Life is Strange, page 10
The sound of Opal sighing brings me back to reality, and when I turn back to her, she is now gazing toward the window at the far end of the room. I follow it and notice just how big this property is. The lush, sprawling grass keeps going for what seems like all the way up the hill behind it. Of course, I can’t see all the way to the top. Far down the way, it turns into thick, verdant trees. But until then, it looks like a golf course.
Just the backyard.
Not the front.
Where people can see.
“Wow,” I marvel as I survey the property, which seems to have completely—suspiciously—escaped this drought, and then realize I’ve whispered it out loud.
Steph glances at me and then back at Opal, just as Opal sniffs, and I realize she’s crying.
There’s a brilliant blue aura over her head.
“Beautiful tree, isn’t it?”
I look back out the window and spot a huge magnolia tree along the edge of the yard, with huge green leaves.
But no white flowers.
I stare at it, strong and towering, the blue of Opal’s aura reflecting off the window in front of me. And then…
That’s not a reflection.
That’s the tree! Blue light wanders over the leaves, flickering like flames, red and purple dancing among them. I suppress the urge to gasp at its beauty. How… how is this happening? Trees can’t feel emotions… can they?
“Is that the magnolia?” I ask.
Opal looks like my words were a knife.
“What do you mean the magnolia?” she asks.
Oh shit, she’s right. I wouldn’t know there was a “the” in front of the magnolia unless I’d been here before. Or… I’d been poking around in her father’s memories.
“I-I…” I start. Opal’s eyes narrow in suspicion, and I realize I have to make some shit up. Quick. “I heard your father mention it.”
“He doesn’t talk about the magnolia,” she says, pushing herself up out of the chair and looming over the two of us like she wishes she’d poisoned our tea.
Shit.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
“He said Wisteria!” exclaims Steph, leaning closer to me. “Not a Magnolia.” She dons what is—to me—the fakest smile of all time. Even throws in a “pfft” for good measure.
Opal softens. Her shoulders lower. Her forehead relaxes, and she lets out a deep breath.
“Sorry,” she offers, her voice suddenly mousy and fragile. She sits—no, collapses—back down into the chair. “That was rude of me. I know y’all don’t mean no harm.”
The silence passes between the three of us, tight and agonizing. That blue aura lingers around Opal’s head as she focuses her gaze on the rug beneath our chairs—swirling browns and greens and ivories, and I realize there are fish swimming around in the pattern.
Steph ventures forward, gingerly.
“So,” she begins, “what… what is the significance of the magnolia tree?”
Thank god for Steph. I have to find out more about that tree… I have to see it. Touch it. Find out what it feels.
Opal picks up her tea and looks at it, then pushes herself out of her chair and makes for the kitchen.
“We’re going to need something stronger,” we hear her say.
Steph and I look at each other. She shrugs, like why not?
I smile.
* * *
Just a couple hours later, Opal, Steph, and I have each had enough wine to tell our life stories, or at least the parts suitable for public consumption, and spill a little wine on the rug, only for Opal to reassure Steph that, “Daddy has the house deep cleaned once a month, and you needn’t worry about it because it’s old anyway.”
I look down at it, the fish looking like they’re literally swimming around the rug now. I look at the wine glass in my hand, at the Moscato sloshing around inside no matter how still I try to keep my hands.
Opal and Steph erupt in laughter over something I haven’t really been paying attention to, sounding hollow and muffled in my ears.
“Alex, Alex!” calls Steph. I look up at her. Her own glass of Moscato is almost empty, and she tips back the last sip into her mouth and leans closer to me. Too close in fact. Actually—what the hell? Steph!
“Wha-what are you—”
“Let me look at you,” she says, smiling comically huge. “Sooo prettyyy.”
“What the hell?” I laugh. “Get off me.”
“So you two are, like, together together?” slurs Opal, taking another sip.
“I mean, you tell me, Alex,” Steph grins. It takes me way too long to realize what’s going on here. “You used a word for me earlier. At the door. What was it? Oh yeah… friend.”
Friend.
That’s what that look earlier was about.
I have to change the subject.
“Opal,” I say, clearing my throat and sitting up straighter. I set my wine glass down on the side table next to me. That’s quite enough of that shit. “Uh, so, would Clover mind if we took a look at that Saturn? So we can get to Fort Collins by tomorrow night?”
“Oh sure,” she says, her “sure” swinging into the stratosphere with how high and squeaky it is. “It’s out back. I’ll show you.”
She gets up, takes a step, and drops to her knee, then both.
“Opal?” I ask.
Opal falls forward and I lunge to reach her, but not fast enough. Opal’s face meets the rug, and her feet swing up behind her before falling flat on the floor.
“Oh my god!” screams Steph. “Opal! What the—”
I race to meet her on the floor, finding her wrist and jamming my index and middle finger against a vein. I feel the bump-bump-bump-bump-bump and assure Steph, “She’s alive. Just unconscious. Probably stood up too fast.”
Steph says nothing, so I look up at her to make sure she’s okay.
A crackling red corona flares around her forehead, then spits into a jagged crown of tight royal-purple spines.
She’s not okay.
“Steph?”
