Summer: Undefined

It felt like I had evaporated from my body completely. I didn’t exist anymore. Like a third party, I was the narrator to some untold story. The omniscient part of third person point of view.

These were the social standing I could obviously tell.

Jude and Elle. They were connecting, now more than ever. The quirky, teenage crush factor was gone. Things were now getting serious between them.

Will was getting jealous of Ray, how easily he had clicked with Halle. The conversations they were having were things that he had only dreamed of having with her.

Ray, saw the jealousy and played this card to his greatest advantage. He defiantly put more of himself out there than what I could only assume he’d done in the past.

Frank was more into Aimee than anyone had suspected. He seemed to bring out the confidence in her. And she brought out his soft spot. Just watching them converse was warming my heart.

Vince seemed to be concerned with stealing every second glance at me, and then liked to pretend he wasn’t looking at me. This, I found, got to be pretty aggravating after the third time I’d caught him.

When Mikey and Jules came into view again it was infuriating to watch. It sickened me to the core how Mikey was falling over Jules based on looks alone. Everyone knew this because she treated him like he was two steps below the gum that stuck to her shoe. But how she continued to play mind tricks on him, that’s what really disgusted me.

Matt. It was easy to see why Frank didn’t favor for Matt. He was obnoxious and had such a bad temper I could barely imagine it. One tiny thing would set him off and his face would turn red and his body would tense.

He gave me a bad feeling… I was unsettling, and I didn’t like it one bit.

“Elle?” Jude said, his voice concerned. “What’s wrong?”

I awoke from my observer state and connected myself to the current situation.

A circle of people was gathered around Jude and Elle. I couldn’t see through each body so I got up from my resting place and stepped into the middle of the drama.

Elle was sitting upright, jaw clench, sweating uncontrollably, and shaking. Her arms were wrapped tightly around herself as if protecting her from something.

She couldn’t see any of us, seeing as her eyes were closed. Every now and then her head would jerk to one side as if she were twitching.

Under her breath she was muttering something. It was inaudible but easy to tell that she was slurring her words together.

Jude placed a hand on her shoulder and she violently jerked away from him. Her eyes shot open and she screamed.

“GO AWAY!” She yelled. Elle fell back on the chair and whimpered again. “Go away…”

“What’s wrong with her?” Jude looked up at all of us.

My observer state re-found itself in me. I looked up at each of the faces that stood in the circle. All were pure shock. Except for two.

Frank and Matt. They were watching calmly, as if they’d seen it many times before. Yet, they did nothing to try and help Elle. They watched, like it was a movie. They waited, as if someone else would do something that they should do.

I looked around the yard. Trying to find anyone with some slight information on what could possibly be wrong with my friend.

For the first time in a while I saw Gerard leaning against the swings again. He caught sight of the circle that was formed.

“What’s going on?” His words snapped me out of my state.

Gerard looked down at Elle and his eyes got wide. Then he turned to Matt and Frank. It was hard to tell which one he was addressing. “What did you do?”

Jude’s head snapped up at Gerard, and then turned towards Frankie and Matt. His eyes were filled with tears. He stood up, his hands shaking with fear.

Gerard and Jude stood next to each other, face to face with Frank and Matt. At this point Frank looked more confused than Matt did, which gave me a very peculiar suspicion about Matt.

“Why’d you do that to her?” Gerard asked, his voice level rising. “Honestly. Why?”

“NO! STOP IT! DON’T TOUCH ME!” Elle shouted. Everyone’s attention snapped back to her momentarily, no one was near her. So no one was even close to touching her.

What was going on?

“What were you thinking? Did you think it’d make you cool? Giving drugs to her?” Gerard was almost screaming now. His face was beat red and fists clenched.

“Drugs? What kind of drugs?” Jude pleaded with Gerard to give him answers.

Gerard turned to Jude and said something so quiet in contrast to his previous screaming no one but Jude could hear it.

“Come on, Matt! Answer the damn question!” He was back to yelling.

“You?” Jude stepped forward to Matt. “You did this?”

Matt shrugged.

“She needed to live a little.”

The sound of all the jaws drop in unison echoed throughout the silent back yard. By now everyone wanted to know the cause of all the shouting. So what used to be a small circle formed into a giant mass of people.

“You sick bastard!”

Without warning Jude jumped on top of Matt. The punches he threw at him were anything but weak. Each one made a different sound. So much different that my stomach began to turn from it.

Blood flooded down from Matt’s mouth and nose. He tried to roll over to hold an advantage over my brother but it didn’t work. Jude was too strong for Matt to handle.

No one tried to stop Jude. They all knew that Matt was getting exactly what he deserved.

It wasn’t until Matt had lost a decent amount of blood that Jude got off of him and wiped his hands clean. Though Matt wasn’t as strong as Jude was he still managed to hit him pretty hard too.

