Left Behind

CARTER

“What do you wanna do today?” Lucy said staring at me.

It had been a week since she told me about her ‘bad habit’. Of course, I was still extremely disgusted with her decisions, but when has Lucy ever listened to anything that I said? Two great things had come out of that week. One, I figured out that my school has uniforms (Louisiana policy) and the free dress was for the benefit of a Cancer patient at my school. Apparently it was for fundraising, but since I wasn’t there to know that, they let me free dress anyway. And two, it was the weekend again.

“Well, first of all, I need uniforms.”

She nodded. “What a coincidence that you get to wear uniforms. Luck has always been on your side Hon.”

“Right,” I said sarcastically. “So… did you sneak off last night?”

“No, Carter. You know you don’t have to ask me that every single day. And it’s not like I can when you watch me all night.”

“Well if you wouldn’t have gotten yourself in so much trouble, I wouldn’t have to watch you like you’re three years old.”

“Whatever. But, guess what?”

“Yeah?”

“I quit. I never wanted to sell drugs in the first place.”

I laughed. “You really expect me to believe that all of a sudden you don’t want to do it anymore and you’re the Holy Aunt Mosley? I absolutely, positively, don’t believe you.”

“Holy Aunt Mo… whatever. I promise on my Mom’s grave that I will never sell another drug in my life,” she said eying me.

“And that’s where I know you’re lying because neither of us know if you’re mom is even dead.”

She rolled her eyes while tsk-ing. “But if she were dead, I would promise on it,” she said smiling.

“That isn’t even a laughing matter. You’re fucking insane.”

“Like I don’t know.”

It was quiet for a while after that. We just sat there, in the alley, staring at the walls. I saw Lucy staring at me from the corner of my eyes. “What? Why are you staring at me?”

She chuckled quietly and brushed back her hair. “Why don’t you sing anymore?”

“Because… I don’t know.”

“Seriously,” she said urging me. “You should sing again.”

“I sang when I thought about happy times… I think my good memories have run out.”

“You can always make more,” she said smiling as she looked to the ground. “And i bet it would make you feel better. It may be hard, but it’s not impossible.”

“Close to impossible,” I replied. “How come you never went back to find your mom and dad after you left?” I ask her almost at a whisper.

“I don’t know. Maybe because I met you.”

“And?”

“I thought you needed me,” she said collecting me into a hug.

“For sure I did,” I said squeezing her back.

***

ALIYAH

Casey and I lay across my bed, me watching the new episode of Bad Girls’ Club, and Casey scrolling through Instagram on her phone. That is pretty much all we did when we were together, but that was fine by the both of us. “OMG, can you believe that Bryce and Kristen broke up like for good?”

“Says who?” I asked curiously glancing over to her.

“Says Instagram, Twitter, Kristen’s relationship status on Facebook, and everybody in the school hallway. Looks like we’ll be scratching them from the cutest couple list.”

“I never in a million years thought that was even possible,” I replied.

“Yeah, me neither. Remember when you used to like him? I saw it more as stalking, but of course you said it was just a crush and blah blah blah.”

“Oh hush.”

“He played the shit out of you. You see me? I woulda killed him.”

I turned the TV up a little to let Casey know that I didn’t want to hear it. “No need to remind me,” I said practically begging.

“Oh and did you hear? Kristen’s telling everybody that she broke up with him because he was trying to sleep with Carter! I was like no way in hell she would ever let him sleep with her.”

I glared at her, more of shock on my face than anything. “Carter? As in Carter Carter? Like Carter-”

“Deville? Yes Ma’am. It’s all through the school. Shoot, I wonder if she even knows about it herself. Something is weird about her, but I just don’t know what it is.”

“Hey, you want to go walk around N.O. later? Like shop… maybe eat?”

“Yes girl. We really need to catch up on your gossip, because you’re a little late on the news. Lemme change real quick, okay?”

“Yeah, cool.”

CARTER

Lucy and I sat in the alley, bored as usual, and talked about little things. That’s how we always passed time along; we talked about random, unimportant topics or played stupid little games. “Okay, my turn,” she said examining the alley that was all too familiar already. “I spy something… black.”

I looked around for a minute. “My hair.”

“Shoot. Go.”

“Hmm… I spy something… something red.”

