Chapter Four

After me and my mom commiserate together, I walk past Andrews room, he's not in it. That's the first time he's ever been out.
"Mom?" I say across the hallway.
"Yes sweetie?"
"Why isn't Andrew in his room?" I ask.
"He went out with friends." She responds. Her thick raspy voice trails into the hallway leading to my ears, it was like a bomb exploded into my ear, a bomb of questions. Andrew has no friends.
"At 1:30 am, Mom?" I say.
"He's old enough to do what he wants Bailey, get to sleep."
In my mind I make up two options, search his room or fall asleep, the second choice seems so much better but I'm impatient. I tiptoe quietly into his room, and shut his door. Looking around, the first thing I notice is his computer. I just need a way to log in. Andrew wasn't the smartest, so I'm gonna guess his password wouldn't be that difficult to un-solve. The bulky computer was sitting on top a peeling dark wood desk. The only think keeping it from not falling apart is the gorilla glue he used to reattach the leg to the top piece of the desk and the only drawer was centered between the two legs on the top, a thin long wooden piece stretches to both ends unevenly. As I try to open the drawer, it won't open, it's stuck by something. The thin opening of the drawer reveals the spine of a blue book, that's what's keeping it from opening. I press hard against the rough edge until the drawer finally snaps, it falls down onto the vent which makes a loud echoing sound.
"Shit!" I whisper. I roll my eyes, whatever, if anything were to happen that would make this fall apart is the lazy glued together pieces; he could've at least screwed some together. I start to go through the piles of wrinkled papers and note books, somehow I forget the blue notebook was sitting in front of me this whole time.
The shiny like gold stitches stare at me as if it's disappointed I'm going through my old brothers room. A lighter, ah great. I put it in my back jean pocket as if it's gonna stop him from smoking. Going through more and more junk, at the very bottom of the drawer is a random key. He literally goes nowhere so why the hell would he need a key, a key to what? I ask myself. Maybe some of these papers hold the password I need to get into his computer. All of it's mostly old school papers and assignments. I start to give up as I see a tiny torn out piece of paper from a ruled line page, it's wrinkly and you can see from the fluorescent yellow light from his lamp that the blue and red lines are dissolving. This must be old. The password reads,
JFK5-2308-1973.
"1973..." I repeat back to myself. That's the year he was born, but was he really that dense to use that as his password. I get up and quickly tap the words on the key bored, filling in the empty white bar across his screen that reads, "Please type in password." I put down all the letters, but it turns read and tells me to retype the password. The more impatient I grow, the more I wanna smash this computer onto the floor. I type in, "1973." It loads and opens up to his home page of his computer. Finally. I look around but there's nothing that interesting on his computer anyways, does he even use it? At the bottom left hand corner of the screen is an app that reads, "MUD" I've only heard little things about this server, that it's a chat room to play games on, I'm pretty sure it was used for more than that. I click the app and it opens up to a neon green and blue screen with bubbled words in the middle that tells me to click to chat and game.
I click on chats in the far right corner of the screen. He has 34 unopened chats, weird. What I see is unbelievable. One thousand or more people have been chatting with him, with the location by their username. Their location isn't that far away from Vanilla Vally. Or HighHill Road, where we live, literally at the beginning start of town, close enough to still go to Vanilla High. A lot of the people on this side usually go to HighHill High School, accept for us. Our town is small, but not that small. I click on persons profile, it has their age, name, and where they live. They don't live that far from us, but they go to HighHill High School.
I click back on his chats. Most of the messages are requests to game, but one sticks out to me the most. The user with, "BestSh!TinTown" has been messaging him for over 3 months now, I click on their chats, and all of it are locations to meet up so he can get his buzz on. And his High.

"I don't have any money at the moment, any other way I can pay" you?

"Hmm, what's your type"

"Type? As in preferences to male and female?"

"Yes."

"Uh- I guess both, why?

"Meet me at Vanilla Vally River, you'll get your stuff there."

"Alright, when?"

"Whenever your alone and no one is watching you."

