Page 10 of Indigo Sky

Nate wandered through the back door and dropped onto the lounge chair beside mine. He looked tired and older than fifteen, and he dug his pack of cigarettes and lighter from the pocket of his board shorts.

"Want one?" he asked, plucking one from the pack and putting it between his lips.

I threw a glance over my shoulder toward the house, then glared at him incredulously. "Are you insane? Mom would kill us both."

It was a habit I was ashamed to say we'd picked up a couple of months before, toward the end of the school year, and it was one I hated to admit I liked. It eased my anxiety, unraveled my nerves, and I thought maybe it helped Nate to be less angry all the damn time. But Mom and Dad didn't know about it, and I knew it'd break their hearts to know that all theirsmoking is badlectures had done nothing.

"Your parents aren't even home, stupid." He flicked the lighter and put the flame to the cigarette hanging from his mouth. "So, you want one?"

"They're gonna smell it," I hissed through gritted teeth.

"Oh my God," he groaned with aggravation and stood from the chair. "Then, we'll smoke over there, okay? Jesus freakin' Christ."

He headed toward the other side of the pool, farther from the back door, where the lawn was open and the sky was clear. I ran the quick calculations through my head. Mom and Dad had gone out to dinner and a movie about twenty minutes ago. They'd be out for another three hours, maybe four, depending on the length of the movie. That was more than enough time for the air to clear and plenty of time for me to shower and brush my teeth. Since I wasn’t wearing any fabric for the scent to cling to, they'd have no reason to be suspicious.

Seemed good enough to me. So, I followed him over, and he held the pack out to me, a satisfied smile on his lips. I took out a cigarette, put the end in my mouth, and waited for him to light it up.

"What do you wanna do tonight?" he asked, a plume of smoke billowing around his mouth as he spoke.

I shrugged as I inhaled, then held the cigarette between two fingers to exhale. "I told my mom I'd stay here and do a couple of loads of laundry, so I can't, like, go out or anything."

"Yeah, no duh, but do you wanna watch a movie or something?"

"Oh, right, sure," I said, nodding. "We could—"

My voice was cut off by something flying past my blind side, nearly crashing into me. With a gasp and a jump, I got out of the line of fire as a bird flew chaotically through the yard and landed in a heap of erratically flapping wings.

"Holy shit." I caught my breath as the thing flopped around on the ground, just feet from the pool. It was going to fall in, and then it would drown. I wasn't sure I could stomach that. "We gotta help it."

Nate hadn't reacted. He hadn't moved. He stood there, casually smoking and blowing ribbons into the air. "Why?"

I slid my gaze from the injured bird to him. "Look at it," I said. "It's hurt, and it's gonna fall into the pool, and—"

"It's gonna die anyway," he muttered, shrugging.

I lowered my brows at him, sufficiently bothered and disturbed by his couldn't-care-less demeanor. I didn't care if the thing had minutes left to live or not. I wasn't going to just watch it drown in my parents' pool. I wasn't apsychopath.

With the cigarette held tightly between my lips, I carefully approached the panicked bird, hands outstretched, ready to grasp it and find a safer, more comfortable place for it to either mend or die. It didn't see me coming, too frenzied to care, and I struggled to find the right moment to grab its wings and body, not wanting to scare it—or worse, injure it even more.

"Watch out," Nate said, coming up from behind me. "Let me do it."

He had come to his senses, and I breathed out a sigh of relief. I could've maybe handled it well enough, if I’d been alone and had no choice, but I was at a disadvantage, and sometimes, it hindered the speed of my reaction. So, I slowly stood up, retreating back a step or two as I nodded.

Then, Nate swiftly crouched and brought a brick down on the bird's head.

A strangled cry escaped my lips, and the cigarette tumbled out onto the bricks bordering the pool. "What did you do?!" I cried out, my voice breaking, my hands grasping at my chest and throat and hair. "Oh my God, Nate! What did youdo?!”

He left it there as he stood and turned toward me. I couldn't look at him. My eye was trained on the brick, lying on top of the bird’s flattened head. It's lifeless body laid was now nothing but shattered bones and bloodied wings. The pizza I'd eaten earlier churned in my stomach, and I doubled over, heaving and vomiting all over the cigarette I'd forgotten to put out.

"It was already dead," Nate reasoned calmly as I held my knees, trying to regain control over my contracting guts. "I helped it. I put it out of its misery."

"You …" I swallowed another flood of saliva that had filled my slack mouth. "Youkilledit."

"It was suffering," he pressed. His voice was so gentle and soothing, like he was speaking to a baby. "And what I just did was a lot nicer than letting it drown or have a heart attack. 'Cause that's what would've happened, Rev. It was freaking out, and it would've died from that alone. So, Ihelpedit."

He kept saying that, but all I kept thinking was,He chose to take something's life.

Slowly, I stood and wiped the back of my hand over my mouth. Nate was staring at me, almost to gauge my reaction. I finally looked at him, and for some reason, I was surprised to find he looked the same. He was still Nate, my best friend since I had been eight. He didn't look like a guy who'd just killed a helpless bird. And although I didn’t know why, that made me feel a little better.

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