She’s glaring at me, eyes full of tears, her cheeks wet.
“What the hell are we going to do, Alex?” she demands. “We’re stranded out here in fucking Barbazal in this fucking house with fucking—” She gestures wildly at Opal- “We’ve killed the mayor’s daughter!”
“We didn’t kill her!” I bite back. I feel the irritation welling up in me. Yeah, I don’t want to be here in this mansion with an elected official’s unconscious daughter, full of wine and likely no cell reception…
We need to call for help.
Or at least try.
My drunken hands scramble for my phone and dial 9-1-1.
Barbazal may be small, but they have to have a hospital, right?
“9-1-1, what’s your emergency?” asks the operator. She sounds completely flat. Even. Like she’s prepared for anything. In the city, they usually sound bored out of their minds—probably because they’re getting calls about inconsequential injuries that could be handled in an urgent care center. Out here in farm land, I can’t imagine people would call 9-1-1 for small things. With such heavy machinery everywhere, I’m sure this lady hears all kinds of calls about life-threatening injuries.
“Hi, um, I’m calling because my friend here is unconscious.”
There’s that word again. Friend. The same word I used for Steph. My chest blooms with pain at the sound of it. I get it now. “Friend” is so… basic. Even girlfriend doesn’t sound like it has enough weight. It’s so much less than what Steph and I have.
She’s so much more.
Especially when I can use the word “friend” for someone we only met hours ago.
I turn away from Steph so I can concentrate on the call, and the operator replies with all sorts of basic medical questions.
“Does your friend have any medical conditions?”
“Does she take any medications?”
“Has she had any intoxicants?”
I can answer that last one. But as for the first two…?
“Actually, I uh…I only met her a few hours ago—”
Just then, I hear Steph behind me, her voice soft but urgent.
“She’s awake! Opal?”
I turn and sure enough, Opal’s eyes are fluttering, a huge purple aura of fear blooming above her head.
“Wh-wha—” she squeaks, before her eyes close again.
No! I have to see what’s making that aura purple. Maybe if I can find out what she’s so afraid of—someone who drinks must know their limits enough to not be terrified if they passed out suddenly—I can find out what’s really going on with her.
I reach my hand out just as I hear the operator ask, “Is she responsive?”
But I’m already in Opal’s world, watching as she tips back a couple of pills from an orange prescription bottle. I lean in closer to read it.
Cyclobenzaprine.
I’m back with Steph and Opal, whose purple aura is fading as she drifts into unconsciousness again.
“What’s your friend’s name?” comes the operator’s voice.
“Her name is Opal Biggs,” I say, my heart racing as I tell the operator, “and she’s had cyclobenzaprine and… Moscato. A lot of Moscato.”
The operator grows quiet for a long moment, so long that I wonder in panic if she’s still on the line.
“Hello?” I ask.
“Opal Biggs?” she asks, her voice pointed and even. “I’m sending an ambulance right now.”
9: Clover
The operator didn’t just send one ambulance.
Everywhere I look, red lights flash angrily along the driveway. There are no fewer than five emergency vehicles here to transport Opal out of the house and onto a stretcher.
I turn to Steph and breathe a huge sigh of relief that Opal’s in great hands now—better hands than ours. And to my surprise, she throws her arms around me, pulling me close.
“I’m sorry,” she says.
“No,” I reply, “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have—”
“Me first,” she laughs, pulling back and looking up at me, her hazel eyes flickering. “I got mad at you for calling me a friend, which is… stupid. We are friends. Best friends. And it’s great.”
There’s so much I want to tell her. Need to tell her. But as I search for the words…
I want to be even more!
Do you want to be more?
Is there already something more?
I mean, we’ve been making out on the regular, so I just assumed.
But at this point, even friend-with-benefits sounds too light.
Thank god, she continues.
“But—”
New words cut through all the noise around us.
“What the hell happened up here?” snaps a woman as she climbs out of a big blue pickup truck, slamming the door behind her. Her curly red hair swings behind her in a braid—it’s so long I can see it swaying past her hips on either side of her. She marches past every ambulance, all the lights, all the workers, and right up to the stretcher, which is only ten feet or so away from Steph and me.
“Ma’am, if you could—” begins an EMT with gentle hands outstretched to her.
“Don’t you ‘ma’am’ me, Curtis, I live here. Now you tell me what the hell happened to Opal.”
“Clover, I can’t—”
“You can, and you will.”
So this is Clover Biggs. Damn, is she a totally different person than the woman I saw resting that fishbowl on the ground in front of that magnolia tree, with the kind words about the goldfish keeping her sister company.
“And who the hell are you?” she snaps, staring Steph and me down like this is clearly our fault. “Some friends of Opal’s from the city?”
“N-no!” says Steph. “We’re from Haven Springs. We came up here to ask Opal for help with our car—”
“There are plenty of folks in town without you comin’ all the way up here about car trouble. I know you’re paparazzi. If you really needed help with a car, you’d go see Elias. He’ll help you out. In the meantime, you leave me and my family alone.”
“Clover,” I begin gently, “your father sent us up here.”
