Blood Like Poison by M. Leighton

brochures.  I pictured myself among the happy students on campus, living a life totally different from this one, accomplishing great things and making my dreams come true.  My biggest goal in life was to become a whole person again, and a new start at Stanford seemed to be the most promising way to achieve that.

I didn’t intend to fall asleep, but that’s exactly what happened.  Dad woke me up when he got home and, at his insistence, I went out to spend some family time with him and Mom.

When Dad was home, we all pretended that we were once again a normal, average, Leave-it-to-Beaver kind of family.  We pretended that tragedy hadn’t struck, that Mom wasn’t an alcoholic and that Dad wasn’t running away.  We pretended that I was a typical teenager with typical teenage problems.  We pretended that our lives were still our lives from three years ago, only minus one family member, one we never spoke of.

It was exhausting.  By the time dinner was over and I’d cleaned up the dishes, I was more than ready to escape to my room and get ready for Caster’s party.  The only good thing I could say about the time spent with my family was that they’d managed to take my mind off Bo, but that was like saying that someone cut off my leg to take my mind off the hole in my chest—simply a trade of one painful thing for another.

After finishing my second shower of the day, I flipped idly through my closet looking for something to wear.  The nights were starting to get a little cool, feeling more like fall, so I dressed in jeans and a light sage-colored sweater that made my skin look like rich, gleaming bronze.

I waited in my room until I saw Drew’s lights as he turned into the driveway.  I virtually ran out the door to meet him, a fact that was not lost on him.  He mistook it for excitement to see him in particular rather than just excitement to be rescued from Hell House.

“You sure you want to go to this party?  We could always skip it and go to my uncle’s cabin instead,” Drew suggested, always thinking with his little head. 

I was instantly irritated and I snapped.  “Can’t you, just for tonight, not be a typical guy?”

Drew rolled his eyes and backed out of the driveway.  Neither of us said another word until we got to Caster’s.

“Looks like a good turnout,” Drew said as he cut the engine once he’d found a parking spot.

He got out, as did I.  Daughtry’s remake of Photograph blared from a stereo somewhere inside the cabin and people milled about in the front yard, laughing and talking, drinks in hand.  A bonfire burned to the left of the structure and beside it, staying cool in a barrel of ice, was a keg.  We made our way in that direction.  Drew never turned down free beer.

Trinity was the first to greet us.  She had managed to drape herself all over Devon.  By the look on his face, the party was not going at all according to his plan, but he knew, as we all did, that Trinity was someone that you just had to humor.  Her claws and forked tongue left vicious wounds and even Devon avoided making her angry whenever possible.

“Ridley!  Omigod, you will never believe who is here,” Trinity said excitedly as we stopped in front of them.  “Do you remember Bobby Knight?  He was a year older than Izzy,” she explained.

Even after three years, I still felt a small stab of pain every time someone mentioned Izzy.

“I remember,” I replied.

“He’s here with LeAnne Warner,” she said, as if that was the juiciest gossip ever.

“I thought she—”

“Exactly,” Trinity said, raising her eyebrows suggestively.

“Ew,” I said, wrinkling my nose.

We stood and talked for a while.  Trinity was having the time of her life and you could tell.  Devon was having probably one of the worse nights of his.  You could tell that as well.  Drew was waiting for something, but I didn’t know what and I was…I don’t know what I was.  I wouldn’t call my mood happy per se; I