Failing Upward Ch. 18

"Hurry up," she said. "I'd like to stop at Cherry Point before we go."

Then Sid and I went up to the loft and dug through the dresser, scrounging the drawers and packing.

I stopped, looking at Sid all hunched over trying to get another pair of jeans into his suitcase.

"I was thinking about what Alan said earlier," I said, "about our counterparts making up last night. We consummated our relationship in another dimension again? That's cool."

"God, Wes... You're so daft sometimes... They already had. How do you think they switched with us to begin with?"

Sid lifted up the mattress and pointed. I guess they came prepared. I wasn't sure whose lube was under the the mattress, but I put it in my case since I had room.

I tucked a dirty pair of boxers inside my backpack. Sid's suitcase was brimming with clothes. I didn't have that problem. I packed light. A few t-shirts, holey jeans, cut-offs, swim trunks and that pair of boxers. I stared inside it.

"What's wrong?" Sid asked. Then he realized. "It's your sister, isn't it. The last time we were here..."

"Yeah. It's like losing her all over again. I don't want to lose us too."

"Ah, hell Wes, you don't have to worry about that-- I'm in this forever with you. I mean it. Forever."

I could hear the wheels turning in Sid's head the rest of the time we packed. Thinking about mortality, immortality and Blake's poem. I was too. Not as hard as Sid of course. I was also thinking about the lube and how good his cock would feel working my ass. Most all I just needed him to comfort me.

"Sid?"

"Yeah?"

"Think we'd have time, to you know, mess around?"

He searched the floor, scanning under the bed for anything we might have missed.

"No Wes, I don't think we have time to 'mess around'-- I think they're waiting for us to get downstairs." Sid sat on top his suitcase to get it latched.

"Ok, geeze, just asking..."

"Let's go-- we need to get home. We've got to figure that message out."

I slung my bag over my shoulder. Sid grabbed his suitcase and pulled the trapdoor open. I looked back at the bed.

"Where is home, exactly?" I asked.

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Most of the ride back was wholly uneventful. Even the stop at Cherry Point was flat. I spent most of my time running through my brain what Peter Deal and Angela had told us while shoving my face with sticky cherry strudel. And what was the answer to the Blake's poem?

I knew we had big problems-- I felt like an ant stuck to the bottom of a shoe. I felt helpless and hopeless. Not even strudel mania worked.

Mostly I thought about Karen. I scratched my chest where my heart should be, but I didn't feel happy. We were back. I should feel something more than this. Karen wasn't here. No sister. My chest felt like it was being pressed with granite slabs.

I sniffed and wiped my nose with the back of my hand.

Then it all became too much. Instead, I mindlessly watched cars whiz by for the last twenty miles while listening to oldies on the radio and licking my fingers clean.

The whole while Sid sat next to me. Sid was somewhere else. Thinking.

I rolled the window down a crack as we came into town. I missed the smell of the lake.

"Alan?" Sid said as he scrunched closer to me. "I need to stop at the university library before we head back home."

"Ok," Alan said.

Home. There was that word again.

Sid slid down the seat and rested his head on my shoulder. He rested his hand on my knee and gave it a gentle squeeze. I laid my head on his and closed my eyes. I felt that old tug on my heart. I wasn't a tin man after all. My mother always told me that home is where you make it. I knew now she was right.

"You going to check how the computer lab is doing?" I asked.

"Yeah, and I want to check out a book..."

I raised my eyebrow and burrowed into his neck.

"...a book of poetry. Blake's poetry," he said.

"Hmm. Should have thought of that before."

"We've been kind of busy..."

I must have dozed because I woke to sound of gravel from the library driveway crunching under the tires.

I blew on Sid's cheek and the corner of his mouth curled up. I pushed my back into the seat.

"Wait here," Sid yawned as he opened the door. "I won't be long."

I heard Lynn mumbling to Alan in the front seat. Then the words, "Work, work, work."

"What did you say?" I asked.

"That's all Sid has been doing lately," Lynn complained. "Work, work, work."

"What do you mean?" I asked.

Lynn turned around in her seat. "You know," she looked at me flustered. "We thought taking you both to the cottage would get his mind off this obsession with finding out the secret, but I see we just postponed it."

"Well, at least they got that lovin' feeling back," Alan cracked.

"Shut up," Lynn said, slapping Alan's arm.

"Why do you call it an obsession?" I asked.

"Well, that's what you called it-- what the hell Wes?"

Shit. He looked at me like I was an alien.

"Um, I guess sleeping on the beach did it to me," I said. Well, it was the truth. "I understand now why Sid is so preoccupied by this. I mean this could solve our problem with Shackleton."

My eye began to twitch. Fuck, fuck, fuck. Always does that when I'm stressed. Or lie.

"Are you kidding? Solve it? More like compound it-- at least that's what you said before to him," Alan said. "What happened last night anyway? Before you said that this wasn't something Sid should do. You made all those apocalyptic references. What was it you called it? 'The end of forever' or some horse shit like that. Now you act like this is the solution. Which is it?"

"I don't know."

Twitch. Twitch. Twitch.

I looked out up into the third floor library windows. What was the end of forever?

Sid came out with two books in his hand, and my eye was still twitching.