Cinnamon and Salt

Copyright: C.j. Ethington 2015.
All rights reserved.

Content is subject to change before final publication.

Chapter 1

New Year’s Eve:  

A night for celebrations, new beginnings and more alcohol than one can imagine.  

I stand on the frozen lawn outside of a large, white house. The sounds of muffled music, voices and laughter waft past me. I try to convince myself that the reason I haven’t gone in yet is because I’m just not a people person, but I’m lying and I know it. 

It’s too cold to be standing out here. I pull my corduroy jacket tighter around my chest. The last two fingers on my right hand have already gone numb. Frostbite is on its way.  

Tonight will be the night. I will finally do this, I tell myself in the worst mental pep talk ever. Not even I believe me. Not after the last forty times I’ve chickened out.

The door swings open as I quietly mount the steps. Spencer Adams stumbles out the door and folds over the railing in a regurgitating heap. I’ve never been a member of the Spencer Adams Fan Club; however, I have been a little more sympathetic to the inebriated ever since I had a similar experience at the pool last year.  

“Are you alright?” I ask, only mildly concerned.  

He crumples to his knees before passing out on the porch floor. An inaudible groan writhes out of his throat before his eyes flutter shut.  

Hunkering down on my heels, I hoist him up using the infamous forearms-under-the-armpits maneuver I’ve had to learn over the years. I was bound to learn something from hanging out with drunken people who are drawn like magnets to the kitchen floor whenever they feel like puking or passing out. Being that I am usually the sober one, I’m also the one who usually has to move them. 

So why do I still do it, you ask?

Got me.

Using my elbow, I pound on the door and count how many seconds it takes before someone comes to let us in. Spencer has at least fifty pounds on me and with each one, his weight seems to double. My arms ache like my bones are bending backwards.  

Finally someone opens the door.  

Not anyone helpful, but someone nonetheless.  

“Can you… um, move out of the way, or help, or something?” I grunt at Melinda Carter, or as I like to think of her, Melin-Duh. Her expression is two shades less interesting than her normal blank expression as she slowly moves out of the doorway. If she were to move any slower, I might throw him at her. It’s not like I really expected her to help, but it would have been nice if she did something other than stand by and watch.  

Spencer makes oomph and umph sounds as I jostle his body back and forth, aiming him through the house. Halfway down the hall, I turn and push the door to Brady McGowan’s father’s study open. I don’t bother to see how many couples are tucked into the corners of the room. Why should I be considerate? These are his friends, not mine. As far as I’m concerned, they should be the ones to deal with him.  

Since the couch is occupied, I lower him to the middle of the floor. Before I leave, I turn his head to the side in case he pukes or something. If he were to asphyxiate, I would probably feel guilty as hell for leaving him there, which is exactly what I intend to do.  

A man I’ve never seen before sits on the couch watching me, his forefinger tapping against his knee. I wonder what he is doing in the designated make-out room all by himself, but decide I don’t want to know. The answer would probably just make me dry-heave. Just looking at him with his stone grey eyes and his pale blond hair makes my skin itch. And the way he stares back at me doesn’t make matters any better.  

“Can you keep an eye on him?” I ask. “He’ll probably pass out, but just in case.”  

He nods slowly, his gaze fastened to my face. It feels like he’s trying to connect me to some fuzzy memory, but can’t quite do it.  

Feeling awkward, I thank him and leave the room. I’ve done my part and in a latent gesture to be nice, I even shut the door behind me.  

I’ve been coming to this house for years now and still love it. It’s large, clean and best of all, parentless. Brady’s parents vacation a lot because they can afford it and when Brady turned thirteen, he suddenly became too much of a hassle to drag along, so he was allowed to stay home. Some people might think it a psychological cry for help that he started testing the waters of rebellion around the same time, but I call it opportunity. So far, he’s been able to get away with everything.  

I pass by the stairs and down the hallway that leads to the kitchen and entertainment room. I trail my finger along the wall just below Brady’s school pictures. I almost don’t recognize him as a kindergartner. He’s pudgy with freckles everywhere and soft auburn hair parted down the middle. I’ve seen the picture before, but it startles a laugh out of me anyway.  

I walk toward the sound of girls laughing and the relieved sigh of beer cans being plucked open. If I were to make a soundtrack of Brady’s life, this would be the introduction. 

“Nicky! Good to see ya,” Brady says. He waves a martini glass at me; gold flecks swirl in a thick, clear liquid. There’s a beer in his other hand. “Wanna drink?”  

“Yes, please,” I nearly beg, stripping off my jacket and tossing it onto the back of a chair. “What you got?”  

“Anything and everything. Name your poison.”  

