If I Never Hold You

Matt’s POV

I knew that poor Mel was terrified about this. The other girls were busy tonight so I knew they’d have other things to care about. Mel, on the other hand, would be alone in her house, most likely pacing. I worried abut her so much and I found Johnny was silent this whole time.

“She’ll be alright, dude. Once she sees that we are.” I pat his shoulder.

“I know,” he sighed, “I’m just worried about her. She’s always so stressed and tense.”

I pondered this, “well she just got you to herself and now you’re all gung-ho on fighting, right?”

“Yeah but-”

I interrupted “How would you feel?”

“Well, I guess I’d be freaking out.”

“You’d want to come. Like she did, but we wouldn’t let her.” I told him.

He nodded sadly, “right.”

“But, when she sees we’re alright, she’ll be fine.” We were here. All five of us got silent when we saw; nine guys waited for us. Correction, ten football players.

“Fuck…” I muttered, taking a deep breath.

We all stopped a few feet away from them. Trever came closer, staring daggers at us. “You ready, pussy?”

“Fuck you. Let’s get this shit over with.” The sun was going down and it chilled me a bit.

“Suit yourself.” He shrugged, backing up to his group and getting high fives from them all.

Nearly instantly, one guy lunged at Johnny, tackling him to the ground. I was about to help him until some guy jumped on me. I shrugged him off, kicking him to the ground. I gazed over to find short shit pushing the guy off him, sitting down on the dude’s chest and pummeling him. I sighed in relief; knowing damn well that Mel would kill me if I could have protected her man but didn’t.

“Hey, bitch! Look at me!” I didn’t turn my attention, just spin-kicked him. He fell back, as did another guy. Gazing around, I found everyone had two guys on them. Shit! This is unfair.

“What the fuck man!?” I called to Trever. He was the only one I knew, and he was on Johnny right now.

“What!?”

“This isn’t fucking fair!” I stepped on the fingers of the first guy I knocked out.

“You bitchin about this?” he turned to me, giving Johnny time to punch him in the kidneys. He collapsed to the ground.

“Well,” I thought about it while finding the guys looking at me. They knocked out most of em, “nope. Never mind.”

“Get the fuck up!” Zacky called.

Most of them were recuperating from our hits and had begun slowing getting back up.

“Fuck you guys.” One of them came at Jimmy who just stepped to the left, out of the way as the guy tripped over his foot. I swear, some of ‘em were really dumb…

“Fuck you too.” Jimmy commented, punching one of them in the face. The five of us laughed.

I was distracted for a few minutes so I couldn’t tell you what happened to the others. Two guys came at me, completely catching me off guard and knocking me down. I had to fight back just to stand. Two against one isn’t right, I swear. By the time I got up, I was bloody and breathing heavily. I swung at one, turning to get the other and then stepped back. They teamed up on me, punching me square in the face. I spit blood, glaring up at the guys.

“Fuck!” Johnny called. He lay on the ground. Jimmy was standing back up and the two guys who were on him ran to Johnny, helping the other two. Johnny laid there with four guys kicking him. I pulled two off by their shirt collar, chucking them to the ground as Zacky hit them. Brian took one guy and I took the other while jimmy helped Johnny up; he bent over, couching and blood seeped from his mouth, leaving a trail down his lips.

That was it; they were playing dirty and we were all getting angry. Johnny spit some more blood up then began swinging at one of them.

It was a hard fight; I’m not gonna lie. By the time we thought we were gonna win, we all had cuts, bruises and blood covering us.

It began to drizzle, rain feeling good on my sweating body.

If only we’d known what was going on in one of the houses on the street…

Sirens blared through our ears. The ten football players took off; they apparently lived near here and went inside some house, locking the door.

I stared into Johnny’s wide eyes as the rain grew harder.

“Fuck.”

Johnny’s POV

The guys and I bolted, but not fast enough. They were right behind us; three cop cars. Considering it was a brawl of fifteen guys, they freaked out I’d imagine.

I pulled out my cell, calling Mel.

“Hello?” she was nervous.

“Hey baby. I just…”

“Are those sirens?” she freaked, I heard her open the front door of her house and I’d imagined she was outside.

“Stay inside.” We were all still running and now darted down Brian and Mel’s street, “you’ll catch cold.”

“No! Johnny!”

“I love you.” and I hung up, pocketing my cell as we kept running.

“If we go to my house,” Brian began, out of breath, “they’ll tell my parents and we’ll all be fucked.” This was true.

“So we keep running for a bit. Ditch by the woods behind the high school.” Jimmy suggested.

“Good plan, dude.” Zacky commented.

Matt kept glancing back. The sirens were after us still, getting closer and closer.

“Dude, is that Mel?” Matt gasped. A girl stood in the middle of the street; her hair was in a messy wet ponytail, her torn jeans were soaked, she wore no shoes on her feet and her neon green toenails shone against the dark pavement, her black shirt clung to her body and her eyeliner and mascara smeared thick under her eyes but she still looked beautiful.

“Yeah.” I breathed, still running to her. The guys kept going but I slowed.

“Johnny.” She gasped.

“You can’t take us in; you’ll get in trouble for housing a criminal.”

“I don’t care!” she sobbed.

I tucked her bang behind her right ear, staring at her eyes. If this were the last time I’d see her, I’d be happy with the beautiful scene which would be stuck in my head…

“You do.”

“Seward! Get a move on!” Zacky called.

“I love you.” without an answer, I kissed her with such passion. My hand rest on her neck and hers rest on my chest. She sobbed into the kiss. It was loving but depressing at the same time. I smirked as she pulled back to speak. Instead of talking, I reached up and pulled the hair tie out of her hair. It fell down onto her shoulders. I kissed her again, not feeling like running any more. If I were in trouble, so be it.

I’m done running from everything in my life…

“Seward!” Matt screamed.

I glanced at him with a smirk. His eyes showed recognition until I looked away, the sirens blaring loudly as they sped down the street. The guys had stopped running.

So there I stood in the middle of the street, in the pouring rain, my best friends staring nervously, the cops right behind us; now getting out of the cars.

I was pulled back, thrown to the ground and knelt on by an officer.

“They have Johnny!” I heard Jimmy scream.

Footfalls were heard and I glance over to see the guys running. All but Matt.

“Guys!” he called, causing them to stop, “if they have one of us…they have all of us.”

“Stay where you are!” an officer yelled.

I pulled Mel’s hair tie on my wrist before the officer slapped cuffs on me, pulling me to my feet.

Mel stood there, her tears mixing with the rain…

I was thrown in the back of the cop car, barely making out Mel’s form, for it was taken over by the raindrops that clung to the window…