I Want to Scream 'I Love You'

“Danielle, we have to go,” I instructed her as she lay on the couch where she had finally passed out about four a.m. this morning. “I’m already late, you need to get ready.”

She groaned, shaking her head back and forth. “Go back to bed.”

“Danielle. Get up, right now. I’m done messing around.” My tone was unnecessarily harsh, but I couldn’t afford to be too late.

Danielle sat up slowly, swinging her feet onto the ground. She mumbled something unintelligible at me, her feet dragging across the carpet as she walked to her room.

I ran my hand through my hair, going to the kitchen to get some water, my head still throbbing. After about five minutes of no sound from Danielle, I walked into her room, finding her lying in her bed, already asleep.

“My god, Danielle,” I muttered, picking her up and walking towards the door. “Alright, listen to me,” I drilled, her head snapping up, “you’re going to school, no matter what you’re wearing. So, we can go right now, while you’re in your pajamas, or you can go get dressed. Take your choice.”

She locked eyes with me, testing to see if I was kidding. To prove my point, I pulled the apartment door open and her feet started swinging and kicking, managing her way out of my arms and running back to her room.

I listened carefully, hearing drawers open and shut, my cue she was actually getting ready. After a few minutes, she came running out, backpack around her shoulders. I smiled slyly at her, and she huffed, crossing her arms.

“Come on,” I rushed her, “let’s go.”

***

“Ah, Ms. Jones,” the teacher marveled as I stepped into English ten minutes late, “I see we’ve been a real inconvenience to your schedule lately, no?”

Ignoring him, I walked past Patrick to my desk, his hat covering his eyes, his face directed away from me.

I gently laid my books onto the desk; trying to focus on anything other than the fact the whole class was facing me.

“Maybe you’d like to help us with last night’s homework?” he persisted, determined to get more of a reaction out of me, which is exactly what he did.

“H-homework?” I stuttered, gaining a few snickers from the class. I rubbed my temple, attempting to erase my headache that was intensifying as all the attention was on me.

Tapping his pencil, he looked quite amused. A smirk playing on his lips, his eyes narrowed towards me.

“So, you come in late to my class, then proceed to tell me that you didn’t know we had homework?”

At this point, I’m far past screwed. The class is silent, and all I can focus on is Patrick behind me. I’m not worrying about this homework I didn’t do, I’m not fretting over the fact I’m probably going to get sent to the principal’s office, I’m just worried that Patrick probably hates me.

The teacher’s still staring at me, though, as is the class. They’re expecting me to say something, which isn’t going to happen.

“What do you think I should do? It’s one thing to come in late, it’s another to come in late and have your homework not done, don’t you think?”

He continued to stare at me. Tapped that damn pencil.

I nodded once, it’s the least I can do.

“Detention tonight, forty-five minutes,” he instructed, turning back to the board.

“No, wait, I can’t tonight,” I rushed out, as he spun back around, once again, proud of himself for finding my weakness.

“Detention tonight or you can deal with the principal,” he said with a tone that didn’t sound like he was going to relent his decision.

With one last tap of the pencil, he turned his back towards me and, at that point, I knew there was no bargaining.

He continued his daily lecture and I sunk into my seat, feeling anxiety rush over me. My chest tightened, my breath was short, my nails digging into the desk, doing anything to not bring any more attention to myself. My stomach was churning, my head still pounding, and I could almost feel my heart racing.

I had no clue how this would work out. Where would Danielle go? How would Danielle get home?

Pulling my sleeves over my hands for warmth, I forced myself to focus on the lesson. There was no point about worrying about everything right now. There was nothing I could do about it at the moment.

And that scared me.

***

I gathered myself in fifth hour, pulling my knees up to my chest in the little room I had in my desk. After this class, I would be expected to go to detention, even though Danielle would be waiting, for forty-five minutes, expecting me to be there.

To what length would she go? Would she ask someone for a ride? Would she follow Hannah home? Would she attempt to walk home by herself? But how would she get into the apartment? It’s not like she has a key.

In my head, I was counting the seconds. One hundred-eighty of them, in fact, until the bell sounded; until the whole day pretty much would completely collapse on me. It’s been building up, and now it’s just dying to plummet to the bottom.

Can’t you just hurry and pick up Danielle? It takes less than ten minutes, plus, you have a car, I had begged but Noelle, but she just shook her head.

Any other day, but I’ve got to get to work. You know I work immediately after school on Tuesdays, she said grimly, and I knew she had wanted to help, but, she couldn’t. And I couldn’t blame her.

And talking to Patrick was just a failed attempt, he wasn’t talking to me, and, though I was pretty sure why, I didn’t quite understand why it was bad enough to be completely ignored by him.

But then, the other part of me was scared to talk to him as well. Completely sober me wasn’t even sure what I wanted, or what my opinions were on anything anymore.

I couldn’t pinpoint any exact emotion. I just wanted to talk to him and him alone, knowing that he’s the only person who could possibly calm my jumbled thoughts.

Glancing at the clock, I knew I’d regret it. Ninety seconds until everyone would stand up, shoving chairs into the aisle, and herd out of the classroom. Ninety seconds until I’d have to make some sort of decision on what could make me or break me.

The latter being more likely.

Ninety seconds passed and the bell rang throughout the halls, bouncing off the bricks and echoing into the rooms.

