This Is Not an After School Special

"We're..." I tried to wrap my head around what she was saying. "Moving?" I managed to finally mutter. I leaned against the wall beside me for support. "Out of Vancouver? All the way back to Edmonton?"

Mom's delighted smile flickered once on her lips, then vanished altogether. "What's wrong? I thought you wanted to go. You said that I wasn't supporting you enough."

"I came home to tell you that I changed my mind. You were right; I love it here. Everything got fixed. To an extent, at least. I wanted to tell you that I want to stay."

"You want to stay?"

"I thought you weren't really trying to get the transfer. I thought there would be lots of time," I was whispering more to myself than to her. I felt sick.

Dad made his way into the entryway of the house to see what the commotion was about. "You made up with Josh," he stated. Of course he would figure out what was going on.

"Yeah. Can you stop the transfer? Can't they send someone else?"

"Are you just going to ask us to do this all over again the next time you break up?" Mom demanded.

"There won't be a next time," I told her, a combination of anger and confidence swelling in my voice. "If we make it through this, we can literally make it through anything. And if we break up, it can't be on worse terms than this time. So it will be easier to take. Please, I'm begging you. I don't ask much from you guys, and I'm really sorry that I ever mentioned something this stupid. If there's any way at all to stop us from moving, I'll do it. Josh needs me right now; I can't just desert him."

"She's right, you know," Dad told Mom. "We all love it here. I wouldn't have ever considered a transfer if you hadn't told me that her happiness depended on it."

"So there's a chance that you can stop it?" I barely allowed myself to hope.

"I'm not really sure. I'll try, Becky," Dad said to me. His tone wasn't optimistic, and that fact didn't evade me.

"Why is it suddenly so important that we stay?" Mom crossed her arms. I got the distinct impression that she still believed I was going to ask her to move again in a week or two.

"I already told you: Josh needs me right now."

"And why does he need you?"

"It's not really my place to tell. Matt's going to help me out with all of it."

Mom stalked away, as though the entire conversation infuriated her. She had good reason to be pissed off, but that didn't fix anything. I gave Dad a helpless look, and he nodded once before following Mom into the living room.

The next week was incredibly stressful in my house. I hadn't told Josh about the threat of moving yet; I thought that it would be too much for him to take just then. Matt took me to visit him twice more during the week, and every time it only got harder and harder to leave. Each time I wondered if I was going to have to tell him goodbye for the last time. Would it send him back to the drugs? Or would I take it worse than him?

Matt knew, of course. I couldn't keep something like that from him, especially since he could see the terror on my face every single time I had to go home. I was always expecting my parents to tell me that my fears were confirmed as soon as I walked in the door.

The fact that I'd confessed the situation to Matt made it even harder to keep it from Josh. I felt like I wasn't any better than he'd been when he'd been lying to me about the heroin. It was the following Saturday that I came clean.

Josh held me tightly while I cried and spluttered about how stupid I'd been and how scared I was about the uncertainty I was facing. I apologized over and over for even considering running away from him.

"I didn't want to tell you, because I didn't want to make this whole thing harder on you. But you deserve to know."

"You should never feel like you can't tell me something, Becky. I learned that the hard way. I don't want any secrets between us. I really hope you can stop the transfer, though. Things have been going so much better since you've been visiting me. I haven't lost my temper as much, and even the counsellors have noticed a difference. I don't want you to go, Becky," his voice cracked at the end.

"I'm trying," I whispered. "I'm trying so hard to find a way to stay."

"I want you to tell me as soon as you find out."

I curled up even closer to him. We were lying together on his bed, since Matt had given us some space while I told Josh the truth.

"I can't leave you like this," my voice was muffled by the fabric of his favourite AC/DC tee shirt.

His fingers wove their way between the strands of my hair. "We'll take whatever comes."

"What if I don't want to?"

"You're kind of without any other options. As much as I don't want you to leave, I think that we're tough enough to take it."

"Are we?" I looked up at him in disbelief. "Edmonton is a long way away. And you can't even talk on the phone when you're stuck in here."

"We'll find a way."

I scoffed at his cocky tone. "I wish I was that confident."

