Chapter 44: Family Story - 018
And here ends the story of me and AJ's battle with Ray Starcrawler.
The shady drug dealer, and cult leader.
A lot of good came out of it, for almost everyone involved, just as Tayla said.
AJ and her brother made up and worked things out. Both of them swore to each other to stay away from drugs, any illegal drugs at least, for good.
Kiss Duskdancer seems to have dealt with Ray too. According to AJ, he has indeed disappeared, without a trace. What ended up happening to him is something that I'd rather not think about.
Personally, I realised that I was not the hero I was pretending to be. Just a kid. But that's fine. As long as I keep doing what I want to be doing, then it doesn't matter if I'm just a fake, or if I'm a hypocrite.
I think Tayla even, probably got something out of it. Ray, the Order's leader in Christchurch, being a drug dealer had come as a shock to her. Perhaps it's made Tayla look back on her time with the Order in a different light.
The two of us, me and Tayla that is, enjoyed the rest of our Christmas Eve date after I'd explained the previous night's events to her. I bought Tayla a present since I didn't know what to get her, and I'd ended up delaying it until it was way too late. Even though she knew what it was because I bought it with her, she refused to take it.
'Give it to me tomorrow,' she'd said.
I'd forgotten with everything that had happened, but Devon, her father, had invited me to spend Christmas with them. I tried to get out of it, but Tayla refused to have any of it.
'If you don't come, I'll show up at your house, sedate you, and drag you all the way to mine.'
!
How scary!
My girlfriend is terrifying!
I remember her father saying something similar too, when I had dinner with them earlier in the week. It seems that unless I wanted to be the unfortunate protagonist of a horror film, I didn't have any choice but to go over there on Christmas Day.
I arrived over there just after midday, in time for lunch. I never used to like meals at Christmas. My old family, the entire extended lot of them, were like vultures, trying to influence control over me, in the hopes that it might please my father. None of them cared about me at all, they just hoped my father would favour them if they were nice to me.
It was nothing like that, however, alleviating my fear of Christmas meals. Tayla's parents didn't get me presents and I didn't get them any either. We'd only met less than a week ago after all. Well, I had met her mother previously, but not properly.
Tayla got me two presents.
Her first present was an old school CD player. They don't make CDs for any music released in the last ten or fifteen years, but there's still a lot of older stuff that I like listening to. Or did, since I haven't had the chance too often in the past four months.
Tayla's second present was more backhanded than anything else. A voucher for a rather trendy hair place. Her way of telling me that my roots had grown out way too far. Passive aggressively saying that I need to either cut my hair or redo the bleach. Though it's certainly fair enough that she would say so. If I had the money, I would've redone the dye a while ago.
My present to Tayla, that she'd refused to accept the day before even though I bought it with her, was a large stuffed bear. I know it's probably not what you might usually give a teenage girl, but you have to remember my limitations. I don't have the money to buy her jewellery or anything like that. Even something like an expensive well-designed shirt, would put me back months from buying a phone. Something I've been saving for months for by now.
The best present of all (well the third best; obviously Tayla's were better), however, was simply something that Devon said to me. It still makes me feel warm and fuzzy thinking back on it now. Though it was just a few simple words.
'You're part of our family now.'
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