Oh my god.
I think to myself reading these messages, and I scroll all the way to the bottom, and there's 50 more of these almost exact same conversations. He's been hooking up to get his drugs. That's probably where he is right now. Unbelievable. I'm too caught up in the moment I don't realize my brother standing at the doorway watching me.
"Having fun?" He asks. I quickly turn my head up to see him, his arm stretched to reach the side of the door. I gulp.
"How'd you even get into my comforter without my password?" He chuckled and looks down as he walks closer to me. Picking up his stuff. I'm too shocked to even say anything right now.
"You didn't read any of these right?" He asks while picking up his red and blue notebooks. I shake my head no. He looks up from his books and shoves me out of the way.
"What the hell, Bailey?"
"I'm sorry, I'm just-" I cut myself off, figuring out what to say next.
"Why didn't you tell me?" I finish, biting my tongue.
"Why would I?" He responds. His eyes bloodshot and his dark messy hair in his face.
"I wouldn't care." I shrug. I don't agree with him smoking and the things he's doing to get his stuff, but of course I don't have a problem with his sexuality.
"And by the way, he's not just a hookup to me, he's my boyfriend." He says. As he shuts off his computer. I smile.
"Congratulations." I say genuinely. He thanks me. Before I leave his room, the image of his key at the bottom of his drawer drops into my mind.
"Before I go, what's they key that you have underneath all your things." I ask by the doorway.
"It's my locker key from 8th grade, you can throw it away if you what." He chuckles.
"Oh." I respond, that's a very real answer to a stupid question again, I was overthinking.
"Goodnight, Andrew." I say and shut his door. I hear him mumble goodnight as well as I'm pretty sure he passes out on his bed, wanting to sleep forever. From that night, I felt as if me and my brother has exchanged the most words to each other in the last six months. I smile. Before I know it, my head slams onto my purple pillows and I'm fast asleep.

Next Morning.

My alarm clock screams in my ear as I jolt from my slumber. I check the clock, 8:30 am. I rub my eyes and I realize I'm wearing the exact same thing I wore yesterday. I sigh.
"I need to get myself together." I mumble. I've been so focused on something that has no end, that has me walking in a maze, to which I'll never find the ending too. So why not just stop. I slip on a skin tight black tang top, with baggy blue jeans. And over the tang top an oversized zipper hoodie, I brush my hair, which fluffs it again. To finish my look I add my drugstore bought mascara and blush. I smile in my mirror. Still remembering how I'm still my old self... kinda.
Walking down the stairs I hear chattering from my mother and Andrew. Them in the same room, communicating, I haven't seen that since a full moon.
"Hey guys." I say wiping my hand across my eyes.
"Okay Bailey. Me and your brother talked, no more secrets. He told me everything." My mom says, I look up at her with wide eyes. What is happening. It's like yesterday the world was falling apart, and now everything is "perfect" again.
"What?" I say confused. She nods her head,
"Yes. I am fully supportive of your brother, I am going to help him with his drug issues, and we are looking at houses in Vanilla Vally again."
"What?" I ask, that makes my heart grow two inches, and my smile grow 2 inches.
"Yes." She says as she shows me papers of different houses. All these houses look nice and standard houses. Definitely bigger than this house, and a lot nicer.
"We are all gonna try to get our act together, which means going to church again on Sundays, I'm gonna try to get my old job back, and Andrew is looking for some colleges. You are ungrounded. And I am going to start to get my life back together. Yes what happened a year ago is devastating, but as my husband and your father, he would what us to move on." Mom says with a big, enthusiastic smile. I raise my eyebrow.
"I mean- I think that's great mom, but why the quick change?" I ask.
"Well, the worst feeling, is feeling unproductive and just horrible. And I wanna fix things, things have changed drastically since the absence of your father. We have all broken bridges with each other and it's time, before the new year to get back into how things were, or almost how things were." I agree with what she's saying. But I have no idea how she has the money for all this, to pay my fines, and buy a new a house. I don't get it, but I trust her and I'm just grateful to be in a position where I don't feel like the only person who's shredding water.
She slams her hand on the table and with pride, a smile grows across her face. It makes me and Andrew smile, we have all been waiting for this to happen.
"Bailey, school starts up in less than two weeks, I expect you to remember your material for school?"
"Yes, mom. I do." I say. She nods her head pleasantly.
"Andrew, me and you will be looking for colleges, and I will be getting a real estate agent to help me sell the house and buy one. You will also be happening me with that, it will be good for experience," Mom says, focusing her attention on Andrew.
"Okay... well I was thinking about spending the day with Ian?" I ask cringing. She turns her head to me.
"Of course, sweetie. Tell him the good news she says." I smile.
"Thank you, mom. I love you." I tell her. I give her a kiss on her temple and run upstairs.
"I love you too." She responds back. Those four words shot me in the heart. That's the first time in a long time I have heard her tell me that. Wow. I think to myself. Maybe somehow I manifested what I've been wanting for a long time. I laugh and run up to my room. I dial in Ian's number and it rings for a second and I hear his voice over the phone.
"Bailey!" He says, I can tell he's smiling hard through the thrill of his voice.
"Yes?" I respond back.
"I thought I wouldn't be hearing from you in a while." His voice glitches through the phone.
"Well, my moms went through a comprehension of what family is, and trying to get her life back together. She said it was okay if we would to hangout today." I say, smiling.
"Of course, I'll pick you up in around 10 minutes?" He asks.
"Yes." I respond, blushing, I haven't felt this happy since last year. When me and Ian went to the drive in. I look at myself in the mirror. Maybe the missing puzzle pieces were found.
But something comes into my mind, an alertness of some type. Something tells me this isn't over. I look down at my hand, and clutched in between my fingers and palm, lays the key to Andrews secrets.
Or maybe it is
just a locker key.