The Diary (Sequal To The Pact)

“No dad, take it off. It’s awful. You can’t do that to Allison.” I said as soon as my dad had opened the door. It was the day of Allison’s big hockey game and my dad didn’t just wear the school t-shirt, no he had also painted his entire face in the schools colors. It looked incredibly ridiculous.
“Nonsense Luna, it’s funny.” He said waving my comment away as he let me into the house.
“You will make a fool out of her.” I said, feeling obligated to stand up for my little sister. My dad was a very a stubborn man, though. According to him he was always right.
“Of course not! I bet loads of parents have face paint on.” My dad said as he disappeared into the living room and I followed him. Yeah right, dad.
I looked around the room. It wasn’t the house I grew up in anymore. My dad and little sister had moved a few weeks after my mother died. My dad had told me that everything in that house reminded him of her and I could easily understand that. Also, my little sister became very angry every time anyone tried to sit down at my mom’s seat or touched some of her stuff. She had thrown horrible tantrums that weren’t like Allison at all. That’s when my dad decided it was best for them to go somewhere else and start fresh.
I liked this house better anyway. It was smaller and cozier. It didn’t remind me of all the horrible things that had happened in the last house. The last house had always felt cold and not like a home at all. Too bad I never lived in this one.
“I don’t care what the rest of the parents do, dad. Allison will feel ashamed the entire game. You look like you walked up to a freshly painted wall.” I said as I fell down on the couch.
Before my dad could say anything back, my sister had appeared in the door opening. She was already wearing her light blue t-shirt and white skirt and she had a backpack in her hand with a field hockey stick sticking out of it. I still didn’t really get how I could lack any kind of talent when it came to sport and my sister turned out to be the star of the field hockey team at her school. Even now, when she had only just started her freshman year in high school, she had an amazing position in the school team.
“So, are you excited to play the match?” I asked her.
She just shrugged and fell down on the spot next to me on the couch. “Yeah, kind of.” She said and she scrolled through the WhatsApp messages on her phone.
I rolled my eyes. My little sister was so down to earth, sometimes it looked like she didn’t really care about anything. I knew differently, though.
Then my father re-entered the room. “Allison, you do think the face paint is funny, right?” he asked and he pointed at his face.
Allison chuckled and shook her head. “God no. Take it off, dad.” She said and I chuckled along with her. We might’ve been polar opposites. But we always agreed about stuff like this.
My dad mumbled something with a grumpy face and left the living room.

*

Only an hour later me and my dad were sitting on the bleachers, cheering on my little sister while she was playing. Thank god my sister didn’t go to the same school I went too. After everything that had happened my parents just didn’t want to send my sister there. I knew the school still existed, though. Apparently it was now a lot smaller than it was then. They just didn’t receive a lot of students anymore since a girl got murdered by another student. I had no intention of visiting that god awful place anyway.
My sister moved over the field like she barely touched ground. She moved through everyone with the ball and shot perfect shots. I had a lot of respect for these girls, they were so unbelievably talented.
Okay, they were losing, but that didn’t break the spirit of me and my father. We just cheered the loudest of everyone in the crowd when they almost made a goal or when my sister had the ball. I’m sure I saw my sister shoot us some glares when everyone was quiet and we were screaming like idiots. Well, if we made a fool out of my sister (which we definitely did) at least my dad didn’t wear his face paint doing it. He had taken it off just before we left to this place.
Every time I visited my sisters school for whatever reason, I always noticed how different it was from high school when I was young. One big difference was that the lines between the groups had kind of faded in the last decennium. When I was in high school there were very clear groups: goths, the popular kids, punks, nerds etc. And now people somehow had gotten even. Of course there were still groups and shit, but they were way less exclusive as before. I guess it was a good thing. It got those teenagers a lot more connected with each other.
The second big difference was that everyone walked around with iPhones and other smartphones. Every person I walked passed was talking about twitter, Instagram, Snapchat or Tumblr. This might sound like I’m some stupid old person (which I probably am), but when I was young I had to go to people’s house if I wanted to show them something or talk to them.
At moments like that I realized the age difference me and my sister had. We were from entirely different generations.
In the second half of the game, my sister shot the ball to a girl from her team and she made a goal. The only one they would make, they lost with five against one. Luckily Allison wasn’t the type of girl that easily got upset about these kind of things. She just moved on very quickly. She was an incredibly realistic person and knew perfectly well that this was just a game.
Me and my dad waited in front of the door of the dressing room, until Allison eventually came out. Her hair was stuck to her face from sweat and she had her bag already lifted over her shoulder.
When we were walking over the field, heading for the car, we heard two girls calling Allison’s name. We all three turned around and saw that two of my sister’s best friends were waving at her. They had been friends with her since middle school and they knew everything about each other. They had been a steady part of Allison’s life for years now.
“Hey All! We’re going to hang out at my place in a bit. Wanna come?” One of them shouted.
Allison turned her head towards my dad. “Can I go?” she asked, smiling at the end of her question.
“I don’t mind, but you were going to go home with your sister today, so you should probably ask her.” My dad said.
My sister turned her head towards me, the question she had just asked my dad still burning on her face.
I chuckled and looked over to Allison’s two best friends. I was surprised to see that they were joined by two guys now. They wore outfits rappers would wear in their music videos and their hair was pulled back with a lot of wax. But I wasn’t the person to judge by appearance, no the thing that got to me were the looks on their faces. It gave me shivers all over my spine. It reminded me of those annoying pushy boys in clubs. They reminded me of Ryan and Peter.
“I don’t know, All. I rather have you just come with me.” I said softly, afraid to let her down.
The smile faded of my sister’s face and she looked at me with confusion. “Why are you acting like this? I’m fourteen years old. I just wanna go to my friends. It’s not like we are going to smoke weed in a dark alley.” She said a bit annoyed.
I just didn’t trust them. It felt wrong. “Just be careful, okay?” I said and my sister laughed at me.
“Yeah, I’ll be careful, Luna. I’m not eight anymore.” She said. She ran off to her friends and the guys that reminded me of the people that still haunted my dreams at night.
I had a nervous feeling in my gut that wouldn’t go away. The rest of the day the thought that something would go incredibly wrong, wouldn’t leave my head. The fact that I was meeting up with Vic later today, didn’t help.

