High School Never Ends

When I arrived home, I threw myself into bed. For the first time in a long while, I fell asleep with happy thoughts: Mike’s words – “I know that feeling of loneliness. You don’t have to feel that anymore.”
Abruptly, I was awoken by my phone at 9am. Reluctantly, I answered the call.
“Hello...?”
“Hey grumpy, it’s Vic.” He chuckled
“Not to be rude, but why the hell are you calling me this early on a Saturday!?”
“You’ve been spending way too much time with Mike.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You use to be sweet and innocent and now you’re shouting profanities at me.” Vic pretended to cry
“I only said hell…” I replied guiltily
“Hmm. Anyway, Mike’s spending the day with the guys so I thought we could meet for coffee?”
“Sure.”
“Okay, well I’ll pick you up in about an hour.”
“Okay, see you.”
“Bye.”
I hung up and rushed to get ready. It was strange how me and Vic had connected so quickly, I felt like I’d known him all my life.
An hour later, Vic was knocking on my door. I rushed to answer it, and hurriedly slammed the door behind me before the inside was revealed. In all honesty, the house was a trashy mess. Usually, I would spend Saturdays cleaning it but I hadn’t had a chance yet. Vic looked confused before returning back to smiling.
After driving through about 10 miles of countryside, Vic pulled up outside a small diner. I shot Vic a confused look.
“What?” He asked
“Why here?”
“Why not?” He smirked and got out of the car.
I scurried after him towards the diner.
“Don’t avoid the question Vic!”
“It’s safer outside of town.”
He pulled me into the diner, ordered two coffees then sat down at a both.
“Do you mean I’m not safe in town? I can’t shop there anymore, can I? What about the record shop? No you can’t do this…” I rushed before Vic cut me off
“Jesus, would you chill out! We’re fine there, it’s just if anybody who was apart of their, let’s say, club we’d be done for.”
“Club?”
“It’s hard to phrase, I don’t know what you’d call it.”
“A gang!?” I exclaimed
Vic hurriedly clasped his hand over my mouth.
“Don’t you know that shouting things like that attracts unwanted attention towards you?”
“A gang?” I repeated, quieter this time
“No, they’re… There isn’t a nice way to say this.”
“Don’t sugar coat it Vic. I came to you for answers, not a fairy-tale.”
“Dealers, they’re dealers.”
“So… A gang of dealers?” I smirked at him
“If that shuts up, yes.”
The coffees arrived and by the time I had retrieved my purse from my bag, Vic had already paid.
“Hey!”
“Pipe down, you’re getting free coffee.”
“But...”
“Shush.” He cut me off. “Right, so they’re a gang of dealers. Basically, if they heard us talking about anything that has ever had anything to do with them, they’ll track us down.”
“But wouldn’t they recognise you, anyway?”
“What? No! Let’s get one thing straight… I’ve never bought, dealt or taken drugs.”
“Oh.”
Silence filled the air between us before I had the courage to speak again.
“How did that guy know my name?”
Vic sighed but didn’t reply.
“Vic, I really need to know. He wanted something from me but I don’t know what?”
“Drugs.”
“We’ve established that this is about drugs but…”
“No, he wanted drugs from you. Paige would supply him.”
“Why didn’t he do it himself?”
“Too dangerous.”
“Then why did you let her do it!?” I was beginning to get angry at this point
“I didn’t! There was no way that I could stop her! Please, Aria, calm down. She was close to the dealer. Too close for my liking…” Vic mumbled the last sentence, probably assuming that I wouldn’t be able to hear him.
“Vic?”
“Yeh?”
“What… What were you to my sister?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well… Friend, stranger… Boyfriend?”
He nodded at last part, I could see the tears brimming in his eyes. Quickly, he wiped his eyes.
“We should go.”
With that he left the diner hurriedly. Slowly, I followed after him.
The car journey home was silent. When, he dropped me off I waved goodbye but he didn’t respond. I should never have asked him.

Notes