Caeleste High, Kennedy Harkins, Erin Baker [books to read in your 20s .TXT] 📗

Chapter One: Hello, Good-bye

My mother’s 2011 Volt glided gracefully across the long curves and bumps that was the highway leading out of New York. My head was to smushed lazily against the cold window. I was deeply upset about leaving my home town, but what can you do? My dad had been offered a top notch job in the Mid-West. Now I was being relocated to East-Jesus-No-Where Iowa.

I wanted to be furious, I wanted to scream at my mother and demand she turn this car around immediately, but already I could feel the effects of the sleeping pill I took before setting off. I decided to give her the silent treatment, so I did my best not to snore.
In my dreams I was flying over my precious city, looking down at all the things I loved; like the coffee shop over on 5th, the huge library just across the street, and everything in between.
I couldn’t think of anything more peaceful than staying here forev-
“Hey, Stupid. Get up we’re at McDonald’s,” My older brother, Caine, yelled in my ear.

“Mmmmm?” I mumbled intelligently.

I heard Caine grumble something that sounded like ‘Lazy whore’. I couldn’t help the smile that crossed my face, I was sure my brother was very

hungry and I was also sure that Mom wouldn’t start without me.

The next thing I knew something hard had me by the elbow and was thoroughly dragging me from the car. My eyes flew and the air was knocked out of me when he swept me up into a ‘fire man’s’ carry.

“Caine! You big lug, put me down this instant!” I shouted angrily.

“Hun

gry

, ”He made the two syllables into two different words.

I sighed and allowed myself to be carried, mostly because the pills hadn’t completely worn off. Plus there was no point in arguing with living breathing Testosterone.

He pushed through the front door of the restaurant. Using my feet as his occupied arms. When we finally made it through the door my nose was assaulted with the grease filled scent of a fast food joint.

“Alright, you can put me down now. I’m inside.” I scolded, wriggling in Caine’s arms. I was then dropped on my butt, wiping down the floor of the place with my embarrassment. I got to my feet, my face burning from all twelve pairs of eyes on me, I made my way to the table Mom had chosen. I was just glad that it was at the back of the restaurant.

Sliding quickly into the seat next to Caine, I gave him a swift kick in the shin. My mood brightened slightly when he winced in pain.

I stared blankly down at the tan colored table, this had to go into my top five worst colors ever.

“Give it a rest,” he groaned, “we’re not going home. You’ll just make Mom feel worse.”

My jaw practically hit the floor, I mean it’s not like my brother didn’t have his moments but they were so few and far between you forgot what they looked like. What was most shocking to me is that Caine had been thoughtful were I had been childish, I’m usually pretty mature for my fifteen years. Were Caine with his seventeen could have been four for all he acted.

My eyes gazed over towards Mom, she looked like she always did with her respectable, (but not too flashy) designer clothes. Mom had grown up poor, but despite that she fit well with Dad’s wealthy crowd. She had poise, manners, and knew a thing or two about fashion, it was only times like these when you found her eating at McDonald’s that you could guess anything was different about her.

Examining her closer I could see the dark bags under her eyes and I tired look she gave the cashier who hadn’t heard our order correctly.

I snapped my gaze back to Caine, thinking I should take this rare opportunity to talk to him.

“Are you going to miss New York?”

At first he seemed surprised that I had actually just tried to start a conversation with him, we didn’t talk much anymore, not like when we were little.

“That depends on how many hot girls this new town has,” he said with all seriousness.

I rolled my eyes, “Don’t you only need one

hot girl?”

“One girl! That’s crazy talk.”

“Man whore,” I muttered.

He looked a little shocked that I called him on it but he soon regained his facade, “Ah, Cassie, poor young immature Cassie.”

I scowled. “Me? The immature one? Look in the mirror hypocrite!”

Just then the chair across the table scooted out and our mother sat down food in front of us. Thoroughly appeasing the animals.

“Children,” she scoffed, “can’t we all just get along?”

We both nodded vigorously, our mouths stuffed to the brim with greasy food. I hadn’t realized til that exact moment how hungry I really was. I glanced over at Caine who was inhaling a Big Mac, he was like a bottomless pit.

