria. I was lost and didn’t know what had happened right before my eyes. Aiden had betrayed his friends by sniffing coke? I waited for an answer but none came. A sigh escaped my lips, in my head I was debating if I should stay and demand an answer, or just let it go. After all, it wasn’t my problem, not my fight, and most important of all, he wasn’t my friend. When I finally decided it wasn't worth waiting and they would deal with it themselves, Liam cleared his throat, making me stop dead in my tracks.
“We found him passed out in his room once. He was almost dead, we had to go to the hospital,” Liam said, his voice so low, I had to take a step toward him to listen closely.
Yes I remembered that, but at the time, they had told me Aiden had been sick because he accidentally ate a pistachio, which he was mortally allergic to.
“Ben made him swear he would stop doing coke. And Devin found him sniffing some this morning, in the bathroom,” he continued.
“I thought he would’ve had his lesson by then, with all this close to dying shit. And the worst is that I asked him about it a while ago, and he promised me he wasn't. No man, I’m way pass this shit,” Ben said, changing his voice to match Aiden’s perfectly.
“Yeah, well it’s not your fault, you tried to help him, and he threw it away,” Noah said, coming behind Ben and grabbing his shoulder in a friendly embrace. Ben looked away, trying to hide the emotions that were clearly disposed on his face. I could easily see the sadness in his eyes, and the angry colors spreading on his cheeks. I knew my brother. I took a step toward him, wrapping my arms all around his torso. His reaction was a little bit off, and it was an awkward hug, but somehow, it felt right. All around us, it was silent, and I could hear the beating of his heart, loud in my ear.
After a few seconds, I let go, leaving him and his friends in the basement and go upstairs to check on Rose. Only when I got to my room, she wasn’t there anymore. Without even noticing, my feet picked up the beat, almost running on the stairs.
“Rose?” I screamed, probably loud enough for my neighbors to hear.
“Yes,” I heard my friend say. Following the sound of her voice, I ended up in the kitchen. She was sitting at the table eating a peanut butter toast.
“Why are you running and screaming around? I thought you had found a dead body up there,” Rose said.
“I was searching for you. You gave me a heart attack,” I said, opting to stop here so I could take back my breath.
“You always say that I shouldn’t feel shy when I’m here and I can serve myself, but when I do, you turn all weird on me and you freak out... You make no sense, girl,” my friend answered, smiling up at me. “So, what happened down there? They woke me up and there’s gotta be a good reason when you wake up Rosalie Belden,” she continued.
“They kicked Aiden out... Apparently he was sniffing even after he told them he had stopped.”
“What? Okay, tell me everything,” Rose said, always ready for the drama. She pulled out a chair beside her for me.
