Lost Opportunities


Published by Cait Davidson at Smashwords
Copyright Cait Davidson, 2012


Thank you for downloading this free ebook. You are welcome to share it with your friends. This book may be reproduced, copied and distributed for non-commercial purposes, provided the book remains in its complete original form. If you enjoyed this book, please return to Smashwords.com to discover other works by this author. Thank you for your support.

I was walking and sweating; the sun shooting darts of light through the trees lining the road. As I walked I tried to guess the grade of the hill. I slid my hand in my right pocket feeling for my iPod and skipped ahead a couple songs looking for one in particular.  The iPod had been an early graduation gift from my father – he was always intrigued by the newest and latest technological toys and picked it out. I wondered briefly about he and I, if things were ok between us. 
A sound pulled me out of my thoughts, a rise then falling away that didn’t quite fit with the music. Were they … sirens? I took out the headphones and the sound was gone, but I had been distracted from a potentially painful train of thought, and thrust into a new one. Sirens in town meant that someone I knew was arrested, hurt, or drunk. In a town this size, everyone stops and thinks about where their loved ones were when they heard sirens. 
“Do you have anything?” 
“I only have what I need for tonight.”
“Can I buy it from you?” 
“Depends, you willin’ to pay $50 a pill?” 
“That’s crazy, you charge $25 for two –”
“Be quiet!”
The sobriety of the Saturday morning hurt my head more than the sun did my eyes. I loved the fresh air, the walk, and the moments away from the quiet disappointment of my father. Even with those few moments away, I wished I could be smoking while I walked. As it was, I could feel my father’s hot breath on the back of my neck reminding me to behave. 
I had been caught drinking. My younger brother had smelled it on me when I came back from a “sleepover” at a friend’s place. I would have been able to convince my father that he was just being nasty if I hadn’t been hungover and if I hadn’t had half a pint of Schnapps in my purse. Since then, dad had been watching me – being careful to notice what was in my purse or what my breath smelled like when I got home. He’d even started giving me a hard time for the gum I chewed almost constantly, thinking I was hiding something. 
I watched where I stepped, the road was filled with potholes. I’d started to regret not bringing a water bottle with me, and was looking forward to the spring in front of the Wry’s. The sun wasn’t often this unforgiving in May as the nearby ocean was a tempering force on our weather. 
“I’ll give you $40 for two… and just tonight.”
“No. Supply and demand. I don’t have the supply you demand, and I need what I got for me tonight.” 
 “I thought you had a source.”
“Sources run out.” He turned to go into the class, as he did he fished out a pill and popped one, winking at me.
I stumbled and lost my fight with gravity. The fact that my brother ratted me out had me angry, and I’d started walking faster and gotten lost in my thoughts. Picking myself up, I looked at my hands. There was gravel embedded in my palms that hadn’t come out – I picked out the  little rocks as I walked. Most of them hadn’t broken the skin, but were just stuck in their cozy little indents. Thinking that the one near my wrist was just that, I flicked it out with my fingernail, and gasped in surprise at the pain. 
A sliver of dirty glass. I carefully pinched it with both fingernails and pulled straight back. It hurt and a tiny stream of blood followed. Not a lot, but enough that as I ignored it, blood dribbled down my hand, leaving a tiny trail on the ground. I rinsed the hand carefully under the ice cold spring water that was runoff from the Wry’s well. Our ocean was only a few miles away, the ground was rich in water, so much that some people had to figure out what to do to keep it from turning homes into swimming pools. 
Between the dykes built to turn a tiny settlement into a farming town, the man-made lake, and the ocean, the community was constantly forced to work around its wet friend. Far too many times when everyone thought that it was under control, storms had turned roads into rivers, destroying businesses and homes. The ocean had once been their livelihood, with shipping being the main source of industry. The threat of property damage due to the ocean encroaching was worth the financial gain. 
But even after the industry left, the ocean conspired against them. The tide came in with the tail end of a hurricane and the highest tides in the world turned a sleepy little town into Venice.
He was talking to his friends, I hated approaching him for this when he was with them. I took a breath, and walked up. “Craig?”
“C’mon kid, outside.” He was walking a quarter between his fingers and walked me out of the classroom and into the hallway. Lockers lined it, and he glanced around, checking to make sure there were no teachers. 
“Do you have anything?” He shook his head, I tried again, “You’re sure? Nothing?” He rolled his eyes and fished a bag out of his pocket. Four pills were inside – I recognized them as speed. I told myself it wasn’t as bad as what my friends were doing – it was a prescription, legal if you had a script.
“I only have what I need for tonight.” He waved the bag and tucked it back into his pocket. He started flipping the coin, up and down. I watched it for a moment, wanting to beg him to share. He didn’t need to know how bad I wanted this. 
“Can I buy it?” 
Drinking from the spring, I had my headphones off and tucked into my hoodie’s collar. I gasped at the wintry water as it dripped down my face and neck. I stood up. Wiping my face on my sleeve, I saw lights flashing ahead. Climbing out of the hole the spring had dug itself, I walked ahead and around the bend to get a clearer look. Two cop cars fifty feet ahead of me by Silver Lake sat with an ambulance and a crane. I checked the time: 11:35 am. They looked like they had been there for a while. The crane was trying to pull a car out of the lake. 
I was still walking forward, not paying attention to where I was going, just toward the bizarre scene. It took time for it to register why it seemed so strange.
The car was Craig’s. 
Flip. Catch.
“Depends. You willin’ to pay $50 a pill?” 
Flip. Catch. I watched his hands, he was good at this. Knowing Craig, dexamphetamine was a soft hit for him, and he played with the quarters when he was tweaking.
“That’s crazy, you charge $25 for two –” I raised my voice a bit, I needed something my parents didn’t know about. Flip. Catch. 
“Be quiet!” Flip. Catch. 
The paramedics wrestled with a black bag as the crane pulled the car up and out. Water ran from its sides. While the crane set the car down, I realized why it looked so odd – the back window had been smashed out. He must have gotten out. He had to have. 
I wondered if anyone else was inside. What was the bag for? Why was the ambulance still there? I stood there, until one of the cops saw me, frowned and walked toward me. 
“You can’t be here.”
“What happened?” 
“Car accident.” I stared at him, not seeing him, just the black bag I couldn’t explain. “Move on Becks, you know I can’t tell you much more than that.”
“Is everyone ok?” 
“Do you have anything?” 
“Craig was alone in the car.”
“Did he get out?” 
“I only have what I need for tonight.”
“No.” I stared at Ken, who was still talking. Craig tried to kick out the back window… why didn’t he get out the back window? The words took time to register, “…but he got caught on the seatbelt. He drowned.” More staring, Ken watched me just stare, blankly. “You ok?”
“I … yea, I didn’t know him all that well.”
“No? I know you’ve all got classes together, but he ran with a rough crowd.”
“I only have what I need for tonight.”
“Ya. I guess he did.”
“We think he didn’t get out because he was drunk. We’ll probably never know.” 
“I only have what I need for tonight.”

###

About the Author:
Cait Davidson grew up in a small town in New Brunswick, with a lust for the written word. After being taught to read and write by her parents, she aspired to become an author at a young age. Currently attending Ryerson University’s school of journalism, she plans to backpack through South Asia upon graduation.
Connect with me online:
Twitter: cedavidson
caitdavidson.blogspot.com