Lucy looked around for a minute coming to the conclusion that there was really never anything red, but I was just ‘cheating like I always did’. “Lucy, I was talking about the fire hydrant.”

“I don’t see a fire hydrant,” she defended squinting her eyes to see.

“It’s like not in the alley, but across from it on that sidewalk. Since you didn’t get it, I get to go again.”

“Fine,” she said rolling her eyes.

“Okay, I spy something green.”

She scoffed with a knowing grin on her face. “Obviously it’s the grass,” she said.

“No, actually it’s that green car that’s been passing back and forth for the past seven minutes,” I laughed as I pointed to the car that, once again, passed.

Lucy’s head automatically shot up. After she watched the car pass by, she shot me a look that I didn’t understand at first, but it didn’t take long before I knew. “That’s the green car isn’t it?”

She nodded and stared at me with obvious fear in her eyes. “Come on. We gotta go.”

“Go where? We have nowhere to go!”

She stood and yanked my arm making me stand as well. “This is the deal. We’re gonna walk out of this alley like we don’t know each other. I’ll go left and you’ll go right. As soon as you hit the open, you run as fast as you can without looking back at me.”

She started walking toward the opening of the alleyway. “What’s going on?” I said desperately as I followed behind her.

“That’s the green car.”

“I know that! But why are we running from the green car? I thought you were riding in the green car just the other day!”

She didn’t look at me while answering. “I owe them money. Lots and lots of money and drugs and a lot of other shit that I can’t explain.” Lucy was talking almost too fast to understand. “All you need to know is that the main guy’s name is “Dee”-they call him “Dee”, but his real name is something like Demarius Thomas or something like that. He’s tall, thin, he’s light skinned, and he has short black hair. Dark brown eyes. He always wears this ugly little chain around his neck that has a rusting cross on it, but most of it is silver. Got it?”

I nodded.

“The other guy… I--I can’t remember his name. He’s always with Dee, though. He’s not skinny, but not fat. He’s like in the middle. He has a tattoo of a skull with a banner on it, but I couldn’t read exactly what it said. It was faded. He’s white and he has black hair too. His eyes are green and he has a birthmark, or something that looks like one, on his neck. I know it’s a lot to remember, but it’s important, yeah?"

“Yeah,” I manage almost at a whisper. “How do you know that they saw us?”

“He looked straight at me. I saw him look straight at my face and, the scary part, he smiled. Just remember Demarius Thomas,” she said sighing.

I could feel myself tearing up. My heart was beating at fifteen times its average speed and my head was throbbing. I was scared shitless. “Okay, so what happens after this?”

“Honestly, I don’t know. I’m scared too. And I’m sorry for getting you into this because this is all my fault.”

“Yeah it is,” I said as I stopped walking because we were now at the end of the alleyway.

Lucy bit her bottom lip most likely to keep back her sobs, but tears were already running down her face. She tried to wipe them off quickly before I noticed, but it didn’t work. She stopped and turned towards me. “You know you’re my sister and I love you to death.”

“I love you too, Lucy. But nothing’s gonna happen. We’ll make the loop like we always do. We’ll just do our normal plan and meet right back here.”

“No! It's not the time to be stubborn. You’re just gonna keep running like I said. I swear if I see you in Heaven when I get there, I’ll kill you,” she replied trying to force a tiny smile.

“You’re not gonna die. You’re Lucy.”

“You don’t know what they’re capable of, Carter,” she said shaking her head. She gave me one last hug, the tightest hug she’d ever given me, and let go. “Just remember that you’re my sister and my bestfriend. I don’t how I would’ve made it without you, girl. And I love you to death.” She nodded her head and walked out of the alleyway.

“I love you too, Luce,” I whispered to myself because she was already gone.

I took a couple deep breaths before walking out into the open and I started to run like she’d told me. I looked back to see her running as well, but in the opposite direction. I didn’t see any green car in sight so I lost all nervousness in my body and a small smile began to creep across my face. We were going to be alright. I slowed down a bit, only to be in complete shock when I heard two gun shots fired nearby and I turned around as quickly as I could.

Everything after that went in slow motion. The sound of the green car screeching to get away, Lucy falling face first toward the ground, people screaming to call 911, and my uncontrollable screaming and sobbing all put into one as I ran down the street toward her motionless body.

All I could think about were the last things that she said to me. ‘I love you to death.’