Pitch: Second Season

"You still want to do the family dinner thing?" I asked.

"Its tradition," Wes said.

"We haven"t been doing...whatever it is we"re doing for very long," I argued if only lightly.

"Having our families eat together doesn"t mean we have to get serious, it"s like a show of respect," he said.

"A show of respect?"

"Eating together is a way of saying "I"m interested in your son enough to be upfront about it," but that"s all," he added.

"Really?"

"...For the most part," he said with his eyes turned away.

"What does that mean?" I pestered.

"Well, if my parents don"t like you... if we were following tradition, they would have the right to say no."

"Say, no? As in, I can"t date you?"

"My family isn"t that old school," he tried to convince me.

"But you still want to have dinner, though," I argued further.

Family dinners felt like a serious thing. Regardless of whether or not his parents would have a say in our seeing one another, it felt too formal to have our parents sit together when we had only been dating for three months.

"Pitch, You gave up magic for me, so trust me when I say nothing will break us up," he promised, but I could hardly take him seriously while he reached across the table to steal french fries from my plate.

He said nothing would break us up, but that promise was tested.

With school starting Monday morning, we didn"t have a lot of time to put off the event. It was hard, but we made it happen the Sunday night before senior year. My dad took off work to make it, and Mom all but jumped at the opportunity. Still, getting everyone to show up wasn"t the real problem.

Knowing Mom wasn"t the reason Wes and I got trapped in the endless hallway made me see her in a different light. She was legitimately trying to change. My coming to that realization was the only reason I was willing to invite her that night, but that didn"t change everything. My mother was still a wild card with years worth of magic at her disposal. I was willing to trust her again but not without fear of slip-ups.

It helped that we had dinner at a restaurant.

River Peak was one of the most beautiful restaurants in town. It was built in The Dead Woods, so tourists rarely had it in them to venture out and find the secluded spot. If they did, they might have seen it as a point of luxury in a dirt town. It was built on top of a literal river that flowed under its transparent flooring. The entire building was made with the idea of standing in the middle of nature without disturbing it. While walls were built to last, they also allowed plant life to grow on the structure, leaving it covered in natural flowers, vines, and even a few animals. The inside of the building reminded me of Wesson"s house. Everything was made out of a unique wood known as Elephant bark, which changed color with the seasons even after being carved.

River Peak catered to most creatures the same way other restaurants catered to humans. I never ate there before that night. It wasn"t a creature exclusive restaurant, but you wouldn"t find many humans eating there out of the blue.

We were lucky enough to get a nice table close to a window but near the center of the floor where the river below us was most visible.

On one side of the table sat me, my mom and dad, and on the other was Wesson, his mom Iris, and his dad Calix. I talked my mother into not using magic for the night, and Wes got his parents to wear actual clothes. Wes was a little vague as far as what would happen at dinner. I figured as long as we got through the night without bringing the roof down, everything would be alright.

Honestly, the night was going relatively well. It was almost boring how easy things were. My dad made his usual cheesy jokes, Wesson"s parents talked about their life before moving to America, and I hadn"t suffered one of my usual accidents yet. The one hiccup we had was when Wes and his family started eating. They were shameless, they were wild, and I"m sure someone got it on camera. Still, all things considered, it could have been worse.

It was almost time to leave when I got up from the table to take a leak.

That was my mistake. That was the decision that ruined the night. The last thing I should have done was to leave the table. When I came back, they were talking without me about me.

"What is STR?" I heard my Dad ask.

"It"s ok, we didn"t know either until we got there," Wes answered, and immediately I knew the conversation was taking a wrong turn.

"You wet to a music festival, with Pitch?" my dad asked Wes directly.

"We were gone for four weeks," Wes answered honestly yet again.

I thought for sure if I walked over and jumped into the conversation I could have steered it back on track. Unfortunately, they were rolling too quickly to find a moment to cut in.

"They went with my brother Russell," Calix explained.

"Rick, you didn"t know?" My mother implied that she knew.

The last thing I needed was for anyone to know her involvement in anything.

"That my son went to New Mexico for four weeks!" My dad exclaimed loudly enough to draw the attention of other people around the restaurant.

"We thought you knew," said Iris.

"The boys were planning the trip for a while, Rick, we had no idea," Calix added.

"Its impossible, Pitch was home with me, he started an internship, I saw him every morning before I went to work," my Father raved.

"He must have used the spell I gave him," my mother explained.

"You gave him a spell," my dad snapped.