Jude, though, only got one bruise compared to Matt, whose whole face seemed to be covered in them.

Everyone watched in silence as Jude moved through the circle and sat down again by Elle’s side.

Her screaming had ceased, but her physical traits were still in effect.

I turned to Gerard.

Before I could say anything he told everyone to go back to what they were doing, the show was over and there was no reason for them to continue crowding the area.

Then he instructed Frank and Vince to take Matt inside to get cleaned up. Just because he got what he deserved didn’t mean we could let him lie on the floor bleeding.

Finally he turned to me.

“How’d you know?” I asked.

Without a word he immediately turned away. His footsteps making a heavy sound against the stone until he reached the grass. This time I followed. I needed my answers.

“How did Frank know?” I called. “Did you do it before? What else have you done? Do you have drugs on you now, too?” My voice rose with each question. The louder it got the harder it became to stop the tears.

That happened a lot. When I yell, I cry. It doesn’t necessarily mean I’m sad, it just means I’m passionate about the topic, hence the yelling.

“Why won’t you answer me?”

I stopped walking and fell to the ground.

The cool grass felt good as I ran my sweaty fingers through each blade. I could feel the water from my face dropping to collide with the water on the grass.

“Why won’t you answer me?” I repeated only much softer this time.

My defeated self lay in the cool grass in utter silence for what I could only assume to be an eternity.

The sound of crunching grass welcomed itself inside my ears. It caught my by surprise, causing my dreary head to rear back and look into the darkness.

Gerard’s dark outlined figure was slowly making its way toward me.

“Because I’m afraid of what you’ll think of me if I give you honesty.”

“I thought you were always honest,” I sniffled wiping my eyes.

He shrunk down into the grass with me.

“I was.”

“Why would you care what I think about you?”

“Because I like you.”

I said I wanted honesty. I guess I got it.

“I thought that’d be obvious,” He laughed. “Anyway…”

We could hear the others talking in those brief moments of silence. I wasn’t really sure what I was thinking about, my mind was too scattered right now. What with the worry for Elle, and the questions that were still burning holes in my head.

“And I’ve done it before. Many times, actually. No I don’t have any with me. Frank knows because he’s done it before too. I also drink and smoke. Matt got me into it. And it was LSD.”

Gerard’s little spiel caught me off guard. Though his answers were not exactly in the order I asked him, I still understood each and every one of them.

“You have? He has? You do? He did? Wow…”

“Yeah I know…”

“Can I ask you something else?” He nodded. “Why’d you run away before? And where’d you go?”

He laughed. “I was in the front yard the entire time! I was just sitting there.” Gerard’s tone became more serious. His brow tautly pulled compared to the lightness of before. “I left… Because I was mad that I didn’t have a chance anymore.”

“What?”

“I thought that before I’d actually have a chance with you liking me. But I know you’re gonna go with that Vince guy. He’s so much better than I am… So I got mad, mostly at myself. Not at you at all! And I left.”

I moved my hand from the grass and let myself fall backwards to gaze upwards at the stars. Gerard followed my actions.

“I’m not looking for you to say anything on the matter, but I just wanted to make it clear that I like you. That’s all.”

“Alright…”

“So, I’m gonna go check up on Matt. He took… quite the beating.”

“Nothing more than what he deserved!” I pointed out.

He shrugged.

“He’s still my friend. I have to.”

With that he left, leaving me alone with my thoughts. Probably not the best idea. The last time this happened I over thought every little thing and did some bad things.

Instead I went back into my observer state; something I’ve been seeing to using a lot lately.

There wasn’t that much left to observe in the back yard. Everything was exactly as it was before Elle had her little episode. The only major difference was that Elle, Matt, Jude, Frank and Vince were inside the house.

How could their conversation continue normally? Or wasn’t it normal? Were they discussing what had just happened with everyone?

I was too far away to hear anything, and there was no way I was leaving my spot in the grass, it was far too comfy.

Since there was nothing left to observe, I indulged myself in watching the sky.

Now I know why I never usually do this.

Everything was far too large for my mind to fathom. Just the thought of the universe was too much for my brain to grasp. This could be one of the reasons why I don’t like science, but I’m sure there are more.

This indulgence only lasted so long before my patience got tried. I was growing bored. But going back to the party would mean drama. I wanted no drama right now.

I just wanted to be at peace.

But I was finding that peace was boring.

So, in the end I have two choices. (Both of which really don’t appeal to me in any way, shape or form.)

Choice number one: I can stay here. I can try and think of something, anything, useful to me, and be slightly bored and annoyed.

Or choice number two: I could go back to the party and be blasted with buckets upon buckets of drama. Anger, fear, loss, love, misery, and pain.

I sighed quietly to myself in the grass.

What a tough decision.