Burn in Water, Drown in Fire

Burn in Water, Drown in Fire ~41~ The Cure

~41~ The Cure

(Angel’s POV)

How could this be true? Zac beating up Joey as his last act in this town. It was ridiculous!

“You’ve reached the voicemail of…Zac Tyler—beep!”

“Zac, I don’t care where you are, even if you’re on a plane, but tell me why the h3ll you beat up Joey!” I recorded and then hung up. Why would you go six months without talking to someone and then jump them all of a sudden? And Brian was helping…

“Hello?” he laughed as if he was in the middle of something when I called him—him being Brian—the next day.

“Are you home?” I asked immediately with no greeting.

“Well…Zac’s home,” he answered. How is it that he’s still living there when Zac moved out? “Why what’s up?”

“Can I come over?” I asked.

“Sure thing,” he allowed. I hung up and then walked over.

“Okay…what’s so important?” he joked when I got there so fast and we sat on the steps to Zac’s house.

“Joey got beat up yesterday. Do you know anything about it?” I’d allow him to tell the truth first. I wasn’t going to make any accusations.

“Yeah I do,” he said honestly as his playful smirk dropped off his face. “Yesterday he and Zac got in a fight because Joey came over here and tried to defend you, but Zac really didn’t want to fight for once—but he did and then walked away.”

Bullsh!t. I was told bullsh!t.

“Aren’t you going to say anything?” he asked when I was silent for a while.

“I’m just trying to comprehend why he would lie to me like that,” I muttered.

“Who?” he asked with narrowed eyes.

“J-Joey,” I answered. With that his eyes softened because I had no doubt that he thought I thought it was ac who was the one telling lies. I trusted Zac. Even though I haven’t talked to him, I know him well enough that he was past this whole hurting people thing.

“Do you need me to straighten him out?” Brian said, starting to stretch and crack his knuckles like some threatening person. I stood up from the stairs.

“Yeah, sure,” I laughed with disbelief. I stood there, looking around the house thinking that just yesterday, Zac was standing there…“Well, I’m gonna go ahead and go.”

“You miss him already?” Brian asked when I started to walk away. I turned to him, thinking that it was pretty awkward to hear my ex boyfriend asking me this.

“Yeah,” I answered.

“Me too,” he sighed then leaned back onto the higher steps. “There’s no one but Paige and Vanessa to bug now.”

“Mmh…oh the horror,” I said, monotone. I had it way worse than him.

“Have you talked to him?” he asked, narrowing his eyes at me from the bright sun that was cast from behind me.

“No,” I replied. “Wait. Have you?”

He immediately started to shake his head.  Yeah right. He held up his hands defensively.

“Trust me, I haven’t,” he said. “I don’t even know where he’s going.

“How do you not know?” I asked, incredulously. “You live with him.”

“All I know is that he’s going to New York,” he said.

“New York?” I asked. He nodded.

What does Zac Tyler possibly have in New York?

(Devin’s POV)

“I think this will be good for you,” I told Zac over the phone—that he wasn’t supposed to even have access to.

“Thanks,” he said. “If anything happens…it’ll happen.”

“I doubt it,” I shrugged and felt someone’s presence behind me. Well duh, I was at the convention center about to graduate. Everyone was here. I started to hear static on his side of the phone.

“Sh!t,” he commented.

“What? Do you have to go?”

“Yes and no,” he said. “I stole this phone and it’s acting up.”

“I’ll take that as a yes,” I figured.

“Could—you—go—mean—sh!t—tell—said—her—” Tell Angel something?

“I can’t understand you,” I said, frowning. The static stopped. I assumed he got in trouble or something.

“Tell Angel to answer my call,” he rushed as clear as day.

“When will you—”

“Tyler!” a voice yelled and then he hung up. Great.

“Devin,” someone said, touching my back. I turned around to see my counselor, trying to ready me to go on the stage first as Valedictorian. This is it. Graduation and then a valedictorian speech that would go down in history.

***

“And like many of my friends I’ve made here and there, I will continue to strive,” I started to conclude. “When the principal asked me which college I would be going to and what I would make up my career, I told him that I’d be attending Harvard medical school as I assist JDFR, the Researching Organization for Juvenile Diabetes. He asked why and I didn’t give him an answer. Well, Mr. Jared, I’ll be assisting them as a job position because I, Devin Hallow, discovered a cure for diabetes.”