Take This To Heart

"Hey, Mona!" Alex said with a smile, seeming un-phased by her angry, 'You-better-have-a-good-explanation-for-this.' look. He walked up to her with a bounce in his foot. "Sorry it took so long for us to go get something to eat. When we were leaving Chuck E. Cheese's, I realized that a band I knew, some of my good friends in the music business, were playing down in NYC and I promised we'd go see them. So sorry…" He rubbed the back of his neck, but then he gave a small smile at her again.

Mona looked un-phased as well by his words as well. Hands on her hips, hip cocked to the side like she was carrying a baby on her hip, she glared them down. Alex looked away. "I have been waiting up for two hours on him to get back here. I didn't expect much from you, but I at least thought you could have gotten him home on time." She shot out, nasty dripping from her words, cutting both Alex and Jack deep.

I took up for them. I mean, they hadn't told Mona about me yet. "No, Mona, it was great. Breathe Carolina and Nine Inch Nails was there and so was PANIC!"

Mona sighed. "You know how I don't like you to listen to those bands. PANIC! At The Disco? I thought they split up?" Mona didn't like the bands, but she kept up with the gossip that surrounded them.

"They did." I answered, "Kinda…two of the members left, but the other two still are playing music. But, no, it was great. We got Dippin' Dots and everything."

"They had Dippin' Dots at a concert?" Mona sounded skeptical.

I gave her one of those 'What-century-did-you-come-from?' looks. "It's the 21st century, dude." I replied casually, running up the stairs, taking two at a time to my room.

If I knew Alex and Jack would fallow me, I wouldn't have started crying. I shouldn’t have done it in the first place; I’d been crying quite a bit lately and needed to stop.

I didn't even know they were fallowing me. All I knew was that someone had figured out all my secrets and I was dead. It didn't matter anymore. The coke in my blood had cleaned up enough so I could think just about clearly and I knew that they'd tell. Just because they didn't want me to go to Juvie didn't mean anything. They didn't care about me, that much I was sure about. The sobs hurt my chest so I tried to control myself for the moment.

I stripped out of my clothes and replaced them with my old clothes: an old AC/DC shirt and a pair of ripped jeans. Regretfully, I took on the Converses and replaced them in the box, closed the lid and retrieved my ratty sneakers from the trashcan where Jack had thrown them earlier.

For a moment, I lost control of my sobs and didn't hear the sound of my door opening. I made my way to my small closet and took out my old jacket, putting it on and then taking out all my new clothes and putting them back in their proper bags, folding them up. I wiped the tears off my face and whispered angry words at myself, calling me everything profane I could think of. It only lowered my self esteem, but that didn't matter anymore either.

After that was done, I searched under my bed for last year's book bag. I hadn't cleaned it out since last year, so it was still filled with broken pencils and pens and notebook paper that had been wrinkled up and notes that had been folded up and also wrinkled with the paper because it had lived at the bottom of my book bag for a long time.

I noticed they were there when I dumped my book bag out and began grabbing my older, dirty clothes from the dirty clothes basket and stuffing them into my bag. I stopped, mid packing, when I noticed they were there. I dropped the pair of jeans I had in my hand and instinctively wiped at my eyes with the heel of my hands.

Alex spoke first, in a confused and quiet voice. "What are you doing?"

I sniffled and looked away, trying to finish my packing. "Can you just go away?" I asked, carefully, quietly. I forced my feet to walk towards them, grabbing the Converses on the way, and forced them into his hands. "Just pretend you never met me, 'k?"

Jack squatted down to my height, and put a firm hand on my shoulder. I jerked away, but he held fast. Panic seized me and I quickly wondered where Derek and Madden and BC were. "Dude, what are you doing?"

I jerked away, this time with success. "Leaving." Was all I answered before I fell apart. "You told Mona and now she's gonna chew me out and mention Christine and I- I don't think I can hear her say how my sister would hate me." I slid to the floor, my eyes not focused on anything, rocking back 'n' forth, trying to soothe myself with my back up against the dresser. "I know that already." I finished quietly. Jack and Alex sat down beside me, each looking at me with distressed eyes. Jack tried to wrap me in a hug, trying to stop me for rocking, but I fought him and he just gave up. Alex tried talking me through it.

"Is Christine your sister?"

I nodded, chewing on my thumbnail as he reassured me.

"Your sister wouldn't hate you. I get it. It's your way of dealing. And no one told Mona." He paused and my eyes remained glazed over. "I know you're a good kid, Phoenix. You just got pulled off the path and wandered a little bit. Trust me, A LOT of celebs have been caught with drugs so…yeah."

I looked up, my eyes watery and asked, "Who?" Christine would have knocked me on the head for that one, saying, "Why do you need to know? It's none of your business which Hollywood celebs got high," but what she really meant was something along these lines: "It doesn't matter because I really don't want you to do drugs. At all. Especially if a famous rocker says it's okay. That isn't a good reason at all. And if I EVER, EVER catch you with a blunt, you'll regret the day you were ever born."

"Uh…" Jack rescued Alex and began ticking off names on his fingers.

