Friday

Dear reader, the following events take place a little after you last saw Nathan, Aaron, and Jade on Thursday.

The time is 20:00pm Friday.

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Friday's shadows encased the steel garage doors in moulds of darkness.

Ash and burning pockets of smoke from cigarettes polished the air as Chase O' Neal worked on the engine of his *1970 Chevrolet Chevelle SS 454.

Chase leaned under the red hood, tightening in his newly fitted *head gasket. His white vest was a mess, being covered in both grease and grime. A few more clouds of smoke escaped his mouth as he wiped the sweat from his forehead.

Elisa walked in on Chase from behind him.

"Babe It's getting laaatee...", whined Elisa as she hugged onto Chase's shoulders from the back.

Chase didn't seem to pay any attention to her.

So she took the cigarette out of his mouth and continued in a 'baby-like voice',

"When are you going to drop mwee back at my house? You know how my parents get..."

Chase turned around and met her teary red eyes which were lined by dark black mascara.

Her eyes were probably red and teary from smoking too much or just being on a "high".

"Baby, you know I would keep you all night with me if I could...", Chase said as he took a pull from the cigarette which Elisa held between her polished-black nails.

"But you can't handle all of this.", Elisa pushed Chase away from her and took a smoke from the cigarette in her hand.

A bit of ash trickled to the concrete ground below.

In her teasing, Elisa had almost tripped over a toolbox, but managed to quickly regain her drunken posture.

Without warning Chase pulled Elisa towards him by her waist.

"But I bet I could.", He whispered.

"Don't make me laugh, you couldn't even handle that nerd Aaron yesterday.", giggled Elisa.

For a moment Chase turned his gaze away from Elisa,

"I hate them as much as you do, but what was I supposed to do? Aaron is untouchable..."

While holding Elisa by her waist, Chase slipped his silver watch off of his right hand wrist and into a toolbox below them.

Though if I am being honest, it was a very odd looking wrist watch.

From a distance it might have looked like an ordinary silver link watch, but if you were to get a closer look, you could clearly see tiny black and purple gems or stones attached to the silver link band. What was even more strange was the fact that the *seconds hand of the watch face counted in an anti-clockwise direction.

He then turned back to the red eyes of Elisa, "Aaron might be untouchable, but you're not...'

Elisa squirmed,"Baaabe, I really have to get back home..."

"I know hun, My dad is gonna drop you off today though."

Elisa stood away from Chase's body in protest,"But why can't you do it?"

"Not tonight. Me and the boys gonna hit a party downtown at Elliot's place. There's going to be booze and gir...", Chase stopped as he saw the expression on Elisa's face grow.

"What party? You didn't tell me anything about a party?!", Elisa folded her arms.

"Sheesh cut me some slack, I forgot to tell you. ", Chase said defensively

But he quickly put back a smile on his face, "It's probably because you're the only thing that's on my mind..."

Elisa knew that he was just smiling through his teeth to get his way as he often did.

This time she felt quite frustrated with always doing nothing about it.

"Oh really, I'm the only thing on your mind?! That's why you're going to a stupid party to see other girls?!", Elisa yelled angrily.

Chase moved away from Elisa and back under the hood of his Chevelle SS 454,

"Babe, it's not like that...I mean you could come if you want, but I didn't say anything 'cause I know how your parents are."

"Really?! My parents?", Elisa raised her eyebrow.

She continued in a slur,

"You know damn well that I would sneak out just to be at a party with you."

Chase never took his attention away from the engine Infront of him.

"Does that mean you want to come then?", He asked.

"I'm not going anywhere with you."

"I don't have time for this. You can wait here for my dad, he'll drop you off at home.", said Chase feeling a little bit annoyed.

He slammed the hood of the Chevelle SS 454 hard and got into the car.

"I'm not waiting for your stupid dad. I'll go myself thank you.", Elisa tramped the cigarette under her shoe and gingerly started walking out of the garage.

"You're *blown out of your mind. You'll never be able to walk home.", laughed Chase.

"Watch me.", Elisa said as she left on wobbly legs through the open garage doors.

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DefINitIonS In tHiS ChaPTEr;

*Head Gasket - In an internal combustion engine, a head gasket provides the seal between the engine block and cylinder head. Its purpose is to seal the combustion gases within the cylinders and to avoid coolant or engine oil leaking into the cylinders. Leaks in the head gasket can cause poor engine running and/or overheating ~ (sourced from Wikipedia.) Don't look at me like that, for even I have to use Wikipedia sometimes.

*1970 Chevrolet Chevelle SS 454 - Chevelle SS 454 is obviously the name of a car. But it wasn't just any car, it was a muscle car.

The age of muscle cars peaked as the 1970s began -- and the 1970 Chevrolet Chevelle SS 454 helped to herald the ascent. When GM lifted its displacement ban on midsize cars, Pontiac, Olds, and Buick responded with 455-cid mills with up to 370 bhp. Chevy's retort was a 454-cid V-8 that started at 360 bhp and ended at a barbaric 450. This was the muscle car summit.

*Seconds hand - I know some people will or might have been confused. Or maybe it is just my paranoia that someone will get confused by what the "seconds hand" means in context.

It's basically the thin long needle on the clock face which is constantly moving clockwise.

*Blown out of your mind - Is colloquialism for being "high" on drugs, smoking, alcohol etc...

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DIsClAiMer:

I do not endorse or encourage teenage abuse of smoking/drinking. The actions depicted here by the various persons involved are entirely for story retelling purposes.