Screaming Gestures

~109 ~ 3086

Derek had to go a little after we all had pizza. He and I managed to talk a little bit about our lives. Derek had convinced me that he wasn’t alone. He had friends. Derek visited his uncle, Peter, often. Peter was the only one in his family to survive the fire and he barely did. He was completely covered in burns. I remembered Peter. He liked to pick on me because I was small. He called me ‘Runt’ and I absolutely hated it, so I started to call him ‘String Bean’. I always thought that maybe I wasn’t too small, but that he was too tall.

After talking about himself, Derek wanted to talk about me. How the last year had been back in the city and how being back in Beacon Hills was treating me. Derek knew most of how it was here for me because he had been around. And after my crying fit that night and my mom’s hostility, he knew exactly how things were. Derek tried to talk about it anyway, but I probably wasn’t as open as he wanted me to be.

I actually fell asleep last night wishing had had talked with him more. I couldn’t stress how much Derek had changed. The Derek I knew a year ago wouldn’t ever have sat down and listened to me complain. Even if I had begged him, he was always so closed off and emotionless after the fire. But this time, Derek offered to listen to all the petty details and I had turned him down. Some friend I had been.

Maybe Derek knew that I didn’t really want to talk about me. He hadn’t wanted to talk after the fire. Not that he actually could since I couldn’t actually hear him talk. Maybe this was one of those times when it was the thought that counted.

Lydia had checked in with me over the weekend. It was strange to have her caring the way that she was. We didn’t talk for long and when she did text me, it was in spurts. Lydia had apparently been on a road trip with Allison, following Scott, Stiles, Isaac, and another kid named Boyd to their cross country meet. When she had told me that I was confused. I mean, Stiles had stressed that he and Lydia wouldn’t ever be a thing and Allison and Scott were broken up. Why would they be driving for hours just to see the guys run for a couple minutes? It wasn’t really my drama to worry about, but that didn’t mean that I wasn’t curious.

Especially about Stiles. I was still wondering if his patience the last time I saw him was influenced by Lydia. She told me that she didn’t say anything to him, but how could I believe that? It was all just too weird. Literally an hour before Stiles sat down to talk to me about asking for a ride to school, I had complained to Lydia about how he couldn’t sit still long enough to talk to me. That couldn’t have been coincidence.

For a second, I had wished they Lydia had invited me along on the road trip. That was definitely something I never thought I would want. I knew that I shouldn’t trap myself in Carter’s room all weekend, but I wanted to see him again. The sooner I could put his room back together, the sooner I could go back to the graveyard to visit.

It certainly wasn’t a sane thing to do, and I still didn’t believe that it was happening. Seeing Carter, hearing and talking to him, that was real. It had to be. I knew I was grieving, but I hoped that I wasn’t too far gone that I was seeing things.

The last day of the weekend had rolled around and I finally finished Carter’s room. It was late in the day as I sat on the bed, looking around and admiring my work. I smiled to myself and then closed my eyes to take a deep breath. I could feel the lump growing in my throat as I started to think about Carter.

We were almost home. He had graduated and we would have come back to Beacon Hills after the summer. Carter was almost here, living in the room that he would have unpacked. Things would be so different. With Carter here, I probably wouldn’t be fighting with Mom. I would probably be driving out of town to a deaf school, not minding the drive because I knew when I got back, Carter would be around. I’d be happier. Things would be okay. Derek would have his best friend back and we could all be a family again.

When I opened my eyes, I knew that it was all a fantasy. Carter was six feet under at Beacon Hills Cemetery. I had unpacked the room around me. I wasn’t talking to my mother. I was going to a school I hated because I couldn’t stand the thought of being in a car alone with my thought for an hour to the deaf school. I wasn’t happy exactly. Things weren’t really okay. Derek’s moved on with his new friends. My family was cold now.

Things aren’t the same without Carter.

After dinner, I told my parents I was going for a walk, promising that I would be back before it got too late. I finished the room and I needed to see my brother.

The second I arrived at the cemetery, I stopped. I looked around, making sure no one was there. It was still light out, and as normal as it might have been for someone to talk to a lost loved one, I didn’t want anyone to see me talking to myself. I marched towards his gravestone, calling his name.

“Carter!” I whispered, turning my head, wondering where he’d pop up this time. “Carter!”

“You’re gettin’ real good at this summoning thing, June-Bug.” The voice said, scaring me.

I jumped and turned on my heels. In front of me, I saw Carter, leaning against a large headstone in the shape of an angel. I smiled and sighed at the sight of him. “Considering I don’t really know what I’m doing, I’ll just go ahead and take that as a compliment.”

“Good.” Carter looked up at the angel gravestone, admiring it’s wings. He pushed off and walked towards me. “I’m a little bummed Mom and Dad didn’t spring for this one.”