Liquor store boxes line the counters and walls. In each one is a cardboard sectional that makes it possible to fit twelve bottles into one box without any breaking. Doing the math in my head, I realize that he probably has at least seventy-two bottles of liquor in the kitchen alone. Give or take whichever ones have been drained.  

“I see you’re cutting back on the alcohol, Brady,” I say, wryly, motioning around the kitchen. “How much did you spend on this thing anyway and who did you get to buy it?”  

“Don’t you worry about that, Kitten,” he replies. “Besides, the champagne is from dear Daddy’s personal stash. It’s an amazing batch and I doubt he’ll even know it’s gone.”  

Michael McGowan is as big a lush as they come.  

The kitchen is so crowded that I have to pull my arms close to avoid touching anyone by accident. Otherwise, I may get accused of trying to feel someone up. It happened once to Greg Tandy and turned into a huge debacle. Better to be safe than sorry.

“I’ll take whatever,” I say. Brady’s been a good buddy since junior high. I’m pretty sure I can trust him with whatever I might ingest.  

Brady winks at the girl beside him. Her bra is green with pink martini glasses patterned across the cups. I know this because her shirt is already missing. That is, if she ever had one. She giggles and fingers the collar of his shirt.  

Brady turns back to me. “Harder or softer than beer?” he asks.  

“Harder. But don’t knock me out. I’ll have to go home eventually.”  

“Or you could stay here. There’s a spare bedroom, you know,” Brady says, his grin so wide I can make out the sparkle of his toothpaste.

“Nah, I’ll pass, but thanks.”  

Martini Girl shoots me a sharp look. I lean forward and flip her hair behind her shoulder for her. “Do you know what a wasted effort is, darlin’?”  

She sticks her tongue out at me and stomps off.  

Her absence doesn’t even faze Brady, who is mixing cocktails like they are potions and he is a wizard.  

Moments later, I have a drink in my hand made by The Amazing Martini Master. I raise it in a toast to him and take a swig. It tastes of vodka, champagne, sprite and some sort of fruit juice. It actually isn’t that bad, just kind of tart.  

“Good, right?”  

I make a face and he laughs.  

“It gets better, I promise you. Just keep drinking.”   

I thank him and move toward the entertainment room with drink in hand. It’s stifling in here from all the natural heat being passed around. It’s not long before I realize that half the crowd doesn’t even know me. I know most of them. We’ve only attended the same schools for most of our lives, but they have no idea who I am.   

Except one person: Alex Berkley. 

He pushes his way through the crowd, patting someone on the back here, tossing out a knuckle bump there, and finally pointing in my direction to indicate that he’s seen me. I get a little thrill seeing that the drink in his hand is identical to mine. Stupid, I know.

Alex is the king of this crowd. Guys follow him like he is a snake charmer and girls beg to talk to him. It’s disgusting really.

Oh, and he’s also my best friend.

Alex bumps me with his elbow and says, “You’re late.”  

Heat floods my cheeks. I fidget with my hair to hide it. “Fashionably,” I reply.  

He laughs. “Sure. I was starting to worry that I’d have to hide the alcohol just so you could have some if you ever showed up.”  

I look toward the kitchen. It looks like a liquor store threw up in there, save for Brady dancing with another shirtless girl. “Sure you did.”  

Something to his right catches his eye. That’s why I hate these things. There’s so much going on. It’s like you can’t have an uninterrupted conversation with anyone.

“So whatcha think?” he asks, gesturing to the party with his glass.  

There are so many people here I can hardly breathe. If this were any other night, the cops would have already come and sent everyone home, but it isn’t. This is New Year’s Eve. As long as the drunks stay indoors and don’t bother the sober people, they can usually fly under the radar. Even the underage.  

I don’t fit in with this crowd. I never have. Like oil to water, I have floated among these people. While they were out drinking on weekends, I was home reading, or studying, or doing anything else I could come up with to avoid repeat embarrassments like the one last year. But here I am. I’d like to think I put up one hell of a fight when I was invited tonight, but in reality, I gave in to Alex like I always do.  

“It’s just…great,” I manage to say.  

“Don’t lie,” Alex says with a laugh. “I know you. You’d rather be home with Cynthia. Am I right?”  

Cynthia is my DV-R. Not many people know that I call her that.  

Unfortunately, he’s right. The whole walk over, I imagined what it would be like to sit in a dark room and watch episode after episode of Supernatural. It was a beautiful fantasy, albeit short-lived.

Rather than admit how lame I am, I change the subject. “So what’d I miss?”  

“Same shit as always.”  

I take a breath then down my drink in one gulp. I have to do this now and it requires a large reserve of alcohol-infused courage. And by god, I am going to do this. No matter how much it hurts. “Hey, Alex?” I say quietly, half hoping he won’t hear me.  

