The Broken Girl and The Golden Boy

Caring Hurts

Chapter 30: Justin

I don't typically do this, but there's quite a bit of cursing - courtesy of one very foul-mouthed new character - so just a warning that if you don't like cursing, you might not be a fan. Darcy is such a dreadful potty-mouth. XD

Everyone was silent at lunch today, too upset to say a word.The James' still refused to tell us where Chris was, how he was doing, ANYTHING! They stayed silent about the whole situation. It was driving me up a fucking wall! Everything was infuriatingly quiet. It was like even the breeze refused to make a sound. I wish it would. I wish a huge wind would come and break something, shatter it into a million pieces. Anything that would match the anger I was feeling inside. I wanted to punch something. It was so hard to keep myself under control when all I wanted to do was scream at the skies.

I tried to distract myself by looking at the others at the table, but that only made things worse. Sean had left two minutes in to go to god-knows-where. Ian was staring blankly at the table while Lindsey cried silently beside him. Andy's face was screwed up in a grimace and his knuckles had turned white from clenching his fists for so long. Liv hadn't even lifted her head up since she got out to our lunch table. Elena had this forced, tremulous smile on her face and I honestly don't know why she even bothered because no one was buying it. Well, maybe not "no one". If I was going by the way Steven was glaring at her like she had committed some awful crime, I'd say he believed the fake smile. But by far the worst for me was looking at the girl sitting right next to me.

Piper's shoulders were hunched and she had let her hair fall like a curtain around her face, guarding her expression. Her knees were tucked into her chest and she had one arm wrapped around them, holding them there. Her free hand was gripping the chair beside her tightly. The way she clung to it was like it was a lifeline - as though she believed that if she held onto it for long enough, the boy who sat in it would return and everything would be like it was before. It was a depressing sight to see. She looked so weak and broken, which was probably why I almost fell out of my chair in surprise when she suddenly leaped out of her seat and slammed her fists on the table.

"Piper?" Liv mumbled, lifting her head to look at her with a curious expression.

"This is ridiculous," Piper snapped, "We're Chris's friends, right? He would want us to be there for him."

"Yeah, but, Piper," Lindsey sniffled, "We don't even know where he is."

"So?" Piper said with fire in her eyes, "We're smart kids, we can figure something out."

Elena asked with a tinge of worry, "Like what?"

"Well, I'm sure somebody at the hospital knows where they took him," Piper responded confidently.

"Yeah, but why would they tell us?" Andy muttered, "We're just a bunch of kids, if we walk in there asking where he went they'll laugh in our faces. We can tell them how close we are to him until we've gone blue in the face and they still won't tell us anything. We're not family or the FBI, so according to policy, we've got no right to know."

"Fuck this," Steven growled in irritation as he got to his feet, "I can't handle this right now. Let me know if you guys come up with a solid plan. Until then... I'm out." With that said, Steven stormed off towards the building.

Elena glanced after him and started bouncing up-and-down with pent-up nervous energy. She glanced hopefully at Piper, "Um..."

"Yeah, you can go after him," Piper sighed, "I'll fill you in later."

"Thanks," Elena answered with a relieved smile before rushing off after Steven's retreating form.

Piper turned back to Andy after Elena ran off and said, "You seem to forget that we've gotten around the rules before, Andy."