You Can Sit Beside Me When the World Comes Down.

”You are joking, right? Are you having some sort of laugh?”

“What? You can’t take me seriously when we are here?” Joe grinned from beneath his eyelashes, and gave me that look that could both build and break me in an instant. I tried not to let a smile show, and swung my body round while blushing like mad, a downfall to my near perfect nonchalant performance.

“So you drag me out on one date, and you take me to Build-A-Bear? That has to make a blow in your reputation,” I asked, raising an eyebrow, confused at his actions.

“But did it impress you, even in the slightest? And tell the truth!” Joe asked, playfully nudging me in the shoulder with his loose fist, and I battled and lost to yet another smile.

“Alright, alright, I admit it, it definitely caught me off guard,” I retorted, throwing my hands up in mock defeat, causing Joe to laugh in his small victory.

“Then it is completely worth it,” He whispered with some sort of sincerity, linking his fingers in between mine, and heading toward the Build-A-Bear factory. Half an hour later, we emerged from the same shop with our respective teddies, and still smiling from the amount of fun we had creating two small bears.

“But seriously,” Joe rambled, pulling open the passenger door for me to slide into. “I’m going to name my bear after the most amazing girl ever!”

“Let me guess, your mother?” I asked, laughing as Joe stuck his tongue out at me then slapped my hand away from the radio; he had a thing about it constantly being on his radio station I found out later.

“Close, oh so very close. I’m going to name it Delainey, after the girl who is making me work for her heart,” Joe commented with a smile, closely followed by a wink, causing me to lose my cool and look away in embarrassment.

“You are such a sweet talker, Joseph Mark Trohman, you hear?”

“Yes, loud and clear!” I couldn’t argue with that, and quickly recounted the events of the night. My final conclusion was that Joe wasn’t how I had perceived him at first, and he was quite the character, in the best way possible.

The car pulled up to a stop outside my dimly lit house, and I looked across at Joe shyly, wondering what exactly would come next. He shifted in his seat, and glanced up at my face, a knowing smile working its way across his lips.

“So tell me, did I pass the test? Or do I have to stick to my word and stop following you everywhere?” He rolled his eyes playfully and before I could answer, he swiftly jumped out of the car and opened up the passenger door, holding his hand out for me to take. I didn’t deny him a thing. We slowly walked up to the door, and I turned to face him, a serious look on my face.

“I had fun tonight, so do you reckon we could... I don’t know, do this again sometime?”

Watching the smile break out on Joe’s face was like watching the sun break out from behind the stormiest of clouds, and I didn’t see a trace of satisfaction that he won, no, it was just pure happiness.

“Of course. How is next Friday sounding?”

“Hmm. I think I can swing that,” I replied with a laugh, as Joe leaned in close to me.

“You better watch out, Delainey May Carmichael, you might just fall in love with me.” It was that look he gave me, and the way the light hit his frame and lit up the shine in his eyes that made me believe him. For me, the games were off and I was content on just letting him win the whole deal. Without a second thought, I leaned in just a little, lips parted and a breath withheld, when he pulled away.

I tried not to let the rejection and shame burn me completely, but it was there and as real as ever. I tried to push the tears back down as I realised, I was just a game to him, it was a cruel set up.

“You accepted my game, now play by my rules. You can’t get any of this,” He slapped his butt to make it more official, “until our next date. I’m taking this slow, I don’t wanna screw up,” He whispered, smiling ever so softly as I let myself do the same, the false pain now irrelevant to what he was saying.

He gave a slight bow, followed with a smile, then walked back to his car, as I yelled out to him once more.

“You are such a tease, Joseph Trohman!”

“Don’t you forget it!”

When I finally came around, my head blurring the lines of my vision beyond recognition, the change in air let me in on the secret that I wasn’t out in the open anymore. Fear consumed my mind, causing the throbbing headache to intensify as I looked around the dark space from some sort of answer to my question of, where was I? But there was nothing, and I could barely see my own hands held out in front of me, feeling for a way to escape.

Acknowledging defeat, I slumped back down onto the rough ground I had been lying on and took in whiffs of the stale air. Little excerpts of what happened before I passed out hit me; the football, the laughing, the people, the beach.

Oh.

I took little comfort in the thought that I was still alive and the only pain I felt was in my head, bar the dull throbbing in my joints from the rough ground I had awkwardly slept on. I then closed my eyes and very carefully tried to pick up on noises that would lead to a conclusion of where I was. I could hear lots of tapping, like little bugs scurrying around... footsteps. Lots of hurried footsteps. And voices too, plenty of them piling on top of each other to edge in a sentence or two of their opinion.

I tried to press myself further into the wall behind me, trying to disappear as I began to shake. I was scared. Genuinely frightened for what could happen to me. I should have felt relived, excited even that I had found humans, real, living people, but the by-product of living out of a society for so long had brought me this.

“Apparently Tyson knocked her out with a football. And Pete, I swear to God, I’ve heard enough about your ‘bad-vibes’ about this. It’s not just up to you; this decision includes every one of us.” A soft-edged voice broke through the humming of the rest of the intertwined voices, and I realised with a startled heartbeat, that the owner of the voice was getting closer to where I was lying.

