~20~ The Relieving Power of Blue Bell

(Nelly’s POV)

Zac Tyler. I heard his name a couple times before. One, from Grace’s military experience, and two, from Angel. What are the odds? It was a small world after all. And apparently Angel didn’t like that because she ran off. Or maybe there was something up with her.

“Food sickness, probably,” Brian shrugged in a lie, starting to back up and then jog after Angel.

The very tall and muscular Zac Tyler had a face full of completely unreadable emotions that didn’t match his strong stature. His head bowed slightly and I had no idea what was going on.

***

“So, do you go to West Point, or are you in the Army, or Marines—”

“I was a Sniper,” Zac answered. I frowned.

“Aren’t you a first year?” I asked.

“Mmh,” Archer said. “The kid is like Captain America, I swear. Perfect heath, aim, combat—everything.”

“Yeah, the General loved him,” Grace added.

“Sounds…like you’re the perfect soldier,” Mia complimented.

“I was,” he said. It was starting to sunset and even though twenty minutes ago, everyone was outside, it seemed as if we were the only ones left here to share the huge backyard that Lindsay and I grew up in.

“Was? Why past tense?” Mia asked.

“I got an honorable discharge,” he expressed with a light upward turn of his lips.

“Meaning…?”

“Meaning I’m no longer going to be in the front line anymore,” he clarified. “I got a couple hits in major places, but even though I swear I’m alright, they…think otherwise.”

“Oh,” Mia said.

He was lying. His eyes darted to his left when he said that, as if looking around, but I knew there was something he wasn’t telling us, even if he did look perfectly healthy. I could believe he got shot and healed, but I didn’t believe that was why he was discharged.

“So what will you do now?” I asked, suspiciously.

“Attend West Point until my, ahem, recovery is enough for them to accept me again,” he answered. I nodded.

“Oh sh!t,” someone whispered. All of us looked over to Lulu, who was getting very friendly with Archer. She was looking down to her phone, touching its surface with her manicured thumbs in a swift motion as she texted someone back.

“What is it?” Mia asked, concerned.

“It’s Brian,” she said, still occupied with responding.

“Is Angel okay?” I immediately asked, considering Brian was the one to directly chase after her.

“Uh…” she said, looking up and around at everyone quickly before talking to Mia and I specifically. “She just…decided to leave.”

“What for?” Mia asked with a smile, obviously not pleased with Angel’s abrupt departure. Lulu shrugged. I also noticed that Zac was staring off into his own world during this conversation. Grace noticed it and that led them to whisper back and forth with the same serious look on Zac’s face. I just wanted to know why Angel left.

“Yeah, what for?” I inquired, also with a slight bit of chuckle in my voice. “It’s not as if Joey’s summoning her home or anything.”

With that, I saw Zac’s head snap up and Lulu look over at him briefly before looking back to me and shrugging once more.

“She was tired I guess,” Lulu assumed, starting to stand up, but Archer grabbed her forearm.

“Aw, I wish I could’ve said goodbye,” Callaghan conveyed, next to me.

“Sure,” Ty muttered.

“Yeah. Tell…Angel…it was nice meeting her,” Grace said with a glint of fake niceness that she’s used hundreds of times before in her life.

“Hey, you’re in town for a while, maybe we’ll have to meet up again,” Mia suggested, even though I was the only one to detect the fact that Grace actually didn’t like Angel for some reason—or at least she made it seem that way beneath everything. But why? If I of all people liked Angel, why couldn’t Grace when we were nearly alike? And it’s not as if Angel did anything to her. They just met!

“Sure.”

“Because I’m sure those two would enjoy that,” I commented, nodding over to Lulu and Archer. As everyone else was sitting in the chairs, Lulu stood by Archer’s as they exchanged numbers. In conclusion, she kissed his cheek goodbye, but when she turned to leave, he grabbed her arm once more and then pulled her down to kiss. Soon enough Streeter and Ty were making middle-school public noises at them.

“Alright, that’s enough with the snogging!” I shouted with a bit of laughter. Callaghan touched my arm.

“Hey, if they want to…snog…then let them,” he smirked. I looked from his beautiful eyes to his full lips. Ugh. I didn’t have any solid feelings for any guy before and he walks in with his perfect little charm and confidence, mirroring mine and ugh! “You don’t have a problem with it, right?”

It took me a second to realize he was talking about their snogging and not my mental contemplation about his charm.

“Of course not. Why would I?” I replied. Lulu was a grown woman…an eighteen year old, grown woman just as I was, but still a grown woman to make her own choices. Callaghan genuinely smiled and then quickly pressed his lips to mine.

“I don’t know; you tell me,” he whispered against my lips as my eyes remained closed—shocking me that I had closed them in the first place. They fluttered open and met his. All I could do was sit there in shock.

“Well I’ll see at the house,” Lulu concluded to me or Mia.

“If she makes it back there…” Ty commented in a poorly covered cough as I still gazed at the closeness of Callaghan’s face before he pulled away completely and placed his hand on my knee as we shared the outside bench by the table of chairs. I forgot about everything in that moment—my cousin being the unity of all of us, my roommate mysteriously running off, everything. I was just involved and captivated with what the h3ll kind of guy Callaghan thinks he is for entirely making me interested in him enough for me to let him kiss me without kicking his a$$. But then again, Grace was my protective and close cousin. If she hadn’t seen it coming, or didn’t approve, she would’ve kicked his a$$ for me in a heartbeat—faster than Archer could have ever teased her with a “Will you marry me?” in his most staged lovey, dovey voice possible.

***

(Brian’s POV)

“Angel!” I yelled out into the open. After fifteen minutes of doing who knows what at the girls’ beach house, I found her to be gone out the back door towards the beach. I needed to find her before it was completely dark. I mean, the sun was already starting to set. There was no way for me to find her if darkness was the case. There was miles and miles of beach here. Maybe I wouldn’t be able to find her anyways.