In a matter of seconds, at least it seemed like that, we had eaten everything. In the back of my mind I noticed that Mom hadn’t eaten anything. I decided to store that for later reflection.

When we had finished, we were about to get up to throw away the trash, when I realized Mom was just siting there. I had to say her name a few times before she finally glanced up at me.

“Hey, are you ready to go? We can wait if your not finished.” I said, trying to analyze the expression on her face. I heard Caine let out a groan. I knew that he was standing behind me so I jerked my elbow back, happy to feel it connect with his stomach. He shut up after that.

“Oh, no. I’m fine, ready to go. Are you ready? I’m fine.” Mom started to mumble to no one in particular. I took her uneaten food and threw it away. Caine grabbed the keys and headed out to the car.

“Yeah, we’ll just meet you out there.” I called out, knowing he couldn’t hear me. I walked over to mom, who was gazing off into space. I tapped her on the shoulder, she about jumped out of her skin. Getting up out of her seat, she searched the table for the keys. Her eyes met mine, panic filled, I told her that Caine had the keys. She seemed to have to think when I said his name, almost as if she didn’t remember who he was. It freaked me out.

Heading for the door, I had to jog to keep pace with her. We got to the car, Caine was in the drivers seat. I was planning to sit in the back, but Mom beat me to it. I was stuck up front with Caine. Once we were all buckled up and ready to go, he revved the gas, almost literally scaring the shit out of me. I was fine with mom driving, but Caine, he craved speed. He is what most people would call a thrill seeker, I just called him stupid.

Before I knew it, we were on the freeway, going at least 20 miles over the speed limit. I was grasping the hand holds so tightly, my knuckles were white. I glanced back at mom, expecting her to be just as nervous as I was. She was fine, or appeared to be. Her eyes were slightly glassy as she just gazed out the window into nothingness. My eyebrows scrunched together in worry. The car swerved dangerously to the left. I glanced over to Caine.

“What? The idiot was going to slow, I passed him. Ha! You’re as white as a ghost! You’re fine, we’re still alive right? Right, so stop looking at me like that.”

That was just like my brother, always looking on the bright side of things, while he sounded like a blubbering idiot.

I was just starting to relax when the loudest horn sounded. I flipped around in my seat, facing my mom. She had found Caine’s air horn. I felt like I was babysitting a two-year old. I was starting to worry about mom. I took the air horn and replaced it with the ring I bought a few years back.

Turing back to Caine, I asked, “Hey, Mom is really worrying me. Can we stop by a hospital? Just to make sure that everything is in working order?”

He glanced in the rear-view mirror, and nodded. We drove for about another half hour until we exited. Pulling up into the Urgent Care wing of the hospital, Caine parked the car in the front row. I got out of the car. Opening the back door, I helped my mother out. As we walked through the doors, Mom started to fight me. Clawing at my hand where it rested on my arm. I knew that she didn’t like hospitals.

As we reached the front desk, the nurse glanced up and had us come around to the other side. A look of surprise crossed her face as she checked Mom’s blood pressure.

She looked at Caine, “Does your mother have any history of high blood pressure, or any stress-related illness?”

I made eye contact with him, it made me slightly angry that he was at a loss for words. “No, she has been healthy for as long as we can remember.”

A quizzical look passed over the nurse’s face. She asked more questions that Caine and I did our best to describe as fully and honestly as we could.

“Well,” she sighed as she stood up, “we can run some blood tests, but the system is backed up. It could take a couple of days, didn’t you kids say you were traveling?”

I nodded, “Is there anyway you could call us or mail the results to our local hospital?”

She bit her lip, “I suppose, what are you kids in such a hurry for?”

I shared a knowing look with Caine, “Our father will worry if we’re not home on time.”

It wasn’t a direct lie, I just don’t know if worry would be the word I would have chose to describe Dad’s mood.

After a long hour of signing forms: explaining that we were leaving against hospital regulations and all that crap, we were finally back on the road.

Caine went just as fast, if not faster, only this time I