“We have to do what’s best for the family! She’s contaminated, I saw it myself!” Another, rougher voice whispered, ‘Pete’, I was guessing.

“We can’t just leave her out there to die! She is one of us!” The first voice whispered venomously, his voice carrying to where I was shaking.

“No! She is infected; she could spread it through us!”

“Pete! It’s only minor, only just starting. We could find the cure before it gets contagious.”

“No, we can’t risk our health,” ‘Pete’ spoke calmly, like it was already decided.

“Pete, do you really believe that that will happen? If we are so unprotected from it, don’t you think we would have caught it by now?”

“Patrick, this is just you trying to be a hero! Stop lying to yourself, we both know that this isn’t about the fact she’s human. This is all about Cara. You couldn’t save her, and now you are trying to save this girl, while putting our whole family in jeopardy!”

“Pete. Shut up.” The calmer man, Patrick, growled, this was obviously a touchy subject for him, and this Pete fellow seemed quite determined to push as far as possible until he achieved some sort of result.

“No, I won’t! We have all lost people Patrick, that doesn’t mean we can start saving the ones that are in this disease early! Cara isn’t coming back, okay? She has gone, and no matter how many people you save, she is never going to come back! You are a fool to think you can save them.”

The sudden sound, so fierce in the silent cave, was enough to make me cringe even further back into the wall behind me, so much so that I could feel indents in my back from the bumpy surface. It was the obvious sound of knuckles crashing into flesh covered bone, a crunching followed by a splatter of liquid, blood.

For the next few moments, all that could be heard was the heavy pants from both men as they collectively tried to regain their breath.

Finally, Pete spoke. “Patrick, look man, I’m sorry. I was out of line. But honestly, we have to think rationally about this. We can’t risk everything we have worked for over the last year and half, just to practically invite the disease in to contaminate us. You know it, I know it, we can’t just take a chance like that, and we could lose everything we have worked toward! She’s contaminated, Patrick, try to understand this.”

The heavy breathing continued, the only sound loud enough to break the silence between the two men. Despite it all, I almost wanted to laugh out loud, and tell this Pete that of course I wasn’t contaminated, after all, I would know.

Then I realised, I really wouldn’t have known. That’s how the disease managed to sneak up on humanity to start with. The disease itself stores inside your body for ages, even up to a year before you begin to notice anything. From there, it just turns into a small rash until eventually the fevers, shakes and vomiting begins. The morbidly funny part is they were all symptoms for other illnesses, so no one really worried; the most we thought into it was maybe we had a flu epidemic on our hands. By the time we realised something was definitely wrong, it was too late.

The disease begins to speed up after that, shutting down your organs one by one, until you are left gasping for air, then your lungs stop, and your heart fails. Then it is over. It was possible I had the rash, the disease, I hadn't even been checking.

I hadn’t realised I had been crying until I heard a tortured gasp and realised with shock, that it came from me. I knew how the disease worked, I watched my father, mother and older brother go through it, and although I hated myself for it, felt hardly any sorrow. They were my family, yes, but I had disowned them as our morals clashed and I felt I couldn’t grow up in such a negative environment. Even after everything, I still felt it difficult to think the thoughts involving them, my past before Joe.

Joe. I watched Joe battle for his life against it. We hadn’t even known he was infected until two years after we knew the disease existed, one day the rash appeared and we both knew. We tried to move on like nothing was wrong, but it was there, a red patch of bumps taunting me whenever Joe let his guard down, and left it for me to see.

While I was thinking this, flashes of the night flew at me at such a speed, I cried out without meaning to, and quickly clamped a hand over my mouth and tried to hide myself further into the fiercely cold wall behind me. Footsteps, that I assumed belonged to the two voices I had heard, furiously stamped down on the ground as they hurried toward where I was, wherever that was.

The first thing I noticed was the faint blue light that cast a glow across the small space between me and them, which gave me enough brightness to get a good indication of what the two individuals looked like.

The first man had a kind, rounded face, framed by what looked to be sideburns, and a cap sat nestled upon his head with locks of hair peeking out. His eyes wore black, thick rimmed glasses, and he was smiling calmly, as if to reassure my erratic heart. He was short, that much I could tell, and seemed relaxed in the situation, not at all like his friend who stood rigid beside him.

The second, slightly taller figure seemed to radiate hatred toward me, and from the light blue glow of the torch, I managed to figure out that the expression he was wearing was a definite, and from what it looked like, permanent, scowl. His arms were crossed tightly over his small frame, and he seemed agitated. His face contrasted from pale white skin, to the ignored glistening blood running down his face. His black hair stuck to his head, and his eyes were tough around the edges, a barbed wire fence no one could pass through.

The shorter man slowly took a step forward, cautious as anything, as if I could lash out at any given moment. He released another of those anxiety-smothering smiles, and without authorising it, I found my body relaxing away from the wall, and leaning slightly toward the man.

His eyes, hurricane gray, held nothing but kindness as he outstretched a hand to me, and I instantly trusted him, surprising even myself at this sudden realisation.

“Hello, I’m Patrick. I know this must be frighte-" Before I had been able to grab his hand in greeting, something had collided with the back of my head, forcing it to lull forward in unconsciousness.

It’s been two months, four weeks, and...