Don't Stop If I Fall

Frank started to run over to her, but I stopped him.

“Let me talk to her,” I pulled on his shoulder.

“But…”

“Believe me. Right now, you talking to her isn’t going to do any good.” I commented, and motioned him to sit on the couch where Gerard and Mikey had already made themselves comfortable.

I carefully made my way around the bookshelves to Jordan. There she sat sniffling in the corner.

“Jordan, do you wanna talk?” I asked, crouching down to her.

“No…” She whimpered.

“Ah, I believe you do. See, if you don’t tell me what’s wrong, you will be cursed to wear those horrible blue hospital outfits we talked about when we first met.” I smirked.

She stared down at her black and white striped hoodie, and a smile appeared on her face.

“Well…before I met you…” She began. “I lived with my mom and her boyfriend, Jack. He just moved in about a week ago and I didn’t like him at all. I would never talk to him, never acknowledge him, or never show any way that I even wanted to be seen with him. My mom caught on to this and became concerned. She thought of some ideas for us to ‘bond’ more, and decided we needed to spend more time to get to know each other. I was in my bedroom one night, when he was supposedly watching me, and I guess he was drinking. The next thing I remembered was him barging into my room and locked the door-”

She cut off. I saw a few tears fall from her eyes. I began to realize what happened.

“Jordan, I’m so sorry.” I pulled her in for a hug. She choked out a few tears.

“That’s why we moved,” she cried, “My mom found out.”

Jordan and I sat there in dead silence after that, for about a minute. Then we heard a knock coming from our left. We turned to see Frank casually standing there, pretending to use the bookshelf as a door to knock on.

“Can I … uh…” he stuttered. I looked at Jordan. She nodded her head, and I stood up. Sweetly, I put my hand on Frank’s shoulder, for mental support, and walked out to the center of the library where Mikey, Gerard, and James were sitting on the two couches.

“How is she?” Gerard asked as he sat up a little. I collapsed my body next to the two boys on the reupholstered couch.

“Shes fine…” I admitted, “Frank should make it better.” I shut my eyes, visions of my burning dream went through my head as I shivered.

“But he’s the whole problem!” Mikey exclaimed. I covered his mouth, making sure Jordan and Frank didn’t hear.

“It…complicated.” I explained. I watched as James stared out the large window behind us.

The sky was dark and mystical, as if it were ready to explode into darkness that very moment. Rustling trees blew across the hills of shaded greens and clouds busted across the shady air.

Frank and Jordan came back over to us and sat down in the couch across from ours. We all looked at each other with eager eyes, searching for a clue of what to do next.

“Well?” James exclaimed. His sudden burst made me jump a little.

“We gotta get out of this school.” Mikey demanded.

“But how? The alarms will go off if we somehow make it out of the library. We can’t open the main doors. Even if we’re from the inside.” Gerard explained. The group sighed.

“Well, I don’t care about getting out. I just really need to pee.” Frank commented. He squirmed a little.

“I guess we better think of something, then. And fast.” I said laughing at Frank’s little dance.

For about five minutes the group searched around for a way out of the deserted library, until my eyes fell upon an air vent.

“We could use that!” I explained, pointing above the bookshelves. “We could climb through there like in the movies.”

“It might…just work!” Mikey shouted. Then, quicker than a bunch of mice going after cheese, we sprang for what we were searching for.