*

“We need a new quiet place.” Vic said out of the blue, while staring out of the window.
I raised an eyebrow at him, the sheet music still in my hands. This had been the second time we had met up together to work on the music of the album. I had kind of dreaded it, but like always Vic and his calm personality made things less difficult. Or even more difficult, I couldn’t decide.
Well, at least this whole thing kind of got my thoughts of Allison and those guys. It had been five hours, but the nervous feeling still hadn’t left my gut.
“What?” I asked a bit absent. My head was still on concentrate mode and had to process what he was saying.
Vic changed position in his chair and put down the acoustic guitar. “When we were young, we had a place we could go to if real life and homework became too much for us. We had the bus. We need a new place like that in Los Angeles.” He said and he shrugged like what he had said wasn’t totally crazy. “To escape this work.”
I scoffed and rolled my eyes, picking up my pen again. “We were sixteen, Vic. We can’t just sit in a random abandoned bus or house or whatever. We’re adults.” I said and I added a note to the song in front of me.
“Weird, I thought you’d be the kind of person that didn’t give a fuck about what other people thought.” Vic said challenging. “I thought you said that you were still mentally twelve years old.”
I couldn’t contain a chuckle. I looked out of the window and saw that the sun was setting, leaving the sky with a bright pink color. A typically, but still unbelievably stunning example of a California sunset.
Why the fuck not, actually? I used to be the kind of person that liked doing spontaneous things like this. It had just kind of faded over the years. And Vic was right, I didn’t give a single fuck about what people thought of me. I did what I wanted to do and I still had that motto.
I sighed and put my pen down. “So Vic, what quiet place were you thinking of?” I said poking with my index finger in his chest and shooting him a sassy look.
He chuckled at my failed attempt of looking cool. “Well, I was actually early this afternoon, so I decided to make a walk through the park across from your building. I think I know just the place.” He said and he stood up. He looked expectantly at me, like he expected me to stand up.
I just blinked my eyes at him. “You’re not going to tell me what it is?” I asked.
“It’s a surprise.” He said and put out his hand for me to take.
My heart started racing, but I couldn’t go back anymore. I let my hand fall in his, but I couldn’t help shaking a bit in the process. We had held hands back when were just friends, so it shouldn’t be such a big deal to me. But we all know it was.
He dragged me up and we left my apartment hand in hand. In fact, he held my hand all the way to the park. Deep inside it made me feel calm and happy, but I couldn’t help but feel nervous and uncomfortable. It didn’t really make sense, I guess.
We entered the park by walking underneath the stone arch. I had never really walked in this place before, which was a bit odd given that I had lived here for at least ten years.
It was an entire different ambiance as outside the park. In between the large green trees and on the light green grass existed a serene atmosphere. It was almost like the park was and entire different world. A world you could which you could escape the busy city life with. A world with small purple flowers, people picnicking on the grass and the children playing tag.
“Why didn’t I ever go here?” I asked myself out loud and I heard Vic grin from beside me. He just pulled me further into the park. It was a lot bigger than you could’ve imagined in the middle of the city.
He led me to a part of the park that was more quiet than the rest. The only sounds that were being heard were of the small birds sitting in the trees and the footsteps of a few people walking passed. There were also a lot more trees here.
Vic finally let go of my hand at a certain point and he walked over to a random tree. He went to stand in front of it and gestured to the tree. “Tadaa!” he said.
