Chapter 107 – The Silver Key – Silver Brooks

As I expected, Casper was all too excited to hear my story. She was sitting on the edge of the bed next to me, practically leaning against me with anticipation. Her bright green eyes were radiating energy. Part of me was worried that she was taking my story in stride, accepting it as an exciting fiction that I had created. She’d be happy to talk to me about it all the same, but she had the tendency to never take anything too seriously. In a lot of people that would be an annoying trait, but in Casper it was usually a blessing. Her chill attitude and easygoing lifestyle made me glad that she lived close by.

One might even say that she was too easygoing. Like me, she struggled with her grades in the past. My reasons for flunking out of my original school were… complicated. For Casper though, she just didn’t care about school altogether. She wasn’t stupid or lazy. She just lacked interest in anything school related. Her plans for the future were a big question mark, even more so than my own. No matter where she ended up working in the future I was sure she’d find a way to be happy with it. In some ways I felt like I didn’t need to worry about her as much as I did. In other ways, I was worried that we’d go our separate ways after high school.

She was the first friend I made when I moved to this town, back when she still went by the name Brittney. Our friendship didn’t happen by mere chance either. The moment she saw Addison and I helping our parents unload our things into our new house she came over to introduce herself. My mother was surprised to see that we immediately made a new friend. Not only that, but she volunteered to help me bring my boxes into my room and stayed over all night to talk to me and my sister. Although she didn’t realize it, her behavior that day made us feel a lot less depressed about moving away from all our old friends and neighbors.

After I finished explaining everything that happened the night before, Casper put her arms around me.

“You should’ve taken me with you!” She complained playfully, “If I were there then I would’ve marched right up to Officer Morelli, police officer or not.”

I laughed and pushed her off of me.

“Then it’s good that you didn’t come with us. Besides, weren’t you busy with something yesterday?”

“My parents made me attend some weird church thing with their friends. They made me keep my phone at home so I was bored out of my mind. I got back sooner than I expected to, but I didn’t find out you girls were going to a concert until it was too late.”

“It was Brianna’s idea.” I added. “Are you sure you want to spend some close quality time with her?”

Casper recoiled upon hearing that, but shrugged her shoulders like it didn’t matter.

“We get along well enough. It wouldn’t have been a big deal.”

“So you say…” I said.

Brianna and Casper had a somewhat awkward and short-lived relationship. While such relationships were usually taboo in our group, it was so brief that it never incurred any sort of consequence. I didn’t know the full details of it but it apparently didn’t turn out well. Afterwards, Brianna openly talked about how bad of a lover Casper was. Casper talked about how needy Brianna was outside the public eye. Since then the two have had a questionable relationship. I knew they still cared deeply for one another, maybe more so than either of them were willing to admit. It was just that the situation left Casper uncharacteristically jaded about relationships. As far as I knew, that was the most serious relationship she ever had.

“Anyways, what were you planning on doing today?” Casper asked.

“I’m supposed to be downstairs right now, mingling with my relatives.”

Casper waved her hand carelessly.

“Can that wait? Want to go to the park with me?”

“I do, actually, but there’s no way my mom will allow that.”

“She might if we ask her together!” Casper said.

That was true. My mother actually liked Casper. In fact, she was the only one of my friends that my mother actually approved of. Although over the years she had become somewhat motherly to Casper as well. For my mother that meant criticizing her on her careless behavior and encouraging her to take school more seriously. Casper always shrugged off the complaints though, to my mother’s annoyance. My mother often invited her to eat dinner with us and to use the front door instead of climbing up to my window. Casper only came through the window because she was normally in and out without any of my other family members noticing that she was ever here.

Today wasn’t going to be one of those days. My sister Addison came in and saw Casper sitting beside me on the bed.

“Cassie! You came over for Thanksgiving?” She asked.

She ran over to jump into Casper’s lap. Casper caught her with a grunt. My sister Addison went through a growth spurt over the past few years. She didn’t seem to fully appreciate just how close she was in size to Casper. She still regularly jumped on her or climbed on her back.

“Haha! Nah, I’m just here to hangout like usual.” Casper said.

My sister didn’t care for the name ‘Casper’ and called her ‘Cassie’ instead. Funnily enough my mother referred to her in the same way. My father was the only one stubborn enough to call her Brittney despite Casper insisting otherwise. He felt the whole nickname thing we had was childish and that we’d grow out of it. My mother didn’t care for the nicknames either, but was sympathetic about it when I explained why Casper chose that name. My father was unmoved.