"He didn"t want to choose between his friends, so I gave him a way to be in two places at once," my mother revealed to the table.

Standing behind a wall, all I could do was wait there and listen as an almost perfect night turned on its head. There was no "right" moment to walk back to the table. I hadn"t had one of my signature accidents in days, but what unfolded in my absence at the table was worse than being punched through a wall.

When everything finally fell silent, I knew they were waiting for me to return. I couldn"t hide forever. We were getting ready to leave right before I decided I needed a bathroom break.

I took a moment to collect myself. All that time, while I was hiding behind a wall, I didn"t notice members of the wait staff were standing behind me listening as well. When I finally acknowledged them, they all but demanded I walk out of my hiding place. Did I mention fairies ran River Peak? The tiny little a.s.sholes threw fairy dust at my face until I finally moved. By the time I made it back to the table, I had enough of the glittery stuff in my fur to convince everyone I was a usual at the local strip club.

No one said anything to me. No one said anything to each other. I looked across the table expecting Wes to look back, but even he couldn"t smile. I couldn"t tell if he was upset or remaining silent because our parents were.

"f.u.c.k," I said out loud when I meant to hold the thought in my head.

Did I mention Fairy dust in high concentrations acted stronger than most pharmaceutical drugs? Because fairy dust in high concentrations was more potent than most pharmaceutical drugs.

I saw pretty colors. While everyone was ready to go home, I was slowly but steadily falling into the trippiest trip I might have ever been on. I"m sure the waiters wanted us to leave, but somehow they took 20 minutes to bring out our bill.

They should not have made us wait.

River Peak was made for magical creatures, but they had yet to deal with Danger Rabbit. As I said, my usual accidents hadn"t flung me through a wall or destroyed public property in days. There was a false sense of security brewing.

As we finally got up from the table to take our leave, we traversed the transparent floor to head for the door. Those floors were built to withstand the weight of orcs and the clopping of centaurs. But they weren"t built to withstand Danger Rabbit. I took another step, and to my surprise, my foot went through the square tile. I quickly retracted my stride, but my being high made it all seem like a part of my trip.

All around me, the floor began to drop into the river below. Still, I only recognized the problem once holes in the floor became large enough for entire tables to fall through. It was a one-story drop. People were shrieking as they fell, but it was music to me. My parents were playing a game of land mine attempting to keep above the debris. Wes was trying to pull me to safety, but there was no way to know which direction to step. With only a small number of tiles remaining firmly in place, no one moved.

I had a solution. I had an answer. I knew how I could get us out. I reached into my pocket to find my float spell.

"f.u.c.k," I said when I remembered I threw away my magic.

Calix and Iris were behind us closest to the table while my parents were closest to the exit. Wes and I were between them. I couldn"t think of another way out. Wes and I could have tried jumping forward. We might have made it out with my mom and dad, but his parents would have still been trapped.

The fall wasn"t so high it would hurt anyone, especially not satyrs. The real issue was all the floor panels that fell and shattered. What might have been a simple plummet into a river became a death drop into broken shards of gla.s.s.

I couldn"t believe myself when I thought it, but thank G.o.d my mom was there. I told her not to use magic for the night, but we needed her to. The fairies were scrambling to a.s.sist people who already fell. River Peak was too far into the woods for firefighters to rescue us in time. Wesson and his family didn"t have magic, and probably wouldn"t have used it if they did. My mother was our only hope of making it out without getting hurt. With swirling wind kin to a tornado, she carried us all outside. It was effortless and swift, but it didn"t change the way my father looked at her. He seemed to have still been upset that she gave me a spell that made it possible to go behind his back.

I don"t know why it felt so embarra.s.sing having to be saved, but something in me regardless of how high I was made me upset that I wasn"t the one to do something.

Nothing changed at all. I was still the one causing problems with no solutions in sight. An entire summer was gone, and I was exactly where I started. Actually, I may have been worse off. No BJ, no magic, a failed trip to a music festival, and after such a disaster of a night, I thought for sure things between Wes and I were done. To be fair, everyone was upset about something, but maybe the important thing to remember was everyone was safe. Life was falling apart, but somehow, we were safe.

I was chewed out by my Father when we got home that night, but I was so high I couldn"t see straight. I"m sure he said something along the lines of "how am I supposed to trust you" and "you"re grounded," but nothing stuck with me quite like that feeling of uselessness I had at the restaurant.

I suppose it was funny how I worried my mother would ruin the night. My secrets did a better job of creating chaos. I guess it was a fitting way to end my summer break.