“Oh, like I believe that,” she scoffs. “Did he tell you to get Opal hopelessly drunk and send her to the hospital too?”
“Opal got up to show us a car your dad says you keep in the garage that we could search for parts,” Steph says. “If you can just get us the engine pistons, we’ll be out of your hair.”
She looks skeptically between Steph and me.
“Honest to god?” she asks.
We nod in unison. And I really mean it. There’s absolutely nothing here that’s going to get me closer to talking to Jonah Macon, so we might as well get what we really need.
Pistons.
“No questions,” huffs Clover, marching between us and past the house. “Come on. I don’t tolerate slow walkers.”
I smile at Steph, who smiles back at me, grabs my hand, and leads me to follow Clover around the side of the house.
Guess I’ll ask “But what?” later.
This backyard is way bigger than it looked from inside the house.
Clover is dead silent as we walk across the grass.
Questions swirl in my head. Why didn’t Opal warn us she’d taken cyclobenzaprine? Why the hell was she drinking when she was taking muscle relaxants?
Clearly, Steph has questions too, because she ventures us all into conversation.
“Clover?”
“No questions,” hisses Clover over her shoulder, marching onward.
Steph and I exchange an awkward glance, and then Steph begins to grin.
She has a plan.
Oh no.
“What happened back there with Opal?” she continues. “Is she okay?”
“She’ll be fine,” Clover spits. “Long as she can find herself better friends than you.”
Now wait a goddamn minute. I feel my veins pumping with rage.
“She drank that Moscato on her own,” I argue. “You’d think she’d know better than to mix it with muscle relaxants.”
A huge red aura like a brilliant poppy flower blooms around Clover’s head.
“If you want these parts, I suggest you shut the hell up.”
Bingo.
I reach forward, into that aura, and make a fist, sucking me into her world.
It’s daylight again. I’m standing by the tree. Clover is standing in front of me staring up at it, her red braid shining in the sunlight. She’s wearing shorts and a simple T-shirt, and her arms are brushed here and there with white splotches.
Paint?
“Hey,” comes a man’s voice from behind me. Clover and I both turn, and at first I expect to see the face of Mayor Biggs, since we’re on his property and he’s the only man in the household.
But when I look, I see a much younger man, with dark jeans and a short-sleeved white collared shirt, lanky arms and neck, and a movie-star smile that I immediately recognize.
“Jonah?” I ask.
No way. This man, this… kid, can’t be the same puff-chested politician I saw riding around on top of that flashy classic car in the parade in Elias’s memory. No way. He looks so… my age!
Then, as if seeing Jonah on Mayor Biggs’ property wasn’t jolting enough, he walks right up behind Clover, who beams up at him proudly, and slips his arms around her waist, planting kisses up her neck.
I feel my cheeks warm with embarrassment, and I look away. Feels like I shouldn’t be seeing this. After all, they think they’re alone out here. Well, I mean, they were alone. Until I looked into their past and saw them.
Whatever. Point is, this feels like an invasion of privacy.
Actually… why is this scene such a happy one? I stepped into an angry memory. Where is that anger?
“Stop,” giggles Clover. “What if Daddy hears us?”
“He won’t,” whispers Jonah.
“Where’s Opal?” she asks, her voice suddenly tense with worry.
“She’s fine,” he scoffs. “She has the TV. Choo-choo and whoever the whoo-whoo will keep her busy for hours.”
Clover giggles again, and even though I’ve only known her for a few minutes, it feels weird to hear her laugh, like that laughter belongs to someone else.
“Lou Lou and Benny the Choo-Choo,” she corrects. “And… yeah, you’re right.”
They both breathe a looooong sigh, as if they’ve had a looooong day, and they turn their gaze up to the tree.
“It’s as beautiful as ever,” marvels Jonah. “Your mom and Magnolia are smilin’ down on it, I just know it.”
“Yeah,” she says, her voice sinking with sadness. “You think they’re together?”
“Wherever they are,” he says, planting a kiss on her cheek, “I know they’re together. I don’t know if I believe in God, Clover, but if he’s out there, he wouldn’t separate those two for anything.”
I can’t help but smile, and I feel tears welling in my eyes.
My own memories creep in, one at the forefront, before all others.
Mom.
“Alex?” she asks, reaching up to find my face. “Alex, my darling, why are you crying?”
“Can I go with you, Mom? I… I don’t have anyone else.”
“You have your brother,” she smiles, although I can see the pain in her face, the way her cheeks look more caved in than they ever have. The way her eyelids droop. The way her lips are tight. She coughs once, then again, and I reach for her water cup on the nightstand. Or, rather, the hospital cart.
She takes a couple of sips—the doctors always seem to want her to drink more—and breathes a deep, deep breath, as if she’s just finished a marathon.
“Thank you,” she whispers, smiling up at me again. “You have your brother. You have your father. And for now,” she reaches over and takes my hands in hers, “you have me.”
“I want to go with you,” I say, catching my own voice splitting into a million pieces.
“You’ll see me again,” she says, reaching up to brush some of my short, dark hair away from my eyes. It falls right back down, since I’m looking down at her in the bed. “Promise.”
I shut my eyes tight and feel a sob escape.