"Eminem. Aaron Carter. Snoop Dogg. Don Henley. Jerry Garcia. Mick Jagger. Umm…John Lennon…I think…. And Bon Scott. I think Bob Marley did, too."

I just stared at him in amazement.

"What?" He asked. "I know my celebrity junkies." He paused. "Is that bad?"

Before Alex could say "Yeah," in a 'Duh!' voice, Jack had added to the list.

"Oh! And Charlie Sheen?" He asked/said with a questioning look before looking confident and saying, "Yeah, I think he was busted, too."

I just looked at him with this goofy smirk on my face, my tears forgotten. "You're so weird, dude."

Jack didn't comment on that, but Alex looked worried. "You see? That was, what? Like fifty people Jack just said? A lotta people deal with drugs. You're not the only one. …But we gotta get you into Rehab or something…." He trailed off. The next thing, I didn't see coming.

"Is Derek's house always like that? With his dad like that?" Jack asked it.

I was silent. I'd swore a few years back when Derek first invited me over that I wouldn't, couldn't tell anyone about that. But what the heck? They'd already figured it out. I had to give them that much credit. "Yeah." I answered quickly. "It's worse, now, that their mom's gone because they get all the beatings and everything. They do their best to make sure BC's okay, but most of the time, he gets the worst of it because he's so small and gets in the way of everything. So…yeah."

Jack looked at Alex. "What'd we gonna do?"

Alex shrugged. "We gotta get ‘em out of there."

"How?"

"I dunno. Social services? If not…then…"

I broke into their conversation. "He's not going to some place like this." I said quickly.

Both of them looked at me then at each other as if they were having a silent conversation. It was a conversation I didn't even get.

Alex and Jack whispered quietly, one of them looking annoyed and the other looking desperate until they changed looks. "They need a home, too." Jack would say and then Alex would say 'No.' and Jack would then agree with Alex and then Alex would disagree from what he'd said. It got really annoying, so I told them to shut up.

They both finally agreed a "Yeah," upon whatever they were arguing about, but then Alex muttered something about it taking a long time to go through along with me and then something else about relatives.

It was then that I realized what they were talking about: adopting all of us. Derek, Madden, BC, and me. I smiled at the thought of it. "You're gonna adopt all four of us?" I asked.

"It's not a promise." Alex said quickly. "Just a thought." Alex turned back to Jack. "Besides…we don’t even know if the kids have any relatives or…" I cut him off.

"They do." Alex tried to let the matter drop by saying, "Well, that’s the end of that," but I cut him off again. "They do." I shot a sideways glance at Alex, "But the witch is a total druggie and they'll…" Alex cut me off.

"Huh? Kinda like you?" I could hear the anger and sarcasm in his voice and I sneered at him.

"I can't cope." I replied dangerously at him. "I think we've already established that."

Alex looked at me as if telling me too continue. I did. "They'll never allow her to go with that bit-"

Alex cut me off. "Language." He warned. I rolled my eyes.

"Like you've never cussed…." I muttered out.

"What was that?" Alex asked. It was clear that he was serious about this whole 'adopting dad' thing.

I decided to drop it. "Nothing." I answered. I sat silent for a moment before revealing my knowledge of them.

"Last night…before any of this happened, after you left, I did some research on you…" Jack looked amused and both excited. Alex looked a tad bit confused. I continued. "I listened to your song "Therapy" on YouTube and I…guess listening to it made me feel a little bit more guarded about you just walking in on whatever it is I'm doing. It made me kinda panic when you were talking about therapy being miserable." I looked up at them and smirked, looking away. "I bet you think I'm a psychopath for cutting and getting high when I'm so young and I figured if you were going to send me to therapy, then I'd want you to know everything…. I don't want the shrink to find out something and then tell you and then you get angry because you didn't know…so here." I, with regret in my heart, feeling a bit uneasy about what I was doing, handed them a folder.

Alex took it confused. "It's not everything. Not anywhere close, but its all I can give you now. I don’t even feel comfortable giving this to you…so be happy with what you got…." Alex carefully looked up at me, flipping through the pages. A small, uneasy look creeping over his face. It was small, but I noticed it. "I can't share everything now. Maybe someday, but not all now." I stumbled out quickly.

I had no thoughts to tell them everything. So far I was just giving them to basics, but still, it was enough for now. Enough to make anyone sick on their stomach with the knowledge of what I was doing to myself. Some would feel pity, though, and I'd rather have the ill ones than the pity-party ones. I hated pity and I found myself wishing they weren't like this.

"Mind if we read it here?" Alex asked.

I flinched. "No, not here. At your hotel room. Just not here, 'K?" I looked away. I didn't want to see their faces.

"Alright…" Alex knew something was up. Uneasy, afraid what he might read, he lifted a hand to me in parting. I just nodded back at him, refusing to make eye contact. Jack muttered out a, "Bye." I said nothing.

When they left, I shut the door and leaned up against it, closing my eyes and sliding down it, feeling totally alone and hopeless. I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to keep the tears at bay, but to no appeal.