Andy

There is no clouds left in the sky at dawn. Everything is still left with a shimmering sheen of moisture, and there’s still a lot of puddles and distruction to be seen.

I got a text from CC first thing this morning, asking if we wanted to go into the woods again now that things are drying out to investigate. I really want to, but the clones have put me in fear of entering the forest, even Andy refuses to enter the treeline now.

He paces the trees sometimes, staring into the darkness, glaring down something I cannot see, and when he comes back, he says it’s nothing, but his eyes are shaken and he is restless.

The forest is dangerous.

I text him back, offering a change of plans instead, considering getting coffee, then hanging out at the park like a bunch of children. To my delight, he immediately texted back an agreement, saying he’d extend the invitation to Jinxx and Jake, too.

Preparation for school went as normal. I put on a tye dye black and white tank top with worn out blue jeans, did my makeup, tried forcing my greasy hair into a manageable hairstyle, before darting down the stairs for breakfast. I’ve already made mental plans to take a shower after gym, just to enjoy the luxury of being clean for the first time in a few days.

In place of my parents in the kitchen, was a note explaining that they’d gone grocery shopping, and that I was on my own for breakfast. Simple enough, until I started poking around the cupboards for something to eat, and not finding much suitable breakfast items.

“Andy! Ashley!” I wailed into the empty house, slinging my backpack over my shoulder, “I’m going on an adventure, tag along if you want.”

I have one thing in mind, and that is, the amazing cinnamon rolls the cafe on Main Street has, and I figure, I have an hour before the first bell, and some spare cash, and I’m in the mood for a nice walk, it’s perfect.

Before I even finish putting on my shoes, Andy appears, and jabs Ashley in the ribs with a sharp peel of laughter.

“Where are you going?”

“To get food,” I reply with a shrug, tugging my shoelaces into a firm knot, and standing up. “you’re both welcome to tag along if you’d like.”

I get my backpack, and doublecheck everything before letting myself out and locking the door behind me after the duo followed me out, waiting patiently at the end of the driveway... Well, Andy did. Ashley tapped the toe of his boot against the concrete, looking mildly aggitated.

“What’s wrong?”

He shakes his head, keeping his eyes focused on the concrete beneath his feet, “Nothing.” He shrugs, before sighing loudly. “You know what? I think I’m going to sit this one out.”

“Why?” I call to him as he retreats back up the driveway, hands buried in his jacket pockets and his face unreadable.

He simply shrugs, and disappears. I turn to look at Andy, and he’s looking up the driveway at something I cannot see, and he nods once. Just barely, but enough for me to notice.

“What is it?”

“Nothing important.” he calmly dismisses my question, placing his palm against my back, urging me forward away from the house, onto the sidewalk. There’s something in his eyes that churns my stomach. I cast careful glances at him, trying to read him.

“Is Ashley okay?”

“Yeah, he’s fine.” He’s still maintaining a comfortable, calm attitude as he walks. We start moving at a steady pace down the road, and he pauses to take away my ability to gawk at him by putting on his dark black sunglasses with a smug smile cast my way. “Everything’s fine, I swear. Now let’s get the mortal some food.”

I nod, and force a small laugh that sounds more like a cough. Casting my gaze downwards, we move forward in silence.

I silently note once again, how familiar this scene is. We're walking together on the empty sidewalk into town, shrouded in early morning mist with the sun trying to poke through the thick clouds. Not too long ago, we were doing this exact thing. Except then, neither of us knew what was coming in the following weeks, and how it would bring us closer, while still managing to tear us apart, little by little.

It feels like there is nothing left to say, so we remain quiet. I bury my hands in my baggy jacket pockets, matching Andy's slouched, thoughtful posture as the last of the forest and houses give away to the business district.

Andy hums under his breath, but the tune is muted and dull - meant only for his ears. When the silence becomes too much again, I attempt more conversation, carefully dancing around stressful, tricky topics in favor of more joyous things.

“Do you like turtles?” I ask him casually, my voice accompanied by the crunching of wet travel under our feet.

His humming halts and he peeks over at me with a very confused expression. “Turtles?” He echoes in disbelief, hoping he'd just heard me wrong.

I shrug, “yeah... I'd ask if you like cats and dogs - but everyone likes those. No one talks about turtles. Do you?”

He takes his time answering, appearing thoughtful as we walk on. “I guess,” he shrugs indifferently, “I mean, I'm not into reptiles much. They're alright.”

I stop walking immediately and stare at him in disbelief until he stops walking and turns to look at me. “What?”

“You don't love them?!” I squeal in a hurt voice, “turtles are wonderful.”

He sighs tiredly, waiting for me to catch up to him before he starts walking again.