“What’s up, Nic?” 

It doesn’t bother me that he calls me Nic instead of a more feminine version of my name. If anything, it’s kind of comforting. That’s what he and Brady have called me since I was little.   

“Can we talk?”  

Alex glances at me sideways. When a girl says she wants to talk, it triggers a natural fight or flight response. Well, more flight than fight, but still. So I’m not surprised when he looks around with unabated panic clear in his eyes. “Good or bad?”  

I wish I could tell him it’s good – not bad at all – but I can’t.  

I slap him playfully on the arm. “You tell me.” 

“Hang on. I’ll get drinks first. The countdown is about to start.” He doesn’t wait for an answer before he turns and melts into the crowd.  

A fissure opens up in my chest. The warmth of the alcohol breathes out of it.

“He’ll be back. Just went to get champagne,” I say quietly to myself.

The gigantic television is on and tuned in to one of the fifteen stations that are airing the New Year’s celebration recorded live in New York City. Millions of people mill around, dance to music, and toast each other in Time Square. The ball sits at the ready. Big shiny numbers cling to the sphere in declaration of the next year. I contemplate all the new beginnings I will face in the year to come. Above all of them, senior year of high school scares me the most. They say it’s supposed to be one of the greatest years of my life; I have a feeling it will just bring more change. I’m allergic to change. It gives me hives.  

The ball is in motion. Soon, a chorus of drunken voices will intone the countdown like the numbers still make sense. With how drunk everyone is, it’s possible that a few of them will count out of sequence.  

My eyes dart around, trying to pick Alex out of the crowd. Stretching up on the balls of my feet, I find that almost everyone is taller than me. I can’t see him.  

An elbow bumps into my side. At first, I ignore it, thinking some inconsiderate person decided to walk through me instead of going around, which happens a lot at these shindigs, but then it happens again.  

“Got a problem?” I snap, wheeling on a stricken-looking Brady. I don’t look at him when I apologize. Where did Alex go? 

“You know, Kitten, maybe your one resolution this year should be to chill out. You’re so wound up these days,” Brady says. He never was one to waste his time on tact. “And drink more. Everyone should definitely drink more.”

“Sorry,” I say. “Have you seen Alex?” 

“Yeah. He told me to bring this to you,” Brady says, offering me a flute glass with pink champagne bubbling up the sides.  

I take it and breathe in the scent. It smells a little more girly than regular champagne, which is exactly why it’s my favorite: it’s different, unexpected. “Where did he go?” 

“Um. Jen grabbed him. I think they went that way.” He uses his head to gesture toward the front of the house where the bedrooms are.  

An ache forms in my stomach, slowly churning the alcohol into a dangerous mixture. I clutch the glass a little tighter and hope it doesn’t fall from my numb fingers.  

And the countdown begins.  

“Ten.”  

Brady wraps an arm around my shoulder. “This is it, Kitten. This is our year.”  

“Nine.”  

The alcohol is taking effect. The room spins. I rest my head against his shoulder.  

“Eight.”  

All I want to do is get the hell out of here. I want to go home, curl up in my flannel sheets, pull the blankets over my head… 

“Seven.” 

… and scream like I’ve never screamed before.  

“Six.” 

Then cry myself to sleep and stay in bed until someone makes me move. Likely my parents.  

“Five.”  

On Wednesday for school.  

“Four.”  

Where he’ll be. 

“Three.” 

“You’re a good friend, Brady,” I say through the hot lump constricting my throat. My eyes water. 

“Two.”  

“And don’t you forget it,” he says. 

“One.” 

“Happy New Year!” a hundred drunken voices yell. Guys high five each other and girls fall into inebriated kisses with their dates that would make a blind man blush.  

And I stand there, my head resting heavily against Brady’s shoulder, already feeling like a failure. He turns his head and kisses my hair. “Happy New Year, Nicky.”  

The champagne flute is all but forgotten in my hand. If I were to drink it right now, I would probably puke all over the girl in front of me, declaring my first embarrassing moment of the year.  

“I’m gonna head out,” I say quietly.    

He eyes me knowingly and gently tucks an errant lock of hair behind my ear. “Okay. Text me when you get home?”  

I nod, hand him the glass and slowly push my way toward the front of the house. The door to the McGowan’s study is open and all of the lights are on. Everyone is up and has congregated in the center of the room. At first, I shrug it off. Maybe the countdown was just that exciting. 

But then, between the feet of two people, I see something that makes my stomach turn. Lying motionless on the floor is a person. 

I claw at my throat, suddenly unable to breathe. 

Because the body lying so still, so lifeless, is Spencer.   

And I'm the one who left him there.