I scoffed. “Yeah, right. I’m sure if they had you would have haunted them or something.” I stopped, thinking for a moment. “Can you haunt someone? Aren’t you technically a ghost?”

Carter furrowed his brow. “I haven’t tried. Even if I did, I haven’t figured out how to leave the graveyard. There’s really no fun in haunting something that can haunt you back.”

“Other people come here, too. You could try haunting them.”

“Not sure I want to scare the crap out of someone who’s visiting someone just like you are.” Carter said.

I nodded, pulling my lips into a straight line. “Good point.”

“Wanna sit?”

“Sure.” I said shrugging.

“Follow me.” Carter led me to a small garden on the edge of the cemetery.

When I say small, I mean it. That didn’t mean it wasn’t pretty. In the middle of the small flower beds was a small trail leading to a single bench. I sat down on the bench and looked around. A trellis was perched over the bench, giving me a small shade from the setting sun. “It’s pretty here.”

“I thought so, too.” Carter agreed, sitting in the spot next to me.

I decided to sit in a comfortable silence for a couple moments before bombarding him with things I wanted to tell him. I wanted to spend time with him without everything else.

“Did you finish?” He asked after a while.

“Your room?” I asked, getting a nod from him. “Yeah. I just finished.”

Carter laughed and shook his head. “It’s been four days, Juney.”

I shrugged. “You’re kind of a minimalist, bro.” I told him. “You didn’t have much that you didn’t need.”

“Very true.” He paused, turning away from me. “Now that you’ve got it cleaned up, I need you to do something.”

“How much do you want me to do for you exactly?” I asked him, curiously. “I mean, if it’s more than just one more thing can you just give me a ‘To Do’ list?”

“June, none of this is for me. This is all stuff that you need to do for you.” Carter stressed, making me feel instantly bad. Even in his death, this guy was trying to take care of me. It wasn’t enough that he saved my life causing his death.

I shook my head. “Carter - ”

“My laptop.” He interrupted. “I kept a, uh, I guess it’s a journal.” Carter said, his brows, pushing together. “On my laptop, there’s a folder of different entries. Hundreds, sorted by date.”

“That’s what is on your laptop?” I asked, incredulously. “Your life story?”

Carter shook his head at me then caught my eyes. “It’s more than that. It’s….” he sighed. “It’s really hard to explain.” Carter looked at me.

I studied him, though, not responding and waiting for him to continue.

Carter scrunched up his face, noticing that I wasn’t going to back down from waiting for him to keep talking. “Alright, put it this way. In the documents there are stories about things that I’ve seen. True stories. Or at least, they were true most of the time.”

I narrowed my eyes at him, having a hard time following what he was saying.

“God.” Carter groaned. “When I was sleeping, I would see things and then I typed them up.”

“So, it’s a dream journal.”

Carter waivered, not sure that was the right term for it. “Not really.”

“How am I supposed to do this for you if I don’t understand what I’m doing.”

“Look, just go home. Get my computer and find the files. Read them.”

“You want me to read your dream journal?” I asked. I could tell that my lack of understanding was frustrating for him. It was weird though because Carter hardly ever was frustrated, with me especially.

Carter pinched the bridge of his nose. “It’s not a dream journal.” He said, quickly.

“Then what is it?”

“I can’t tell you.”

I scoffed. “Can’t or won’t?” I questioned, turning in the bench to face my body to him. “You know exactly what these ‘entries’ are and yet you won’t tell me. You’re not doing a very good job and convincing me to do this. Even if you do believe this will help me, I can’t if I’m confused as to why.” I stared at Carter as he stared at me. I could feel my shoulders lift up and down as I breathed heavily in my aggravation.

Finally, Carter relented. “I don’t want to tell you what they are because you won’t believe me.” He saw me go to argue and stopped me. “I know you won’t because you still don’t believe that we’re talking right now.”

I furrowed my brow. I had to admit that he was right, even if it was still the smallest part of me that had doubts about him being in front of me. “Alright. I’ll check it out. I just really hope that your journal won’t tell me you’re a vampire or something. I’ve watched enough Vampire Diaries to know that doesn’t bode well for anyone.”

Carter laughed, but didn’t respond.

That made me nervous. I narrowed my eyes, quickly turning to look at him. “You’re not a vampire, right?”

“No.” Carter shook his head. “I’m not a vampire.”

I let out a relieved breath. “Good. One more question, though, and I’ll stop bugging you.”

“You’re not bugging me June-Bug.” Carter insisted. “I love havin’ you around.”

“Okay, still.” I told him, not totally believing it. “This isn’t some unfinished business ploy, right? I mean, I’m not gonna be telling some girl how you’ll always love her or burying any bodies?”