“Sorry...” I murmur, looking away at the brick buildings across the street offering refuge to a tax specialist and a nail and hair salon. I stare at their nice neon signs longer than necessary. “I'm just trying to make you laugh,” I shrug, “I'm not much for a comic relief... My life is a better joke than anything I could think up.”

He seems to sense that I am in a mood, because when he lets out a heavy exhale, it almost sounds sympathetic... Or defeated, I can't tell. He doesn't offer any consolation for my self-depreciating comment and I don't offer up more bitter comments. We just relapse into silence until I find myself tugging open the door to the cafe on Main Street.

Inside, the smell alone is enough to shift my grumpy mood. The mixed smell of fresh coffee, cinnamon, baking bread and pastries, mixed with the warm smell of cooking eggs, pancakes and bacon, is enough to temporarily stun me and wipe my mind of every troubled thought.

“Do you want anything?” I offer as discreetly as I can and he shakes his head, offering a small smile that doesn't reach his eyes. “Ash, I'm fictional. I don't need food.”

“Maybe so, but as least let me fuel a fantasy then. Coffee? Muffin?”

After a long, hard stare, he finally caves. “Fine. Alright, alright... Coffee.”

“Anything special?”

“Nope. I'm not going to drink it anyways, I'll be too busy sitting by the foggy window pretending I'm in an Adele music video.” This time, his grin is genuine.

I step up to the counter and order our food, and as the cashier is ringing up my order, I catch a glimpse of the kitchen behind him and spot two familiar faces... Two of the last people I would have expected to see here.

“Is that... Jinxx? And Reece?” I ask Andy, nudging his ribs. He looks up, towering over the cashier enough to have a clear view into the kitchen. He grins and laughs, “Ha! It is. Jinxx never mentioned working here... As for that little bait worm...” He narrows his eyes as he focuses on Reece, handling the task of flipping pancakes while scrolling through his Instagram.

“Reece!” Jinxx snaps at him, his spikey black hair tucked under a granny-like hair net. “Get off your damn phone, you're workin.”

To my surprise, Reece complies with only a groan. “Yes'sir.” Reece sighs, focusing on his job less than before. We step back from the counter after paying and I chuckle in disbelief.

“This is wonderful! Not only is one of my least favorite and favorite people working here, but Jinxx appears to have an authoritative role over Reece, and well, that's fucking amazing. About time someone puts that sappy little punk in his place.”

Reece appears to be grumbling under his breath while he works.

We both grin at Jinxx as he brings our order out with a bored expression.

“Jinxx!” I greet him and his eyes flicker up warily before he recognizes us standing in front of the counter, and his mood brightens. “Shh! They don't know me by my stage name here.” He jokingly looks around.

“Well what do you go by when you're here?” Andy asks, grabbing his coffee off the tray.

“By my name?” Jinxx replies with a confused expression. “You of all people should know what my real name is.”

“I know what your real name is,” Andy sighs, rolling his eyes. “I meant, do you go by something else here, asswipe.”

Jinxx gets a pleasant smile and replies with an equally insulting quip without a pause. “No, thanks for asking fuck face.”

“Anytime.” Andy grins back.

“So when did you start working here?” I ask while we still have a moment to speak.

“Back in February, actually.” He shrugs, tucking a strand of black hair back up into his hair net. “Not because I really needed the money or anything, but because I was getting damn bored being at my house all the time. You can only spend so many hours around your asshole cat before you slowly start to go insane.”

He shakes his head regretfully before smiling again. “So what brings you guys here? Don't you have school, kid?”

“I do,” I pause “but we have nothing edible at my house so we're getting breakfast before school.”

“Calm down; momma Jinxx, she's got an hour.” Andy adds with a crooked grin.

Jinxx narrows his eyes at him a bit before changing the subject.

“Have you spoken with CC recently?”

“Yeah, I texted him this morning. Why? What's up?”

“Has he told you his plans yet?”

“What? The park?”

“Oh no, he's already gone up and beyond that. Are you familiar with Talia Lake?”

“Yeah, just north of town.”

He opens his mouth to dive into our group plans for the week, but is interrupted by an older woman with a stern expression and her hands on her hips.

“Jeremy, you can talk to your friends during your break, but right now you're working.”

“Sorry, ma'am,” Jinxx apologizes politely, waiting for her to walk away before making a puking expression. “God, she's annoying. I may have a higher position in the kitchen but that doesn't mean I have total control of when I work. I'll talk to you both later.”

We nod in agreement and watch him go. He disappears into the kitchen without another word.