I paused, letting my feet sink into the sand by a couple inches and letting the ocean breeze toss my hair into my face and my clothes off and on my body as wind flew up my shirt. I closed my eyes and the weirdest thing happened.

I was picturing Angel and it’s like whatever nearest plant—whether it was a floating seaweed, or blades of grass from sand dunes—told me where she was. Then I lost her suddenly, the only trace being a piece of seaweed gliding over her foot. Meaning, she was surely swimming in the big wide ocean. Just as I had grown frustrated, I looked out and saw her being pushed back on shore, her red dress clinging to her body just as her long hair did that no longer held the curls Lulu worked “so hard” on. I just waited for her.

As soon as she was ashore, I held out my jacket to her and with a death glare, she took it and wrapped it around her body.

“You know you’re going to have to talk to me,” I told her once we were in the car and I turned up the heat for her sake. In our walk to my car—which, by the way was still parked in front of the Lindsays’ mansion—we said nothing. I was used to giving Angel her space whenever she had sh!t to deal with, but unlike that usual time in our lives, I was going to speak up.

“What’s there to tell?” she whispered, looking out the window as I started to try and exit the neighborhood. “Zac found us without meaning to and that’s it.”

“I meant why you got so angry that you purge yourself of the fury in the freaking Atlantic ocean,” I hissed back. “I mean, I get it Angel. You have to deal with your anger issues, but running off like that was—”

“You think I’m angry?” she said to me. I looked over to her, briefly, and saw her face full of incredulousness. Even my own eyes widened.

“Well yeah,” I replied as if “well duh”. She acted as if it was ridiculous of me to assume that of her.

“I’m not angry,” she mumbled after our intense moment of a stare down…well sort of stare down, considering I had to keep looking back and forth to the road because I was driving.

“Whatever,” I dropped.

“I’m not,” she repeated with a louder voice.

“Alright. I’m done arguing with you,” I announced. I’m tired of her shutting down on me.

“Good because I’m tired of people assuming sh!t about me—”

“I’ve known you since third grade, Angel. I know you by now, after all these years. I know that when you’re mad, you go swimming nearly immediately, but I thought that by now—at this point in your life, you’d learn to deal with it and at least excuse yourself before you run out pissed off at—”

“I’m not angry, I’m scared!” she yelled. Scared? Yeah right.

A moment later, I glanced over to her and saw her face in her hand as she leaned against the window of the rental car. She sniffled and that’s all I needed before I pulled over into an empty parking lot and then turned off the car’s engine.

“What’s up, Angel?” I asked, calmly with a sigh. “Why is the great Angelique Hallow scared all of a sudden?”

“It’s not all of a sudden, Brian,” she choked up. “He…he’s here and I feel…different.”

“Different how?”

“Like I knew or something,” she answered. I looked over to her. Like psychically? Please don’t tell me Devin put anything into her that was any sort of remains from that stupid Drug… “Ask Joey or Lulu. I told them that when we stopped looking, I had a feeling he’d come to us—and he did!”

“And that scares you?” H3ll, it scares me.

“Yes it scares me!” she yelled. Right then, I unbuckled both of our seat belts and pulled her into me. All she did was cry and I accepted that and rocked her in my arms. “This whole time…he gave up his family and friends and life…and now we know why.”

“He served his country. That’s it,” I defended, but I didn’t know why. It was Zac’s fault for her even crying right now.

“People serve their country every day and still take the time to Skype their families…or write…or anything. Not just shun them,” she reasoned. She had a point. And in that horrible letter he sent her a year ago, it was as if he said it like he was completely breaking up with her. I’m sure if he told her that he enrolled in the Military, she’d understand. He made it complicated, but I have a feeling that he did it on purpose.

Suddenly, she pulled away from me with a wipe to her tear-stained face as if the position was foreign to her.

“It’s whatever now, I guess,” she said, sniffing out the remaining tears and all.

“Angel it doesn’t have to—”

“It’s whatever,” she repeated more articulate. “He gave Devin what he needed, so it’s done. That’s it. We don’t need him any longer.”

She was shutting down again. While I think it was fate for Zac and Angel to meet up again, she’s trying to push him further and further away. But then again, that’s what he originally wanted in the first place.

“Why are you just sitting there? Let’s go home, Bri,” she said after I sat there, thinking to myself with both hands perfectly positioned on the steering wheel.

“Angel, I think—”

I was interrupted when my phone started to ring and I looked down to see Lulu’s name.

“Yeah,” I greeted to her.

“Where are you? Did you find her?”

“Yeah she’s here,” I replied. Angel reached up to take the phone out of my hand and put it on speaker.

“Well where are you? Cuz I’m on my way back to the house,”

Lulu’s loud voice informed.

“We’re on our way back to the house, too,” Angel said and then gave me an aggressive look. “If only Brian would start driving.”

“Angel, sweetie. Are you okay?” Lulu asked. Great. This again.

“Yeah, of course. Why wouldn’t I be?” Angel replied, her walls quickly being reconstructed in her pretty little, stubborn as fu** state of mind.

I was just glad Lulu didn’t bring up the subject. She was her best friend—more than me. She knew every little detail in how to normally deal with Angel and apparently hovering wasn’t in that guideline for this situation. How was I supposed to know that telling her that a pint of chocolate chip ice cream was waiting for her at home would calm her down?! Did that small amount of product from Blue Bell possess that much power over relief for her?

Apparently, because we had sunk down into that same old silence on the car ride home—aside from her telling me directions on actually getting home, considering I didn’t know crap about the streets here in Providence.