My nickname came from Casper herself. There was one summer she went to stay with her grandmother. We couldn’t see each other for an entire three months but spoke to each other daily over the phone. The entire time she complained regularly about a part-time job she was working while she was there. I tried to console her by telling her some of my struggles with tutoring at that time. Despite the long-distance nature of that vacation, that summer permanently cemented us as best friends.

When she came back home she surprised me with something she bought using money she got from her part-time job. It was a silver necklace that had an old-fashioned skeleton key pendant. She bought it because she said it reminded her of me. Ever since then that necklace had become a core piece of my identity. It was why the mask I wore to school had a key-shaped image on it. It was why I chose ‘Silver’ as my nickname. Casper chose the silver necklace in the first place because it felt similar to my real name, Sylvie.

“Mom told me to come and get you.” Addison said. “She said that you’re taking too long and people have been asking about you.”

“I guess that’s to be expected. I lost track of time while talking to Casper.” I said.

“What were you two talking about?” Addison asked, looking between us.

“That’s none of your business!” I said.

“Your sister saw a dead body!” Casper added unhelpfully.

Addison’s eyes lit up.

“What?” She asked.

“Don’t tell her anything.” I said to Casper, “This little tattle-tell will repeat everything to my mother if it suits her fancy.”

“No I won’t!” Addison lied, “When have I ever told mother something that you didn’t want her to hear?”

I let out a fake laugh.

“I’d rather go downstairs instead of recalling every single instance of you ratting out all of my secrets to mom.” I said as I got up.

“Fine! I don’t care anyways!” Addison said as if that meant anything.

“I’ll come with you!” Casper said.

We all went downstairs together to greet my distant relatives. I was immediately pushed into a series of hugs with people I hadn’t seen in a year or more. Typically the only time all my family got together like this was on Thanksgiving, with exceptions for funerals and marriages. There were some occasions in which I’d go visit them, but that happened a lot less frequently these days. My family was the odd one out that lived distant from the others. Usually this sort of meet up would be taking place at my grandfather’s house on my mother’s side, but he passed away recently.

My mother explained who Casper was and my relatives greeted her warmly as well. Casper was more talkative with my relatives than I was. I felt like I didn’t have much to say to anyone. Maybe I was too alienated from them to have a real conversation beyond what I had been up to recently. Casper on the other hand was more natural at mingling with people than I was. It was so sad that she initially had problems fitting in at our school. She was a socially outgoing person.

My mother gave permission for me to go to the park with Casper. I got the feeling that it was because she didn’t want to see me after her recent frustrations. That was good enough for me. Casper and I left as soon as we could. Addison wanted to go with us but unfortunately for her my mother still wanted to show her off. That was one of the downsides of being the ‘loved’ child, I supposed.

Because of my ankle I didn’t feel like skateboarding to the park. Instead, Casper let me ride on the back pegs of her bike. I hoped that she would take that fact into consideration while I was riding. She didn’t. She went full speed, alternating between riding on the sidewalk and hopping off the curb to ride in the street. As much as I wanted to yell at her for being stupid I couldn’t help but to laugh as the wind whipped through my hair. She was far faster on a bike than I was on a skateboard. It was fun to ride with her, although somewhat scary.

She slowed down properly as we approached the park and I dismounted on the sidewalk. This was a place we came to often because it was so close to where we lived. This was the sort of small park that parents might drop their kids off at for a while only to pick them up later. On evenings like this there were usually more people here. It was only because today was a Holiday that we had this place to ourselves. Normally we hung out on the bench, but since no one else was here we could sit on the swing set.

“It feels like it’s been a while since we last did this...” Casper said as she pushed me on the swing.

“Oh come on, it hasn’t been that long.” I said, trying to recall the last time, “I think we played on the swings during summer break.”

“A lot has changed since then.”

“It has.” I said. “But nothing has changed between us.”

She suddenly stopped pushing me and held the chains of my swing in place.

“Hasn’t it...?” She asked.

I tilted my head back and looked up at her.

“What do you mean?”

She stared down at me for a moment and then smiled and looked away.

“Oh never mind…” She said as she started pushing me again. “Besides, I didn’t ask you to come out here just so that we could play on the swings.”

“Oh…?” I asked.

“I’m not the only one that had questions to ask you.” Casper said.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

She pointed out a car in the distance that looked like a taxi or rideshare service vehicle. Two girls were getting out of the car in the distance. The car drove off, leaving Sam and Naomi walking up towards the park from down the street.

“What are they doing here?” I asked.

“They wanted to ask you about Officer Morelli too.”