I chuckled. It reminded me of the day I had showed him the bus. “Well, it is a tree.” I said laughing. I didn’t have the slightest clue of where he was going with this yet.
Vic dropped his hands like he was offended. “It’s not just a tree.” He said in a fake angry voice.
I laughed at his face. “Of course not, Vic.” I said and I shook my head.
His angry face faded in a calm smile, his eyes twinkling. “You have to look up.” He said and he pointed to the branches of the tree.
I followed his finger with my eyes and my vision rested on a small treehouse in between the trees. It was at about eight feet high and from the looks of it, it looked out over a large part of the park. It was not much, just a few planks forming a floor, ceiling and three walls. At the place where the fourth wall should be, was nothing.
I looked at in awe. He had really outdone himself this time. “Wow, it’s amazing.” I said, still looking up to the tree house.
Vic grinned. “I already thought you’d like it.” He said and he turned around towards the tree. My mouth fell open as he climbed the tree with ease, easily pulling himself up from the branches. Okay, that was definitely a new skill.
He pulled himself up through the hole in the floor of the house and looked down through it. I walked over to the tree and looked up at him through the hole. “Uhm Vic. We might have a problem here. I’m still as good at anything to do with sports as…well as I was my whole life.” I said.
Vic chuckled and shot me an encouraging smile. “Don’t worry. I’ll guide you through it.” He said. And so he did. Vic told me where to put my hands and feet and even though he told me what to do, I still managed to slip away and fall a couple of times. It took a while, but eventually I reached the floor of the tree house. Vic took both of my sweaty, scratched and dirty hands and pulled me through the hole.
The house moved a little as I fell down on my stomach. I laid there for a couple of seconds, just pulling myself together and catching my breath. But eventually I got up and looked around the place. It felt a bit unstable, but it was strong enough to hold us. A lot of words were carved in the rotten wood. Things like ‘Demi <3 Max’ or ‘Ruby is stupid’. Cute things that kids would write down.
Vic moved over the edge of the floor and threw his legs over it. I scooped over to the place next to him and did the same. The view from this place was even more amazing than I had expected. You could not only look over parts of the park, but the entire thing and in the distance I could see my own apartment building.
To our right, the sun was disappearing behind the skyscrapers in the distance. It made for a black skyline, with a pink and orange back ground. I hadn’t seen something this beautiful in a long time.
“Wow, this is even better than I had expected.” Vic said, saying exactly what I was thinking.
“Yeah, it’s almost worth the horrible climb.” I said, teasing him.
He shot me a glare and pushed softly against my arm. “You’re horrible. I really tried, okay?” he said, there was a hint of seriousness in his voice.
I smiled at him. “I know, I was kidding. It’s really beautiful. I might even like it more than the bus.” I said.
His eyes met mine and a similar smile grew on his face, turning my insides into putty. “That’s impossible. I will always love the bus more. Just because of the memories in that place. I can’t listen to ‘kryptonite’ without thinking of that place.” He said grinning.
“I guess, we’ll just have to make new memories.” I said, staring at the sun slowly going down.
Vic shifted beside me. “To a new friendship.” He said.
“To an old one brought back to life.” I responded.

Notes

Heyyy,

This will be the last chapter for at least three weeks. I promise I will make an athors note soon with the exact date this story will return.

Okay so just bear with me. I know this is just a filler, but I promise things will go down in the next chapters. I just needed to build up a little tension.

I'm actually sorry that you guys have to wait for that three weeks. but I will work on chapters on holdiday, so you will have a lot of chapters when I get back. I will update very often when i get back.

xxxxxx

Nicky