"I don't know why you aren't, to be honest. We patched things up after you discovered that I was an addict. Don't you think that that proves we can make it through the worst?"

"But it's-"

"Don't argue with me on this, Becky. Just let me live with my delusions. I don't want to face the reality of it until it's actually a reality. For now, I'm just sitting in rehab with my girlfriend. What could be better?"

I laughed and sat up beside him. "I think you're right. Delusions is the perfect description for whatever goes on in your mind."

"Is it safe to come back in now?" Matt's voice was partially muted from the other side of the door. "This hallway is really, really boring."

"Yeah, come in," I called back to him.

The door opened slowly and Matt poked his head inside. When he saw that we weren't cuddled up too closely, he seemed to decide that it was safe to come in. He sat down in the only chair in the room and gave me a wary stare.

"Is everything okay?"

"I can't really answer that yet, can I?" I flashed a lopsided grin, trying to disguise how upset I was about the unknown status of my situation.

"I'll really miss this," Matt kicked his feet up on the edge of the mattress. "If you go, I mean. I like it when we can all just hang out."

"I thought you hated being the third wheel."

He shrugged. "You were right, I guess. You never made it awkward."

"Aw shit, we're going to have to fix that," Josh smirked at Matt before leaning over and kissing me.

"Okay, I get it," Matt interjected loudly. "You're a couple, who cares? Do you have to grope my best friend right in front of me?"

"I don't have to, but..." Josh ran a hand lightly down my side.

I giggled and pushed him away. "Seriously though, you don't want Matt to get pissed off. It's scary."

"That's not fair," Matt objected. "I only got mad at you once, and it could have gone a lot worse."

I shook my head at Josh to show my disagreement. "I love the kid to death, but he's one terrifying son of a bitch."

Matt laughed. "You're not so innocent either."

"Prove it."

"Okay," Josh jumped back into the conversation. He lifted me gracefully and planted me on top of him, putting the two of us in a very compromising position.

"This is where I draw the line," Matt got to his feet, and Josh and I laughed so hard that I nearly fell off the bed.

"It's way too easy to make you uncomfortable," I chided, climbing back off of Josh and sitting on the corner of the mattress closest to Matt. "There's hardly any fun in it. Where's the challenge?"

"You don't seem to find a lack of fun in it."

"Don't pout. It's unattractive. Girls might stop liking you if you keep it up," I teased.

"You'll like me either way."

I looked back at Josh with raised eyebrows. "Pretty sure of himself, isn't he?"

"He thinks that he's got you wrapped around his little finger," Josh explained. "Too bad that he doesn't know about this," he held up his pinkie finger on his right hand.

"And what is that, exactly?" I asked.

"The little finger that you're already wrapped around."

"You guys are really funny," I said without humor. "Really, you should do stand-up."

"That's a good idea. We should get together sometime and write some material," Matt told Josh, grinning impishly.

"I'm cool with that," Josh agreed, nodding in approval.

"While you guys work on your comedy routines, I'm going to go and sit out in the hall," I laughed. "Something tells me that I don't want to hear you guys talk about me. Both of you know way too much for this to end well."

"Relax, we won't tell anybody about the dumb things that you do." Matt assured me. "Not anytime soon, at least. Maybe once we're all done high school, and we go our seperate ways, and you're not there to kick my ass once you find out what I've said."

"Just for that, I'm never leaving you alone for a single day for the rest of your life."

"That's what it took to get that response?" Josh mused. "Damn. Note to self: if Beck ever threatens to leave, just threaten to make fun of her to total strangers. It's bulletproof, why didn't I think of it before?"

"Because I don't care what strangers think of me," I pointed out. "Feel free to tell them anything you want. I do, however, care what you guys think of me. So don't you start believing all the stupid shit that you tell everyone else."

It wasn't long after that Matt and I had to leave. I felt like I had needed a day like that. It was always so easy to just relax and forget about everything else when I was spending time with Matt and Josh. Even if all we could do was sit in a room in a rehab facility.

With one sullen, defeated look from my dad when I got home, I knew that it would be my last wonderful day for a long time.