“No.” He looked down at his lap. “It’s shouldn’t be a surprise that I kept a lot of secrets. I shouldn’t have. I should have told you, but I couldn’t. Now, I need to because I want you to know.”

I looked at him. I could tell, without a doubt, that my brother was nervous. This was eating away at him. I didn’t know if it was because of the journal itself or what he had to say in it.

I couldn’t even begin to think about what it could be. Did he have a secret kid? Did he dream about the future? Or even the past? Did he dream in cartoon? Was it some kind of crazy literotica story he’d been keeping to? As crazy as the ideas that came to mind were, I didn’t know what to expect from Carter. I let out a breath. “Well I already told you that I’d check it out.” I told him. “Keeping it from Mom, though, that will be a challenge.”

“You’ll have to. You can’t tell anyone.”

“Not sure that I’ll want to anyway.” I admitted. “Whatever you’re trying to tell me sounds incredibly farfetched.”
Carter slapped his palms to his knees. “Let’s not talk about it anymore. How’s school?”

“Do you really wanna know?” I asked him, realizing that that was a long train he’d be jumping on.

“Of course.” Carter said, turning his head to smile at me.

I laughed at him. Then I told him everything. I told him about Lydia and how we were getting along. I told him about how difficult school was and the new friends I was making. Isaac and Scott’s helpfulness in my science class. I told him about Stiles and how he’d offered to drive me to school. I talked to him until it looked like he’d had enough. After, I sent him a quick goodbye, secretly wishing I could hug him.

The walk home was more nerve wracking than the walk to the cemetery. All I could think about was what could be on Carter’s computer. The second I got home, I didn’t hesitate. I went straight up the stairs to Carter’s room and pulled out his laptop case. I sat down on his bed, staring at the bag, trying to psyche myself up to opening it.

I let out a long, hard breath and unzipped the bag, opening the computer. As the computer booted up, I waited. I stared. I went through all the options to what was on the machine over and over again. Just as the computer turned on, I saw my mother appear at the door.

Mom raised her hands. “What are you doing with Carter’s computer?” She signed.

I tried incredibly hard not to roll my eyes and looked to her. “I wanted to see if he left some profound secret book that he’d been working on.”

Mom didn’t look convinced as her eyes narrowed in my direction.

Of course, she wouldn’t believe me. “It’s the only thing that makes sense. He was always so attached to this thing.”

Mom took a couple steps into the room. “You know I’m not at all happy about this.” She shared, looking around the room for a moment. “But your father said that it should help you.”

“It is.” I insisted. “Everything’s moved just so quickly since he died. This is one thing I have.”

“I still don’t understand.” Mom signed. “You need to move on. You need to pack all this up and start over. It’s one of the reasons why I thought it best to move back to Beacon Hills.”

I shook my head at her. “Could you just go, please?” I asked her. “I don’t want to fight. I had a really good day and I don’t want any of this to ruin it.”

“Maybe you need to talk to someone.”

I laughed at her. I grabbed the computer, closing it and holding it to my chest. Walking right passed my mother, I went to my own room, slammed the door and locked it. I didn’t need any of that. I didn’t need her to tell me everything that I didn’t want to hear. There wasn’t anything wrong with me. I missed my brother. Even though I saw him twenty minutes ago at Beacon Hills Cemetery.

Oi. Maybe I did need to talk to someone.

I opened the computer once more and laughed at the background picture. It was of him and me on my birthday, just seven months before he died. I stood behind him, hugging him around his neck as he took the selfie himself. I smiled at it, wishing I could go back for just a couple minutes.

To get back on task, I shook my head. I opened up way too many folders until I found it. The folder was buried deep in other folders. Carter probably hoped that no one would ever find it if they were just using the computer to check their facebook page.

I took a deep breath and hovered the cursor over the first document. It was dated his eighteenth birthday six years ago, a little after we’d moved across the country. “Now or never.” I whispered to myself. I double-clicked the icon and a window popped up. It wasn’t the document though. It was a box asking for a password.

I pushed my brows together and clicked on a different file. Still, the same thing happened. I did the same to a few more files but they all popped up with the same query. I dropped my shoulders.

How could he have given me this job to do and not given me the damn password? I hoped he didn’t expect me to figure this password out. I was definitely no detective. I paused, thinking of another idea. I got out of bed and gathered my backpack, digging through it to find the piece of paper that had Stiles’ phone number on it. After struggling to find it, I emptied the contents of the bag onto my bed, finding the paper had been crumpled up at the bottom.

I held up the paper in victory and pulled out my phone, texting Stiles to ask if he would pick me up for school tomorrow. If I couldn’t figure out a way to get into the computer, maybe he could.