“Well, now we have one more way to torture Reece.” I say with a sly smile as we go to a secluded booth in the corner of the cafe, by the front windows. We sit across from each other in silence for a moment while I quietly observe his expression.

“Are you visible right now?” I ask, and he nods, pulling the foam lid off his coffee, dousing it with a variety of creamers and sugars from the little bins by the wall. He stirs the sugary, almost beige mixture with a patient expression, before saying “it's getting easier.”

“What is?” I ask, stirring my far less fun drink.

“Being... Alive? Visible? It doesn't feel so draining anymore.”

“How does it feel?”

“Normally it feels like a magnet is attached to your skull, pulling every ounce of energy from your body. It brings the weirdest head aches, too. Now it's just like a dull throb in the back of my head. It's still there, but nowhere near as bad.”

“So what then? Do you think you'll be able to resurrect soon?”

He casts a crooked smile my way, “Yeah, and we can join a traveling circus. What would my alias be? The Great Disappearing Man, The Devilishly Handsome Ghost Boy, The Stunningly Charisma-”

“How about the Beautiful Dead Boy?” I smile at him, and he pauses his ramblings to look at me for a long moment, many different emotions dashing across his face. Humor, confusion, fascination and joy.

“Beautiful?” He echoes with emphasis, smiling fondly, enjoying how it sounds. “A little off the nose maybe, buy yeah, definitely...” He pauses, looking down at the tattooed ink curling around his wrists, threatening to someday consume his hands. “Beautiful?” He echoed again, his voice full of wonder before he looks up at me. “You think I'm beautiful?”

The joking tone is still there, but there's an underlying tone of ancient pain and confusion and wonder.

His eyes are wide on mine, blue and piercing as he waits for an answer.

“Of course... Admittedly, that's one of the reasons I couldn't avoid you when we... Met in our strange way. But it's not just in your looks - it's in your heart. your heart is still pure and good despite everything, and even if you looked like a landfill I'd love you all the same because you're my beautiful landfill with a heart of gold. Now drink up your coffee before it gets cold.” I smile warmly at him, and a sparkle that had been missing for weeks returned to his eyes. Not because he felt cocky or anything, but he almost looked like he'd just found self-worth in my words.

“No ones ever called me beautiful,” he mumbles in surprise, looking down at the foam coffee cup clasped tightly in his white knuckle grip. “No ones ever called me 'hot' or 'cute' or went out of their way to tell me I have a good heart.”

He purses his lips in thought, the sunlight pouring through the window to my right, casting fascinating shadows across his cheeks and jaw.

I stab into the cinnamon roll we trekked across town for, and enjoy it in silence, offering to share with Andy a few times. On my second offer, he caves. I smile joyfully and pull a brown paper napkin from the dispenser under the window and wrench the cinnamon roll in half with my fork, flipping the other half over onto the napkin, pushing it towards him before I get up and walk towards the little utensil booth by the order counter.

My eyes land on Reece standing in the kitchen, he looks tired, and annoyed, staring down at his phone screen.

“Bitch.” he mutters, and begin typing.

Despite mine and Elizabeth’s past hardships, I still feel the most peculiar surge of protective energy at his words and narrow my eyes at him, biting the tip of my tongue to keep from saying anything.

I grab the necessary cutlerly, and return to our table. As soon as I sit down, a sneaky smile slides across my lips.

“What?” Andy asks in confusion, accepting the fork from my hand across the table. I smile evilly and proceed.

“Got any plans tonight?”

“Definitely not. Why?”

“Tonight, we’re gonna scare the shit out of Reece.”

Notes

There's an easter egg hidden in the chapter title - a little fore-warning as to what's to come. The 'calm before the storm', you could say. ;)

I'm terribly sorry, it's been a long while. Agh, well, I've got three new chapters written, a new one will be uploaded every day until I run out again.

Also - can I just tell you how hard it was to write this chapter? Not because I ran out of ideas or anything, but because my electronics kept rebelling against me! lol. I was writing on my iPod while camping, then the screen broke and I couldn't use it without getting little glass splinters in my hands. Then I was writing on my laptop in the camper, (mind you it didn't currently have a battery pack, just plugged into the wall via its charger) and the breaker blew, shutting down my computer AND corrupting the original file, meaning I lost all work after the point when they first leave for California. That, itself wasn't so bad, because I had it all backed up on Mibba, but I keep all my plot points and ideas in the tail end of the document, so that was an issue. Luckily, the whole document was backed up on the Dell cloud thing. And - the other night after getting a new battery, I took my computer outside to work, and a cat jumped on the keyboard, accidentaly locking it in airplane mode and lockign up the whole computer, so I had no choice but to force reboot lol.
NOW. We have a new chapter lol