(song: "Capsize" - FRENSHIP)

The three of us stare at the box on the ground.

     No one is moving or doing anything, I think we are all pretty scared of the contents inside. Is it a random note? Maybe Cassie has ties to the drug-cartel?

     I sigh. "Whatever, I'll open it." Greg and Kristen try to protest, but I don't give them enough time to stop me. My hands snatch up the box and pull the lid off.

      Inside the box are a USB drive, a VHS tape and a stack of blank postcards. There are three labels, under the USB drive it says, "Read me". Under the VHS tape it says, "Watch me". Under the postcards it says, "Use me"

     Kristen's whole body shakes. She takes a step back and lifts up her hands. "No. I don't want any part in this. It just got really scary. We should turn this over to the police."

     "Turn what over? We don't even know what's on these yet it," I snap and keep hold of the box, just in-case Greg sides with Kristen.

     "I'm with Toby on this one. The box said not to contact the police," Greg says.

     Amazing! I didn't think he'd side with me.

     Kristen is smart enough not to approach me, but she does try to reason with Greg. "But she's obviously in some kind of trouble. What are we supposed to do to help her? We're just high-school seniors. I'm just a ballerina, Greg you're a football player and Toby you're . . . Toby."

     "Gee, thanks Kristen," I give her one of my award-winning sarcastic smiles.

     "Let's look at the information, and if it's bad we contact the police," Greg compromises.

     I'm the one with the box in my hand, but yet, Greg is making all the decisions for us. A classical Greg move.

     "Okay, fine," Kristen gives in. "So what do we do then?"

     "Find a VHS player," I offer.

     "My dad has one . . ." Kristen quietly mentions.

     "Perfect. Let's all go to Kristen's house!" I announce.

     "No!" Kristen yells out and then looks embarrassed for raising her voice. "You . . . you just can't come over."

     I like big personalities, it is one of the reasons I like Cassie so much. Kristen's careful, nervous personality annoys me. We have just been entrusted with a mission and she is preventing us from completing it.

     I lean all 6-feet-two-inches of my frame towards Kristen tauntingly. "Why not? Scared of your parents meeting me?"

     She glares at me. "You? Yes. Among other things."

     "I'll get the VHS player and bring it over to Greg's, we can watch it there." Kristen casts Greg a hopeful look.

     "No can do, my grandparents are in town and my house is in complete chaos. I have to head back home right now. We shouldn't draw any unwanted attention to ourselves and keep this a secret," Greg advises.

     Greg comes from a rich family and is expected to inherit their business one day. His grandparents being in town always means drama for him.

     He looks between Kristen and myself. "How about you both watch the VHS at Toby's, and tomorrow we meet up to check the information on the USB drives?"

     "Fine by me," I say.

     Kristen remains quiet and nods her head.

     Our trio dwindles down to a duo as Greg waves and insists we meet after-school on Monday. After he is gone I'm carrying Kristen like dead-weight back to her car. Once we reach it, she quickly hops off and digs around in her purse for her keys to unlock her car door.

     "So, I'll see you at my house in an hour?" I ask her.

     She touches her forehead and for a moment I almost think she wants to faint. "Toby, this is all just a lot for me to process. I thought Cassie just ran away for attention, but this? I never expected all of this. What if she's in real trouble? How are we supposed to save her?"

     "We probably can't," I say honestly.

     Kristen doesn't look comforted at all.

     I back-peddle my words. "I mean, we'll figure something out after we see the tape, okay?"

     She pats the hair-bun on-top of her head and tucks a curly strand of hair behind her ear the same way Cassie always did. "Yeah. See you in an hour, Toby."

     Kristen gets in her small blue car and I watch her leave. In one hour I'd have my answers, I would finally know why Cassie left.

1 Year Ago . . .

     Cassie laughed hard and handed me the bowl of popcorn to keep herself from spilling it everywhere. Her laughter continued until her head rested on my arm and her hand against her stomach.

     We were seated on my couch watching a comedy on Netflix. I didn't have the same sense of humor that Cassie had, so the show wasn't funny to me, but god, how I loved to watch her laugh.

     "Toby," she said my name while she wiped a tear of laughter from the corner of her eye. "You know what I like about you?"

     "My amazing sense of fashion?" I asked her. I was wearing fuzzy blue pajama pants and a tee that said bite-me on it.