I shifted my books into the crook of my right arm and made my way through the crowds to my locker. Spinning the dial, my hands shook, still having no clue what I was going to do. God knows Danielle is genius at times, she might just make her way home and knock on Nicole’s door and ask where I am, and Nicole would know what was up, or at least pretty close to it.

Danielle might just ask Hannah to stay with her until I get there, and, after awhile, Lucy would probably just drive Danielle home.

Danielle might just go back into the school and tell them I wasn’t there. Her teacher’s know me well enough, they’d understand.

Then again, Danielle might just flip and attempt to walk home, making her the perfect target. Or, she’d flip and not have any clue what to do, and, well, anything could happen then.

Climb into a stranger’s car, walk around aimlessly, follow someone else home. The possibilities were endless.

Right then, I snapped, slamming my locker shut and swinging my bag over my shoulder. I pulled my hood over my head, jammed my hands into my pockets, and started towards the door. Come hell or high water tomorrow, I had to get Danielle. I couldn’t dare let her decide this one on her own.

Halfway down the hall, I felt a force on my shoulder, pulling me backwards.

With a jerk, I pulled out of the grip, only to be faced with an all too familiar face. “The detention room is this way,” my English teacher growled, obviously fed up with me enough.

Slowly, I took a step backwards, choosing the easiest way out of this, and spun on my right heel back towards the door.

He gripped onto the strap of my backpack next, all but dragging me across the floor.

“You do realize,” I grunted, working my way out of my backpack, “you have no right to be touching me. At all.” He bellowed a laugh, letting my bag fall out of his clutch.

“You do realize I have the right to detain you here until four o’clock? Should I up the detention time? I can do that, don’t underestimate me,” he countered, somewhat testing me.

I scooped my bag off the floor, glaring at him. “Tomorrow. I’ll serve it tomorrow. You’ve got to give me more time to plan things. Unlike you, I have a life and people to take care of, I’ve got things that are far more important than homework and detention.”

“So, you’d rather waste all your time with your friends, probably smoking drugs and drinking, than worry about your future?” He huffed, “Teenagers these days, I swear, you’re going to regret every decision you’ve made one day.”

I gritted my teeth. “I’m not going to go hang out at some skate park and smoke joints or anything. I’ve got a life in my hands, and, god knows, I could be overreacting, but, just the same, I could be underestimating. So you can stay here and keep lecturing kids who couldn’t give a damn, but, no matter what you say, I’m going to go pick my little sister up so you don’t have to see her face hanging on the Missing Children board whenever you walk into the grocery store.”

He eyed me for a minute, and I knew it was seconds ticking away, but I was already in enough trouble- running wasn’t going to help anything.

“Call someone to pick her up; you can’t just get out of detention that easily.” He took a sip of his coffee as my hand clenched onto my backpack, throwing it back over my shoulder.

“You think that I’m lying, that I’d rather skip detention and deal with whatever shit you’ll deal out to me tomorrow?” I stifled out an unbelieving laugh. “You don’t know the half of things. Take a walk in my shoes one day; you’ll know immediately that I’m making the right choice.”

I went against what I was originally telling myself not to do and quickly made my way around the corner and out of his sight, taking the long way towards the door so we wouldn’t run back into each other.

By the time I made it to fresh air, Danielle’s final bell had rung two minutes before and the whole high school had already cleared out.

I returned my fists to my pockets, trekking forward against the wind that was slowing me down substantially. The cold nipped at my cheeks and nose as I continued to trudge against it.

As the building came into sight, I assumed my trip had been doubled in time. The normally busy, bustling school grounds were empty and deserted. Teachers no longer stood in the doorway, watching as parents picked up their children, cars weren’t parked along the street, honking for their kids to notice them.

My breath hitched as I searched for Danielle, making a mad dash towards the school, the wind whipping up around me.

By the time I got to the front door of the school, I was almost sure she was gone, telling myself that she could just be at home or something.

But if she wasn’t…

My knees hit the ground hard as they buckled under the thought. I took a few deep breaths, each one catching in my throat.

Subconsciously, I tried to calm myself down, pick myself off the ground, telling myself sitting here wasn’t going to help at all, that sitting here was-

“I’m so, so, so sorry, I just didn’t- I didn’t, we- I’m sorry,” Danielle stuttered out as she tackled me, wrapping her arms around my neck after coming from nowhere. “I’ll get up next time, I swear, I’ll… I didn’t mean to make you late this morning. Please, please don’t be mad.”

As realization sunk into me, I wrapped my arms back around her, pulling her into my lap.

“No, I’m not mad,” I whispered, rocking us back and forth, “I promise, I’m not mad. I just got caught up at school. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have… I’m sorry.”

My breathing relaxed as we sat on the freezing ground, swaying with the wind. She pulled away to look at me, tear stains trailing down her cheeks.

“Are you okay? Where’d you go?” I asked, biting my lip. She shrugged, swallowing hard.

“I went inside, they told me to stay there,” she mumbled, pulling her head back to the crook of my neck.

I sighed, apologizing into her hair a million more times and she just sniffled, shaking her head slightly. After the umpteenth time, she pulled her head back up, placing her cold, tiny hands on my cheek and locking our eyes.

“Sh,” she ordered, “it’s okay. We’re okay. Alright?” I nodded, smiling slightly at her. “Good,” she looked up at the sky, then back at me. “Can we go home? I just… I just really want to go home.”

I smiled, throwing my bag back over my shoulder. “Agreed.”