     Cassie wrinkled her nose like a rabbit and smiled. "Your ability to just not give a crap about anything."

     "True, it is a gift, you can acquire it too, but you just have to work on your deadpan stare." I informed her and even demonstrated the stare for her benefit.

     She laughed a little more and then sucked in her lips to calm herself. "My problem is that I care too much. Not just about everyone, but everything. I care about the future of us, the people we know and our future as a species in general."

     I slumped down against the couch to pretend I was melting. "That's an exhausting amount of caring."

     "It really is. People at school call me a gatekeeper. Everyone trusts me with everything, they tell me all their secrets and sometimes I wonder why. Is there such thing as a person you can really trust to never say anything to anyone?" Cassie slipped her arms around one of mine.

     I loved the feeling of her close to me. Anyone else would mistake her actions for affection deeper than friendship, but if they assumed that then they didn't know Cassie. She grew up moving around from different foster care homes and only had recently been adopted into a family. She longed for human-touch and used me to get that physical contact she craved.

     "You can always tell people no, Cassie," I said.

     She sighed softly and closed her eyes. The two of us felt so in our element together. "Some secrets are too big to ignore or say no to. Some secrets once they're told, there's no escaping them."

     "Like revealing secret herpes after a breakup?" I joked.

     Her eyes looked bothered for a moment and then she released a laugh. Her laugh didn't sound genuine, it was forced.

     "Yeah, Toby. Something like that . . ."

"I'll get the door!" My mother calls out.

     Crap. I really don't want to explain to my mom why Kristen is at the door, but I don't have a choice. My mom opens it and looks confused, then surprised to see Kristen standing there nervously with a bag in hand.

     "Hello Miss Yates, my name is Kristen Chapman, you might remember my mother Jane Chapman? Um, is Toby here?" She asks shyly.

     "Oh Kristen! Yes, of course I remember you. You are so pretty!"

     I push past my mother real quick. "Mom, I got this, okay?"

     She looks at me and then Kristen and finally she smiles that knowing sort of motherly smile. Great, she totally has the wrong idea.

     "Well it's nice seeing you, Kristen, let me know if you two need anything," my mother insists.

     Mom returns to her room again to catch up on her seasons of Grey's Anatomy before her work-shift. I really like that about my mother, she is relaxed and lacking in the psychotic-mom gene.

     "Your mom is nice," Kristen says with surprise.

     I'm only slightly offended. "Why do you say it like that? Are you surprised that such a nice person could spawn such a negative person like me?"

     "Actually, yes." Kristen's honesty really burns.

     I laugh though because I prefer her honesty to her usual mousey behavior.

     "Come on, we'll go to the basement."

     We go down into the basement to my "man-cave". All my game consoles and cover boxes are scattered everywhere. Posters from my favorite movies and game titles of the year cover most of the walls. In the corner, I have a mini-fridge stocked with unhealthy beverage choices. I even have a pinball machine.

     Kristen takes it all in. "Wow, spoiled much?"

     I reach into the fridge and toss to Kristen the only bottle of water I can find. "More like bribed. After my parents divorce my father does his best to buy my love. He's too busy with his new wife and son to actually spend time with his defective son."

     She shakes her head. "You're not defective."

     My lips twitch a devilish smirk. "Says the girl who is shocked that I'm spawned from a nice mom."

     Kristen places down the water and hands me the VHS player, before she releases it she gives me a firm look. "You're just grumpy, not defective."

     The two of us share a briefly awkward moment of her not releasing the VHS player and me not trying to take it from her.

     "You can let go now," I say.

     She gets embarrassed and lets go. I carry the VHS player like it's the holy grail that holds the key to life and the universe itself. I unplug my oldest console and use the composite conversion box to help connect the old VHS to my new  TV set. It's lucky that I am a collector of retro gaming consoles.

     I take the tape out from its sleeve and inside it is a postcard. It says to watch the tape before reading the USB files. I push the tape into the player and that is all there is left to do.

     I step back from it. "Okay," I say.

     "Okay," Kristen nervously parrots.

     My hand gestures to the couch, "Ladies first."

     She sits instantly, it's almost like her legs don't have any strength left in them at all. I sit down beside her and the two of us look at each other one more time. We know there's no going back, we're in this for good now.

     Then I hit play . . .